Well, first of all, you won't ever get good unless you practice. So, definitely do that, practice all you can. In fact, its good to not just do websites or graphic design, but all forms of artistic expression. The more you can begin to think like an artist, the more you will be able to create good art and good design.
Next find someone who is knowledgeable who can give you an honest critique of your work. This can be a very positive experience if you are willing to listen and find someone who can talk honestly and openly about your work and is good enough themselves to know what to say. Taking classes is one of the best ways I've found to do this.
Good luck in your endeavors. Remember that good graphic design is not easy, it just looks easy. Be prepared to put a lot of work into it working towards your goals and you can do it.
The good website you can refer to is webdesignfromscratch.com. which is really good. It has all the explanation for good websites . They explain how to make the website really simple and good with all the components of the good website. You should focus on the usability.
Ok so i was thinking the same thing when i started .... I was like wow how do i get to the top level of designing.. I didnt even know where to start. So what i was doing was googling everything about design, css, html, graphics. I was reading all that i could and looking at all different types of websites. to this day i still feel like im not as good as i want to be. I still find site and sit and wonder what was going throught the designers head when they started working on the site.
The best thing i can say is ... find some good sites that you like and try to make the same thing... i mean just copy the site and do it for all the sites you like... try and make it just like theres... after awhile you will start to get creative and make changes to the site and start making it your own.
I still find web images and do my best to make the same image... after time i start making my own images and sites... I guess what im saying is that you get your creative part of the brain going..
Arty, I'm now trying to do the same: understand how this process works, what is necessary for it and what should I do. It seems that one has to follow the next steps:
1. Have Photoshop or alternative graphic program to create impressive layout that you would really like yourself, be usable for some target audience, not just complicated curves or outdated banners.
2. Know css and html (or php, or else) good enough to be able to translate drawing into markup language so browser will show the same picture as Photoshop did.
3. Intermediate step seems involves having a library of solutions, free or paid. For example:
- how to make a expanding accordion menu, or red links html-like menu aligned to the right, or box with rounded edges, or box changing its appearance (pressed effect) on click and hover, breadcrumbs menu, tabs on the top of the content but below the header, or links in the header on the top of all page.
- same with the using background, making page looks good but still be lightweight and not to take 360KB to load. Example of options: using background hex color only, using tiled background, tiled background and sliding transparent page with visible text over it, if this is not a marble pattern but a few planets (people, items) - how to make them without making horribly large full page picture, positioning splashes here and there as pictures tied to the h2 headers, add what you have seen.
- same with tasteful typography and all other elements, and so on.
4. Have own photos to use in your templates without infringing copyright, or use a free or paid stock exchange sites to find what you will need (I wasn't able to find anything usable - for a hobby website), have a program and be able to do own drawings fast enough to finish all of this in a reasonable time - and artistic taste to do it. The last will fail if you had not enough sleep, distracted too much by something (barking dog, or singing neighbor, or children, or cat requiring attention), under pressure, exhausted (burnt out), anxious because you must to do it and finish it.
Pretty picture, eh? You have my sympathy, I'm going through the same.
I used to feel the same way you did in my first years of design. I would see amazing designs from people and wonder if I will ever even be able to be that good.
What you need to do, is use these amazing pieces you see as inspiration. Take another look at those pieces. Study the lighting, focal point, and everything about it. Try to figure out in your head how they would even begin to do it.
From personal experience, following along in tutorials is a good idea. Tutorials can help teach you very useful techniques. When following a tutorial, just remember that the tutorial is to teach you the technique, not specifically how to recreate that exact design.
Of course following the tutorial 100% step by step is not required. Don't use their exact settings that they give you, play around with certain settings and options yourself while following a tutorial to get more of a unique design.
Just reading through tutorials can be extremely useful. I got to a point to where I didn't like to follow tutorials, because I felt I was just copying what someone else had already done. That is in no way wrong, as it is only for learning purposes, but that was just me. Just read through and you'll learn a lot.
It's funny how when I look back at the designs that used to be extremely inspiring to me, they don't look very nice or professional anymore. You'll be the same way as you get better. Even with your own pieces. You'll create something that looks amazing to you, and 6 months or even a year later when you take another look, you'll wonder why you thought it was so amazing. It still happens to me even with over five years of experience. Not as often as before, but does every now and then.
Good luck.
