Learning One Step at a Time
I wrote an article called “Do You Eat and Run?” last year and wanted to add on to this article to express my concern for some designers/developers out there. Looking back at some of my emails and comments, I’ve noticed a trend in some who want to achieve certain techniques without properly learning prerequisite foundation and knowledge. To succeed in this industry, you must be a master of your craft, and learning proper foundation one step at a time is crucial.
Don’t Jump in Blindly
Did you start running before you learned to crawl and walk? Most likely not. I sometimes feel the abundance of available templates, plugins, and pre-made CMS themes, have pampered some designers/developers to feel there is no need to create anything for themselves anymore. I still don’t understand how one can call themselves a web designer when they are using someone else’s theme/template as their own website. On a plugin note, James Padolesy recently wrote “jQuery Plugins are Broken!” which is a great example of what I am trying to get across here.
I often receive emails like “Where is your download link?”, “I don’t know any HTML or CSS and can you help me get your tutorial to work?” , or even “Can you make me a plugin so I don’t have to write this code?”. As much as I would like to help, I sometimes feel some people just don’t care to learn, but only want to take and move on. I understand we are all running on tight deadlines but when you take time to learn and gradually progress, it will make you a better designer/developer in the long run.
Learning Takes Time & Patience
Take some time out of the day to really think about where you stand with your skills, then imagine what you would like to achieve in the near future. What will it take to get there? Learn to slow down and craft your skills one step at a time. Having proper foundation helps you conceptualize and break down new techniques you are not familiar with. Be sure to take the time to learn prerequisite techniques and don’t be in a rush to blow right through it. As designers/developers we should be passionate about what we do, learning is part of the fun so enjoy it.
This is not to discourage anyone from using plugins/themes/etc but I would like to just encourage those to take that extra step in their learning process. If you find yourself in this position its not too late to turn things around, start today and make a difference in your career!
Related Articles
Tutorial Blogs
Below are some of the sites I subscribe to that offer a lot of great tips and tricks on a daily/weekly basis.
- CSS Tricks
- David Walsh
- James Padolsey
- Web Designer Wall
- Janko at Warp Speed
- Jonathan Snook
- Smashing Magazine
- Spoon Graphics
- Illustration Class
- Carsonified Blog
- Diggin into WordPress
- jQuery for Designers
- jQuery How to
- Learning jQuery
- Yoast
- Abduzeedo
- Veerle’s Blog
- Line 25
- DesignM.ag
- Gaya Design
Other Helpful Resources
- HTML Dog
- W3Schools
- Code Snippets by CSS Tricks
- jQuery Basics
- Stack Overflow
- HTML5 Doctor
- jQuery for Designers by Web Designer Wall
- HTML Best Practices for Beginners
- Mastering CSS Coding: Getting Started
Popular Posts
Author Bio
My name is Soh Tanaka and I am a Los Angeles based designer/front-end developer specializing in CSS driven web design with an emphasis on usability and search engine optimization. I also run a CSS Gallery which is updated daily with the best CSS websites from around the world. Come check it out!
You can learn more about me or 
Follow me on twitter for more updates and resources!
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+ Add Comment28 Peeps Have Spoken Their Minds...
I think if you want to be achieving great things in web design and development, then you need to be constantly learning new things and challenging yourself. To just expect others to do everything for you is lazy. I built designed and built my blog myself, and learn so much in the process. I would have learnt less than half as much had I just bought a theme and put my own logo on it.
Good Post!
I totally agree. Good houses are built on good foundations, you lay bad foundations and the house falls down! Although sometimes its hard not to get carried away, I’m currently learning javascript & jQuery & I have been guilty of using jQuery plugins before I really know whats going on ‘under the hood’. I am learning though and I’ll probably end up revisiting some sites to sort stuff out form when I didn’t know any better!
Excellent post Soh. This is definitely something that really irks me. I’m all for free plugins / downloads, but I do believe that because we have so much access to all of them, that designers or “so-called” designers become lazy. I really like how you offer tutorials on your site but don’t include a “download” button. This helps us to grasp the technique and how it is built rather than just downloading it and blindly using it without even learning how it works. Great thought! I really like to read about your insight on these things.
Anyone wanting to work with software or graphic design will have to continually learn well into the future. Not wanting to learn is akin to suicide, at least if you want a very good job in the field. If that isn’t the goal, then perhaps it won’t matter as much.
I really don’t even care for templates or plug-ins (although I don’t make wp plug-ins =P). If I’m going to develop, I write my own code and struggle because I want to learn for me. Like wise for anything I do visually, learning and practicing hands on is definitely the best way to learn a skill.
People only seem to realize this when people who actually know what they’re doing start turning them down when they want help.
id class myself as a beginner, however i am very eager to learn which is why im reading numerous blogs like yours. i try to write out code for myself even if i am reading from a blog cos youre not going to learn anything just using copy and paste.
I’d agree that part of the fun is in learning, but also what i enjoy is figuring stuff out for myself, theres nothing greater when you get the item displaying just how you want it after lots of painstaking trial and error.
ive still got alot to learn even after building my own blog and now building a cms catalogue with wordpress for a company but im enjoying every minute so far
good job my friend i like your Blog
I totally agree, but this seems to be more than a trend into a full size culture. Learning and effort, exploring and understanding seems to be going away not only from web design, but for many other disciplines as well. I enjoy your blog because there is just enough to “get things going” instead of a already worked on easy way out. Thanks!
Excellent collection of links! There are a few I didn’t know about, I’ll add them to my reader right away!
I’ve taken the approach to try and learn at least one new skill, feature, style or process per week in 2010. So far I’ve discovered so much, it’s fantastic!
I have fallen guilty of take and run, and in many cases have seen that the “download” didn’t work the way I really wanted and then began to look under the hood to see if I could figure out what needs to be tweaked to get the functionality I wanted. For many years I took this approach, but alas, about a year or so ago I started with chapter 1 on basic programming lessons and made an attempt to understand the language from the ground up.
And while I was completing my training I got the opportunity to design but mostly program a website, which I did from scratch, and I have to say what a proud moment that was.
I still try and save time by using plugins or downloaded snippets, but I do start out each task as “can I do it from scratch my self first”
No matter if I take or build myself knowing the foundation behind the technology has helped me design with that technology.
Hope others are inspired to do the same
–
Thanks and Regards
Noel for Nopun.com
professional graphics design
I totally agree, thanks for the reminder Soh! These last two years have felt like knowledge overload for me, but I’m beginning to finally see the benefit of all that investment.
I’ve followed your work for some time, and I’m consistently impressed. Thanks for setting such a high standard for others to follow.
Thank you Soh for a very timely bit of encouragement and knowledge I can use on my own path to web design enlightenment!
This is true now as it always has been. Twelve years ago when I started building websites this was the way it was, back in the bad old days of copying Javascript or DHTML. I think this is all part of learning and if you are serious about being a web designer or developer then there is no option but to create for yourself, it’s the only way to learn.
For some this is the crawling stage, copying the bits they don’t know and getting on with the areas they enjoy but it does have to be stressed that if you want to be good at what you do and take pride in your work then there is no other option but to develop your skills. Only use copy and paste code as a crutch for as long as is absolutely necessary. Soak up all you can.
The web industry can be quite daunting at times, there is so much to learn and it can be hard to know where to specalise. Spend some time asking yourself “why does this work” and you will be much better off for it.
“Learning Takes Time & Patience” – I can only agree with you Soh :)
Where’s the “I like” button? Can you write a plugin for that? ;) Awesome post Soh, a great lesson of craftsmanship.
Ty for that post!
BUT see it that way: There wouldnt be any webdeveloper out, if there were no php, perl, ruby, js, css, html, .. at all.
So, my point is. Time changes and new technologies are invented every single hour. You dont have to reinvent the wheel new every time. In fact you can learn TONS by just trying to understand the code of others.
BUT i sure agree! Taking premade stuff, change config and put it on the net is anything but webdesigning.
Take a look at Raymond’s “How to become a Hacker” (http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/hacker-howto.html)
look to the master,
follow the master,
walk with the master,
see through the master,
become the master.
cheers
Thanks for make me remember it(I mean time and pattience). There are a couple places I want to share with you; they are so instructives and complete like others in yout list: http://buildinternet.com/ and http://net.tutsplus.com/. Thanks again for posts like this !
First things first, I really liked your blog design template! and yes, this is a great post, very well put and I totally agree that people start to run before they even have learned to walk properly. One step at a time is good and always prepare a solid base before jumping into building over it. Thanks again, keep up the good work!
You are a great man !
… andecdote : once I had a dream of you… (quite strange isn’t is !?) where you were beeing hired by a great brand (such as apple/adobe?) because you had given so much freely in your tutorial sharing !
hihihi ! so thank you so much !
and this is so right : patience as a bigniner (or not !), step by step ! and … how do you translate in english this famus teaching from Lao Tseu ? “Un voyage de mille lieues commence toujours par un premier pas. ” .
I’ll keep on reeciving your posts -feeds,:) have a great day.
Personally, I don’t like using other people’s work at all, there is nothing as good as the satisfaction of putting a project together yourself :-)
Yeah. Totally true. I am not a web designer. Not even a programmer. As an electronic engineer, some of my web designer friends was amazed that i manage to make my own simple website that use jquery, ajax, css3 etc. which they said that they don’t even know about. Although my site is very simple, some of the codes, structure, applications and the use of those applications i manage to learn slowly. Totally different from what i graduated at and meant to be..
Great blog, really interesting read, thank you for sharing, i totally agree with what you said and im taking note!
Thanks!
I designed the theme for http://codenamemama.com (my wife’s site) starting from the Starkers theme and watching screencasts (some more than once!) from CSS-Tricks.
From months of working on the theme and learning more tidbits/techniques about WordPress/CSS/PHP/HTML etc. that I’m subscribed to the RSS feed for at least 1/2 those sites.
I have MUCH learning to do, but unless you “go to school” for this sort of thing, it’s really a matter of reading as much as you can, looking at tutorials from all over, and (a minimum) building a sandbox environment and start playing around with snippets you come across.
I have felt some angst lately b/c I want desperately to get BETTER at these sorts of skills, but there isn’t a “Start Here” guide that will teach you everything you need to know in a list – it just takes time and practice!
I just wish I’d started getting interested in designing for the web 10 years ago! :)
Learned all CSS from W3Schools, but only loved when I started practicing
You rock dude! definitively true, and besides market trends and opportunists at least what you describe it’s an honest path to conquer my own goals.. appliable in life! there’s so much to learn, “ars longa, vita brevis”
Muito instrutivo
Abraços
I like very much this site each and every articles keep it up good work….
kindly provide some more topics for web related like Jquery and front end freelancing projects about it
I know exactly where you’re coming from! I started out when I was 10 years old just by “obtaining” Photoshop and learning tutorials from http://psworkshop.net/psworkshop/ (yeesh I haven’t been there in a looooooooooong time, it definitely hasn’t aged well). Eventually I moved on to http://www.pixel2life.com and carried on in that manner for about 6 years. The problem was I learned how to do a lot of effects and put them together but I had no sense for design so all my work was broken in one fundamental way.
It wasn’t until spring last year I learned the difference between a kid good at photoshop and an actual designer and now I’m on that path. I took some basic courses at my community college which made me confident that I did know the software and it’s uses properly. However, what really has been helping me lately is basic art. I recommend that for any designer who hasn’t done so already, study art, the history of it, the principles & elements of design, art appreciation by any means possible.
After completing Art Appreciation my first year, and just finishing Art History 1 & 2 about a month ago I was surprised to find I improved. I learned how to make designs & websites with an emotional appeal instead of just a arbitrary aesthetic one. I think that’s what separates a good design from a bad one. A good design will connect emotionally and interactively with it’s visitors while the bad one will just resemble other sites and places of prior times. If the site is only built for it’s instantaneous “wow” factor done through it’s aesthetic details will eventually wear off and your visitors will no longer feel inspired.
I understand how you feel about the programming as well, I never really got into wordpress or anything until this year. I’ve always tried to make my own things and keep moving them forward. Like the framework I developed to make the future writing of sites and features as easy as possible by addressing my common needs such as a template engine to separate my code from the design, a database handler, and several expansion systems so I can just copy a folder and have it connect to the framework, and make it interchangeable much like wordpress is. While currently it’s not quite as good as WordPress making projects like that has definitely helped me learn the fundamentals of object-oriented-programming and has made wordpress even more natural and easier to work with.
Designers/developers should learn the basics & fundamentals first so they can make better use of the more advanced systems like jQuery. Which I don’t use to cut down the work I need to do on a site, but to make it easier to write the more advanced features to make for even more compelling experiences.
Great article!
The best thing I ever did for myself was to use only Textmate and Firebug to develop websites for a year. After that it becomes easier to pull things apart and figure out how they work.
Also, forcing yourself to use more than one CMS or Javascript library is a good way to learn. Scriptaculous has this whole morph thing that is really cool. Like Dojo instead of JQuery for a project, then Drupal or Joomla for another.
MAMP is also a really great tool.
Anyway. Learning usually sticks when you have your back against the wall on a project and you are force to work through the code until you can everything look and function properly.
I started with GoLive. Everyone has to start somewhere.
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