Web designing is a mixture of programming and art that’s used as a way to represent our ideas in front of others. To help you out, in this tutorial, I’ll tell you about the best online web design courses that will help you to start learning new skills. With these free and paid courses, you’ll learn how to create websites from the scratch and share your ideas with others in no time. Go ahead, give it a try and share your learning experiences with us.
It has been more than 5 years when I designed my first website. I remember my struggle and spending a good amount of time to learn basic programming languages and applying it in random projects. Over the years, I’ve seen the horizon of web designing expanding and developing to become a massive industry. Putting in another way, web designing has become a hot topic in recent times.
While people are getting acquainted with new technologies and learning web design in a faster manner, others are using online tools to create a simple website without coding knowledge. While I come across many web design software in the market that allow you to simply drag-and-drop and rearrange the elements to make a website, the old-fashioned web design process still rules the web.
If you are new to the world of coding, I can understand your frustration as it is very difficult to create and maintain a website without coding knowledge. In this article, I’ll tell you the most popular web design online courses to help you kickstart your career as a good web designer.
Before getting started with how to learn web designing and landing a sweet job, let me ask you a basic question — What is web design?
If I’ll ask you to fire up your web browser and search random phrases, you’ll get answers like web design is a process that involves proper conceptualization, planning and creating a website with the help of different layouts, colors, graphics and whatnot. If you’ll ask me, I’ll call it a process of aesthetically representing your ideas in front of end-users through the internet. Your approach could be different, you could use multiple languages and software, but one thing remains constant — it’s a way to represent your ideas in front of others.
Web design has multiple elements that include layout, colors, graphics, content, font, text styles, structure, etcetera, etcetera. When you learn how to plan and combine these elements, you are able to master the aspects of web designing. The modern websites make use of server-side scripting in PHP, Ski and ASP, while website’s visual aspect makes use of CSS and HTML. Using javascript and ajax, one enhances the user experience. A web designer also needs to grasp the basics of Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator to create page mockups for desktop and mobile platforms.
To learn how to design a website, if you are looking for some web designing tutorials, I’ll advise you to choose wisely and start learning.
Having said that, let’s start our list of the best online web design courses. With these tutorials, we bring to you the best tutorials from the web to help you learn new skills and change the course of your career. I’ve personally used some of these resources from time-to-time and gained valuable knowledge.
11 Authoritative Websites for Web Design Training:
Learn by doing at Code School
As told by its motto, Code School promotes coding by doing. If you are a beginner who wishes to get started with a web design course and develop the passion for the subject, then, Code School is a perfect place for you. With the help of interactive videos and coding in your browser, you are taught how to design a website. Code School will allow you to ditch content management systems like WordPress and Joomla, enabling you to code your own website.
The website has one of the first online courses I’ve tried and I found them of high quality. You’ll find every website making course extremely well done and the presenters do a great job. The website specializes in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Ruby. In the HTML/CSS Path, you are taught the fundamentals of design, front-end, and making user experience better. This is one of the best-paid web designing courses that offer great value for money. Just pay $25 and you’ll get the complete access to Code School’s tutorial videos. Apart from a plan for individual learners, there is an option for businesses to enroll their entire teams.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Intermediate and advanced level
- Paid ($29/month) and free account option
- HTML, CSS, Ruby, JavaScript, iOS
Make your career at Treehouse
Founded in 2011, Treehouse aims to provide affordable technology education to people. This video-based tutorial website offers web design training from scratch in a number of programming languages. This is a paid resource that offers very professional videos that cover all aspects of web design and development. The website also includes a game element that rewards you with achievement badges that encourage you to learn more.
Over the course of website building, you’ll learn how to design and create attractive websites with the help of basics like typography, color theory, branding etc. Treehouse also makes you acquainted with common languages like HTML and CSS, which are used to code all modes websites. If you’ve never build a website before and you want to become a web designer, this is a great place to start with its 503-minute HTML course.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- $25-46/month with 7 days free trial
- HTML, CSS, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, PHP, jQuery
Learn to Code at Code Academy
Code Academy is one of the best places for learning web designing for free and getting started with the subject. The website describes itself as the ‘easiest way to learn how to code’ and it offers helpful lessons to the beginners. At Code Academy, you can learn with its inbuilt console and simple web designing tutorials in HTML, JavaScript, PHP, and Python. The lessons usually follow a predefined path that guides you through different topics. This resource is completely free after you sign up with an account.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Free web designing resource
- HTML, CSS, Ruby, JavaScript, Python, PHP, jQuery
Web designing with Udemy
Udemy has been a great help to the programmers when it comes to learning new skill sets and they find tutorials in any subject they want. If we specifically talk about studying web design online, the website offers multiple top-quality free and premium courses. People are free to start teaching their own courses on Udemy, so the quality and price varies.
Before starting or buying any web design course on Udemy, read its reviews on the website and other places. There are many popular courses on Udemy that cover topics like HTML, CSS, JavaScript, as well as PHP, JSON, jQuery and AJAX.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner and advanced level
- Free and paid web designing resources
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, JSON, jQuery, AJAX
W3Schools
W3Schools is one of the first resources that people refer for free web development courses and learning the very basics of CSS and HTML. But keep in mind that you’ll have to refer to other resources as well for more advanced learning material.
Don’t Fear The Internet and learn web design
This online website making course is aimed at the people who want to excel at design but they specifically don’t want to get their hands dirty with intensive coding. Yes, I’m talking about photographers, print designers etc. If you in the artistic industry and want to showcase your work via a beautiful website, Don’t Fear The Internet is the right place for you.
At this website, you get a series of seven videos that showcase the process of crafting a good-looking website and make improvements.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Free web designing resource
- HTML, CSS
MSDN: HTML5 And CSS3 Fundamentals
Microsoft’s Channel known to host useful training material for beginners as well as experienced programmers. This virtual academy also provides free online courses for the absolute beginners who are willing to embark on their journey as a web designer and programmer.
Over the course of 21 episodes, you are taught the fundamentals of HTML5 and CSS3 programming that includes concepts about web pages, CSS3 styles, and HTML features. Each concept is introduced in its own video and you are made acquainted with writing your first web page.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Free web designing resource
- HTML, CSS
Build websites with Code Avengers
Code Avengers is a website primarily for the beginners. The website hosts content on HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, and Design. With more than 100 lessons, you can start creating a web page with HTML and CSS, or use it to teach others. The website is well organized with different sections for each language.
In its HTML/CSS course, you’ll be taught the essentials and play with cool effects and customize the headers, footers, images and font styles to make customized web pages. The course also teaches you to make an interactive and responsive website using advanced CSS selectors and special layout techniques. Oh, and also, you’ll be introduced to PHP to make dynamic websites like Facebook.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Free web designing resource
- HTML, CSS, JavaScript
Learn web designing at Lynda.com
Lynda is one of the most versatile websites on the list that provides tutorials on a wide variety of subjects. The subscription-based website offers a wide range of video tutorials that will teach you how to design websites. Its basic HTML essential training video covers the basics of HTML programming that includes the fundamentals, text, images, multimedia, HTML5, metadata, CSS integration and more.
You’ll get also unlimited free tutorials to check out this trusted source of training by enrolling in the 10-day trial program. Lynda has been around since people used AOL and Windows 3.1. It has evolved to become one of the most trusted online learning websites and you shouldn’t fear going ahead with its web designing courses.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Paid web designing resource with free trial
- HTML, CSS
Mozilla School of Webcraft
This community is built on the Peer 2 Peer University platform. The website offers lots of free web designing training courses in HTML, CSS, and PHP. Over the course of your training, you are asked to complete user-generated tests with varying toughness. One of the great things about this website making course is its active community that allows a newbie to connect with advanced students.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Free web designing resource
- HTML, CSS, PHP
Alison: Free Diploma In Web Design
If you want to build a website but lacked the skills needed to create web pages, Alison’s free online Diploma in Web Design is an organized tutorial series spread over nine parts, covering HTML, CSS, Adobe Dreamweaver and the general elements of making a web page.
Aimed at both novice and intermediate level programmer, this easy-to-learn course follows a step-by-step approach to enhance your understanding as a web designer. As the name suggests, on completion of the free course, you’ll get a diploma level qualification certificate.
Type of course and languages covered:
- Beginner level
- Free web designing resource
- HTML, CSS
Other sources for learning web designing:
Recommended books for learning web designing:
Very often people prefer printed text over online courses as it’s convenient for them. While notebooks and tablets have made our lives convenient, here are some highest rated and loved books on web designing and developments:
- HTML and CSS: Design and Build Websites by John Duckett
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Learning Web Design: A Beginner’s Guide to HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and Web Graphics
by Jennifer Niederst Robbins - Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: A Common Sense Approach to Web Usability by Steve Krug
“If there’s one thing you learn by working on a lot of different Web sites, it’s that almost any design idea–no matter how appallingly bad–can be made usable in the right circumstances, with enough effort,” writes Steve Krug in Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited. Think about this quote, work hard, and create something beautiful. Good luck ?
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