Web Courses: Online and Classroom

Pixel Eater

I'm interested in doing a web design course. I have some quite limited experience with Dreamweaver, HTML and CSS but I am a print designer who wants to make the transition into web design. Therefore the course should not be too advanced. I also want to concentrate on design and layout rather than programming. Has anyone done any of these courses below?

http://www.dbs.ie/diploma-web-design/tabid/449/
http://www.ibat.ie/
http://www.ecollege.ie/site/pages/ca...WebDesign.html

Also as some are through the internet and not in a classroom would it be just as good (and much cheaper!) to subscribe to some online tutorial site like this?http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=502

I know this is probably a common query but any advise would be greatly appreciated.

anbrutog

Pixel Eater wrote: »

I'm interested in doing a web design course. I have some quite limited experience with Dreamweaver, HTML and CSS but I am a print designer who wants to make the transition into web design. Therefore the course should not be too advanced. I also want to concentrate on design and layout rather than programming. Has anyone done any of these courses below?

http://www.dbs.ie/diploma-web-design/tabid/449/
http://www.ibat.ie/
http://www.ecollege.ie/site/pages/ca...WebDesign.html

Also as some are through the internet and not in a classroom would it be just as good (and much cheaper!) to subscribe to some online tutorial site like this?http://www.lynda.com/home/DisplayCourse.aspx?lpk2=502

I know this is probably a common query but any advise would be greatly appreciated.

Stay away from the DBS course , I made the mistake of doing both the introductory and advanced courses, complete and utter rubbish, waste of the guts of 3k. The intro was nothing more than a glorified ECDL and the advanced well... this was supposed to have consisted of hardcore ( in the words of a tutor ) web programming ( PHP , javascript ) but in reality all it was was maybe a couple of classes of very very basic PHP , the rest of the time was spent with Joomla and altering templates. I've since done a fair of learning on my own and some of the nonsense we were taught was shocking , eg being taught to build sites using tables as opposed to standards based css layouts.

I cant comment on any of the others but from I've heard and seen good web design courses in Dublin really are at a premium. Having said that I found what looks like some good courses in the Senior College in Dun Laoighaire, if they do what it says on the tin then they could be a runner ( www.scd.ie ), as well they seem to be quite cheap.

Lynda.com really has helped me big time though. I'd highly recommend tracking down some of their CSS videos , theres a particularly good one called 'CSS for Designers' by Andy Clarke of stuffandnonsense.com.

Pixel Eater

Thanks for that anbrutog thats quite helpfully information especially considering that DBS is quite pricey. I'll look into the Dun Laoighaire college a bit more.

anbrutog

Pixel Eater wrote: »

Thanks for that anbrutog thats quite helpfully information especially considering that DBS is quite pricey. I'll look into the Dun Laoighaire college a bit more.

No probs , hope it works out for you. My advice really though would be to get some of the video tutorials out there, if you are only interested in learning web design and not interested in getting some sort of cert/qualification then I think its the best route to go down.

roadsafety.ie

Hi,

You should also check out tutvid.com.
Some great dreamweaver tutorials on there(as well as photoshop,flash,illustrator,fireworks). Also has a youtube channel.

I have learn't alot from this website. Some really useful Video Tutorials, Presented very well.

And another option for courses is iact in stephens green, dublin.. I am looking myself at doing a course here...

Cheers.

spartacus93

+1 on Lynda.com, it's a great resource.

I have done a course with IACT before, found them to be very good. It wasn't a web design course tho.

herya

Lynda.com is brilliant but it's focused on software more than on design as a process. Cannot be beaten if you want to master certain programs though.

Pixel Eater

The course on Lynda.com, CSS for Designers, looks interesting, although it was created over three years ago. Is it still relevant? Hardly than much has changed in that time, has it?

ve

Web Technologies -> Browsers / Web Standards / Scripting / Programming / Patterns / Techniques / Trends / etc all change pretty quickly. They don't change in to shadows of their fomer selves, but things do move pretty quickly. It is not difficult to get in to web design or start building your own web pages. It is very difficult to be very good at it and stay at the leading edge of the art. The latter is something that too many courses on offer have little regard for. When courses state that they will teach you "Web Design" or "Build your own website" etc, they will do just that. The end result however will rarely be of professional quality or the process apply a contemporary approach. The latter being just as important as the end result.

I wouldn't pay €50 for the majority of courses on offer, let alone 3 grand. I've been working with web technologies since 1995, and there is HUGE amount of things to know and learn and it never stops. It is not impossible to get through by any means (if I did it so can you, but I do come from a technical software eng. type background which did help) and you come from a print design background which will certainly feed in to design trends, but you will have to look at usability/accessability as well as aesthetics/layout.

The biggest downfall of the web industry is that a lot of people who go in to it, do so with little regard for how complex it really is. That is why there are so many "professionals" offering crap for peanuts....and few seem to be any the wiser.