   [web] Questions about Web Design
  I have several questions regarding web design, I'll try and keep it short and simple.  I've come up with several website ideas, but I have no clue about web design, only vague knowledge.  I'm interested in web design as a career, and a have a few Q's about that as well.  I figured it'd be more helpful asking these questions on here, rather than searching on google for hours on end.1. How do you register websites?2. What classes/courses should I take for web design at college?(Majors etc.)3. From what I understand, gamesites such as Gamespot make money off "big time advertisements", as well off of subscribers.(Any other ways?)  Now my question here is, what does it take to get these "big time advertisemnets"?(IE: Nike, Pepsi etc.)  How many hits does it take to get these advertisements?  What do these company's actually pay?(I'm sure it varies)4. Any good books/sites on web design that you know of?5. How is web design industry?(Over crowded like other industrys?) :DThat's pretty much all I'd like to know at this point.  But if you feel like I should know something I didn't ask, due tell me.  I'm all for guidance at this point, and want to know as much as possible.  Thanks alot for any help. :)[Edited by - Mistwalker on June 1, 2006 3:05:44 AM]
Quote:Original post by Mistwalker1. How do you register websites?You don't need to register web sites. You just need a DNS name (which could be a "subdomain" host name in another domain like markr.gamedev.net ), point that at your web server, configure your web server correctly (or get your provider to do it if it's a shared one), and it will work.No registration of any kind is needed.You may want to register it with some directories and/or search engines though. That is optional.Quote:2. What classes/courses should I take for web design at college?(Majors etc.)I've no idea. When I was at university the www was not taken seriously.Quote:3. From what I understand, gamesites such as Gamespot make money off "big time advertisements", as well off of subscribers.(Any other ways?)  Now my question here is, what does it take to get these "big time advertisemnets"?(IE: Nike, Pepsi etc.)  How many hits does it take to get these advertisements?  What do these company's actually pay?(I'm sure it varies)This is a very open-ended question. I'd say that in general, it's very difficult to get advertisers to pay very much. Most ad-providers pay for click throughs not impressions. Even on the sites with the most ad-prone users, click-throughs are less than 1%. Therefore you need a lot of traffic before you'd get more than loose change in ad rates.The amount paid for a click-through is generally in pence,cents or whatever. Not a lot.Some affiliate schemes pay a commission rate for conversions instead - this is often as much as 20% (Amazon is the major player in this, but they don't pay that much I don't think).If someone clicks on an ad, you get nothing, but if they buy something you get a major cut. This is again, unlikely to make you much money unless that product/service is something you users *really* want.Quote:4. Any good books/sites on web design that you know of?Books teach last year's technology (or earlier).Quote:5. How is web design industry?(Over crowded like other industrys?) :DDepends whether you mean web *DESIGN* or web application development.Web design is very overcrowded with a lot of small and not very good houses who keep their clients happy quite well and make mediocre web sites.Almost all small web sites are built by one of these small mediocre houses.Some of them do technical web app development as well. They're generally extremely bad at it and make applications which don't work properly (i.e. very low standards of correctness) and overcharge enormously.But it's difficult to get any business because it's hard for a layman client to tell the difference.Mark   ;Quote:Original post by Mistwalker1. How do you register websites?You don't. You register domain names and buy/hire hosting space. You can register a domain name at a gazillion different registrars.Quote:2. What classes/courses should I take for web design at college?(Majors etc.)That depends. There are no courses targetting it, but a few that mighth help you. There's a distinction between web design and web development. If you go for design, take graphic/multimedia/art. For web development something like CS would get you there I think. Most people in the business don't have degrees though. It's still something you can learn from experience.Quote:3. From what I understand, gamesites such as Gamespot make money off "big time advertisements", as well off of subscribers.(Any other ways?)  Now my question here is, what does it take to get these "big time advertisemnets"?(IE: Nike, Pepsi etc.)  How many hits does it take to get these advertisements?  What do these company's actually pay?(I'm sure it varies)That's just impossible to do. You're talking in the 100.000's a day, and even then it's still meager. Just ask the GDNet staff :-)Quote:4. Any good books/sites on web design that you know of?Get a good XHTML/CSS reference :-)Quote:5. How is web design industry?(Over crowded like other industrys?) :DWhat markr said. Very crowded with lots of n00bs-that-know-frontpage undercutting you and clients that don't know the difference between you and them. When I go out to meet clients I spend about half the time educating them and half the time actually discussing the project at hand.   ;  Thanks alot for the replies.  It seems Web Development is what I'm more interested in, I should of been more specific.  Regarding that, what courses should I make sure the school has before enrolling?  I'd like to look into it even before school, I figured it'd be something I could start to learn before than.(Hell, what's stoping me?)  I see those TV commercials for 'web design', and would rather not go to those.  College just gives a better all around education IMO.  Which led me to ask what courses are the most useful, or what languages are most useful, really.  I understand Photoshop could be useful to know as well, correct?  I'm just confused on how sites, like previous example, can actually pay for people to work there.(Reviewers, servers?, web designers etc.)  Seems really costy to me, so I figured those advertisements were how they were actually getting paid.  Is Gamespot etc. actually making money off of site(s)?  Basically, I'd like to know where to start learning about web development. lol  Thanks.   ;  Really big websites can afford to hire people on a full-time basis, but as I said above even Gamedev is too small to be able to do that. You're taling really big here. As for languages, just aks the schools what languages they teach. PHP, ASP, Perl and Python are all good languages to learn. SQL too. The concept of web development is more important that the specific language. Web development is very different that regular application development because the web is "stateless" (i.e. clients can't remember values between page hits).   ;  A lot of college courses are poorly named, so you really need to check out each college that you're interested in individually. Ask someone there about the programs.However, you'll probably want some photoshop courses, general graphic design, and if you have any usability stuff, go with that. Specific web design courses are always a plus, too. Usually, web work gets stuffed under communications majors, or possibly something else in the humanities (for us, it's under the Arts and Technology program).I should add that you can learn a lot on your own. Start with a book - any book, I used the first one I saw in the bookstore one way back in 5th grade - and do what it says. Feel free to grab another book or just use some resources like W3 schools. Then, practice! Worked for me, anyway. [grin]   ;  Thanks alot guys.  I picked up a book: "Head First HTML with CSS & XHTML".  I heard it was a good place to start.   ;  I believe experience is key.You should definately get your feet wet with HTML and then get your hands dirty with some &#106avascript.  Then you'll be invincible.  But remember, Web-Designing is more about organizing data in a easily navigatable manner so that whenever visitors come to a website, information can be found very quickly.  So, you should observe many websites and see how their main categories are organized.Then once the data is organized it is the web programmer's job to convert this idea into a well-made source code.  The web programmer should direct the graphics designer ( if there exists one ) to make images in a so and so manner.I believe ultimately, the www is the way to go.  the www will allow our little browser to be our window to all forms of information out there.  If you haven't had a chance, read Bill Gate's "The Road Ahead" An Excellent Gold Plated book that covers IT.  Seriously, when we become parents, we'd be able to see right away if our kids are in school or cutting on the spot in a matter of seconds.  Just that school's don't make much money to implement such a vast system as of yet.  But it'll be there sooner or later.Good Luck.   