Is it possible to learn web design in a year? Dreamweaver preferred?

Hi, I have a job that allows PLENTY of downtime to do online learning. I want to give myself from now to July 2008 to learn web design, graphic design, logo design, and stuff like that. If I am able to practice 5 days per week, for 5 hours a day, every week for the next year, would it be possible to obtain the knowledge? I am very interested in designing 1960s retro sites and I don't feel like spending thousands of dollars at a university as any skills I get will be used on personal projects only. You hear stories about 16 year old web designers so I figured I may have a shot too. ANd how much would I have to spend on buying software like Dreamweaver, and graphic design software?

Is it possible to learn web design in a year? Dreamweaver preferred?
You can pick up a lot in a year. What you really need to do is a lot of reading and analyzing. It sounds easy, but the general populace seems incapable of even heading over to Google; just take a look at the lot of computer questions we get.





Good web design skills don't come down to who has the most cash and the best software. It comes down to who has the best knowledge and best creativity. You can do web design without nothing more than a decent computer. All the software you need is free. (You need a standards compliant web browser and a plain text editor.)





There's a lot of bad advice out there. That's because there's a lot of bad designers out there. I have a hard time finding designers who I will hire, because there's so many incompetent ones to weed out. I'll spend some words debunking some of that advice.





The first is the "learn Dreamweaver and you're set" approach. Do you really think learning Dreamweaver makes you a web designer? It's a tool. It's like claiming because you know how to use a hammer, you are a master carpenter. Wysiwyg mode in Dreamweaver is an aid to those who can't web design. If you really want to be a web designer, you need to understand how HTML works, how CSS works, and be able to write appropriate code. Without dreamweaver. If you can't function at all without Dreamweaver, you haven't learned web designing. You just learned how to cover your ignorance with an expensive tool.





The other approach is "head over to w3schools" or "head over to this one site". If your knowledge comes from one site only, you have learnt nothing. Just trying to analyze other people's code and various CSS hacks means you'll spend time on countless websites looking at their source code.





So what should you do? I'll point you to a collection of links: http://www.alvit.de/handbook/ . You'll have to learn HTML and CSS. And the various buzzwords. Read various web designer sites. 456bereastreet, A List Apart, and mezzoblue are definite reads. They have a lot of articles that are important reading. Spend some time understanding the value of semantic HTML. Place emphasis on understanding web standards. Learn how to use CSS properly. Look at other good CSS websites, found via CSS galleries. Study their code. And read. There's a lot of knowledge to absorb.
Reply:Dreamweaver is not very difficult to learn and do basic stuff, decent photoshop skills will also help. There are so many online tutorials and forums one can get advise from. Google it!
Reply:Absolutely!! I learned Dreamweaver all by myself...just by doing...You can price Dreamweaver at the website below...they probably have trial versions. Good luck. Also...try Corels Paint Shop Pro for graphic design...its an easy low level program to learn the basics...
Reply:Hi we all have differant learning abilities but yeah I think 1 year is easily achievable, Watch tutorials, and read manals and may be just a few months,
Reply:it is possible to learn it in 3 months. study hard and do lots of tutorials.
Reply:Yes it is. I learned Dreamweaver in a few days. I wanted to use it's built in PHP assistance, and I really enjoy it to this day.
Reply:Wow with all the time you are willing to spend on it you will definitely learn a lot in one year. To me, web design is not only profittable but fun and entertaining. When you really get into it you will start building pages with a certain goal, and you will be working on those pages hour after hour until you achieve what you want. That "yes!" feeling is inexplicable, it fills you with a sense of accomplishment and it's very satisfactory.





Now off the magic and flowers, I suggest that you start learning HTML and fully understanding it. HTML can be learned in about one month depending on your learning speed. Then jump into CSS which is what gives HTML color and beauty. Thirdly start exploring the fields of Javascript for more interactivity in your pages. Finally you can dare yourself to learn a much more advanced programming language such as ASP.net or PHP, but these are only necessary for really advanced web designers.
Reply:I was taught the basics of Dreamweaver in 2 weeks in a computer class in 8th grade. I'm sure that if you put in enough time, you could learn how to do basically anything on Dreamweaver. Have Fun!
Reply:At a fairly young age I've learned graphic and web design all on my own...and I'm not too bad at it.





I started out with basic html, css, and php. Now I use the Adobe products like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, and Flash.





It depends on your learning speed, but you should be up and running fine in a year. See if the company or organization you work for offers any discounts on Adobe software. I know many schools do too!





Good luck!!
Reply:You can definitely learn web design given that much time. Heck, you could probably do it in half that time at five hours per day, five days per week. My advice is to get a book on HTML basics, a book on Dreamweaver, and a book on Photoshop. Good luck to you.
Reply:Definitely.





http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw/104...





This is a quick search of books on Amazon.com for learning web design with Dreamweaver.





I learned the basics of web design (multi-platform) over about a 4-month period by just jumping in and starting my own website. With the price of domains and web hosting cheap (less than $10 for a domain, I even heard MSN doing them for free), this might be the best approach, "trial by fire."