{"id":14,"date":"2011-07-30T14:10:41","date_gmt":"2011-07-30T14:10:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.futuretrend.co.uk\/blog\/?p=14"},"modified":"2011-07-30T19:04:13","modified_gmt":"2011-07-30T18:04:13","slug":"call-yourself-a-web-designer-then-you-must-learn-css","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.futuretrend.co.uk\/blog\/call-yourself-a-web-designer-then-you-must-learn-css\/","title":{"rendered":"Call yourself a Web Designer? Then you must learn CSS!"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Alex White<\/strong><\/p>\n

You know, there are loads of WYSIWYG web design programs out there that claim to turn you into a \u201cpro\u201d. Nothing could be further than the truth. What these programs do is give you a bunch of templates and all you do is replace the images and text. You wanna call yourself a designer with this? I should hope not.<\/p>\n

The joy of origination<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes the easy option turns out to be the harder option in the long run. One can go on using the same old tired templates that other ignorant folk use. Wouldn\u2019t it be great if you can sketch out a web page layout on paper and then it automatically generates your web site? You know it would!<\/p>\n

This is where it is crucial to know how to use CSS. It has been said that CSS is harder to get your head around than using tables for layout, but I think that it is the other way around. For me, and I\u2019m sure you\u2019ll find it for yourself, CSS layouts are so much easier to once you know how. Really? Okay, with tables I personally found that it was difficult to get precise measurements \u2013 regardless of setting table widths and so on. I\u2019d check my tables in different browsers only to see it displayed wrong in either Internet Explorer or Firefox. Bah! CSS is not without problems, but I have found that the problems can be easier to identify and fix. One can do much more in CSS than in tables.<\/p>\n

So I took Futuretrend<\/strong>‘s Dreamweaver intro course <\/a>and Dreamweaver Next Step course<\/a>. This certainly opened up my mind to the power of CSS based design. CSS design is so lean and clean. CSS based websites are more favoured by search engines as such,they are much more accessible than table based sites.<\/p>\n

Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

Why not take the CSS challenge yourself? Why not endeavour to make your site accessible to the max? Trust me, learning CSS<\/a> is one of the best things I\u2019ve done towards my career as a Web Designer. Now when I look at web design magazines I\u2019m able to understand the tutorials; whereas before I\u2019d struggle to understand them.<\/p>\n

You still want to hang on to your substandard WYSIWYG web design program? That\u2019s right, throw it in the trash! Get your pencil and sketch pad out, draw a unique layout for your site then realize it in CSS and Dreamweaver.<\/p>\n

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