Not feeling like i'm getting anywhere.

I can definitely understand what you mean, Adam. It's not uncommon for me to sit down and have a hard time knowing where to start too. I think it's alway smart to nail down something simple that you're trying to do. Are you making a personal site? Start with a single page that talks a little about yourself. Are you trying to build a web app? What's the simplest thing you can ship and bring value.

I'd be more than happy to email with you if you ever want to talk a bit about what you're wanting to do or just need some plain moral support: alan@teamtreehouse.com. I'm certainly not a designer, but I've been building things on the web for a long time now and can definitely refer you to resources and folks to help out.

In terms of ideas of what to create while learning, I worked on my personal site while I learned web development and design, and it helped a ton. I would hone it and hone it until everything was perfect, and the next day I'd start over again, testing out new ideas and tricks that I had learned. It started out as a single page and grew during that process. I don't use that page anymore, but it was something that really helped me learn. Maybe start just with your name, a paragraph about yourself, and a picture, and then grow it from there?

In terms of pictures for websites, I'd definitely recommend just searching the web for free icon sets and creative commons licensed images. For backgrounds you can check out http://subtlepatterns.com/ for some great background patterns.

Let me know if there's ever anything I can help you with - we're all here to help and support you as you learn.

Listen to podcasts, buy books (I like "Web Designer's Idea book" 1 and 2 when I get stuck on ideas), subscribe to blogs, make a Pinterest board, and most of all, deconstruct things you like. Sometimes I pick a site I like and see if I can copy it just for fun.

It's great to read books and learn the technical know-how, but you have to exercise creativity or it will atrophy. I sketch every day. If you're interested in making web design, then sketch some web layouts!

Try bartering with people. One of the first websites I did was trading web design for a hairstylist I knew. We agreed on what would be fair and I got free haircuts for a year! Today I wouldn't list that website in my portfolio because it's so far from my current skills.

As far as free resources, Lost and Taken is great for textures and backgrounds, and Free Use Flikr for free use photos. Here's a link to a post that has lots of good free use links within: 10 resources to find free images

If all else fails, try making websites for NPO's and animal rescues! They always need volunteers and they have no budget for web design. Make a website informing people about your favorite hobby or as if your corgi was an accountant! (How cute would that be?)

Hope that helps!

Hi Alan and Tarra,

Thanks for you replying!

Allan: My project right now is to start a personal website, but for some reason, and simple task like that seems hard, even though I understand HTML and CSS quite well, and good enough to follow along in video tutorials, just by listening. I will sure email you sometime! Thanks for the offer!

Tarra: "Web Designer's Idea book" seems intressting. Thanks for mentioning it! Do you have any blogs that is great to follow?

And what do you mean by sketch down a website? Draw it? Make it in photoshop?

Thanks!

shoot I think the best way is to just look at a ton of different websites and pull little things from each one and throw it into your own ! ..I also live by the motto work smarter not harder so this post may not be relevant

In your daily life what other things frustrate you, your friends, or collegues? People make apps to solve problems and to make things easier.

What kinds of hobbies do you have? What would help you enjoy that hobby more? Lets say you enjoy working out. The best way to get results is to track it. Make up a page with an html form with fields to track your workouts. You can find tutorials online to have PHP and MySQL take your data from the forms and track the info.

Don't just learn a language. Make something and learning a language will be the by product.

Keep pushing. You'll get there.

I've always found the hardest website to make was about myself.

-Do everything in little pieces so that it's not a big overwhelming project.

-figure out what you want to communicate about yourself. Is it a professional portfolio to show off your talents or personal? etc.

-I usually figure out what kinda website I wanna build. Colorful, minimal, lotsa shapes, straightforward etc.

-I look around the web for other sites of the same theme as mine i.e. portfolio, blog, e-commerce, law firm, etc. you name it and see if I like their theme or if I wanna do a theme similar to their's or a feel like there's etc.

-I look around next and see what parts I like from different sites....it's usually bits and pieces from different sites....toolbar here, colors there, layout another place etc., slideshow from another etc.

-Then I look at the code of the parts of sites that I like to see how they did it and if I have the skill level to code something like that myself or if I can figure out another way to do the same thing or something similar.

-Then I sit down with a pencil and paper and map out how many pages the site will have

-then I sketch what I think I want the site layout to look like on paper. boxes, toolbars, sidebars if that applies, sometimes i make notes on the sketch.

-I figure out all the content if it's a site with content because that's just html and easy to code once you get the order.

-Then I take on the first page piece by piece. After the first page you can usually get a flow going.

-I'm pretty intermediate so that's how I do for now.

My two cents.

Good luck!

I have found that doing my own site is the most frustrating and difficult to do. I have a hard time being objective about it so can never settle on a look and feel through multiple versions of it. I would suggest working on something that you plan on learning with and giving away at first (that way you keep it polished) and then sell it later if you want after you have mastered the skill. Something more like a product than a personal website. It can be anything really something silly like the beared santa.

I generally start with a mood board (sample client moodboard) with a color palette picked (colourlovers is a good place to go for this), fonts (generally from google web fonts) and a few screenshots of example look and feels that are similar to what I am wanting to accomplish ( designfridge is my favorite inspire site for this.

Then I sketch out a few quick wireframe choices on paper. Since it is an internal project I don't make a true wireframe but you could if it helps.

Since I come from more of a designer point of view this part is very organized and easy for me. The development is the opposite when it comes to learning new things. I pretty much have to dive in and learn as I go which can be frustrating sometimes because you can spend more hours than you want to on fixing things. That is why I signed up here so I could go through a logical step by step process on the coding end. My plan here is to think of a real application I can give away or sell later and build it on ruby rails and on an android and iphone app. I think if you always keep this in mind you will always make a top notch product.

Hope that helps.

Cheers!

Stephanie

Just to echo the "build a website about you is difficult". I am always setting a goal to "finish" my website but end up finding a million other things to work on. If that is where you are getting stuck treat it like writers block and work on something else then come back to it. If you are really stuck on ideas here are a couple to get you started:

1. Build a website for show, actor, movie that you love
2. Reach out to local non-profits they are always looking for help
3. Offer to build a site for your church, PTA, home owners association etc..
4. Pick your favorite local restaurant / store and offer to build them a site.

Any one of those is a great exercise and I think you will be shocked to see how quickly you can rack up wins under your belt. Personally when I have other people calling in deadlines I find it much easier to keep up my momentum than when I am working on my own personal projects.

Really great ideas Mark. If you go the pro bono route this site is great to find a good match sparked.

Stephanie

For building your first site I recommend the following process ...

• Make a wireframe using Cacoo
• Write the semantic HTML, don't worry about the CSS yet
• Build a fixed width site
• Keep it simple to start with, don't try to solve problems you don't have yet
• Add in some small CSS3 if the design calls for it, maybe border-radius or box-shadow
• If you need a form add in some HTML5

• Try to stay away from a lot of Javascript for now

• Once you've got the first version fully working post it here and get some critques on your design

Then it's time for version 2

• make it responsive
• Then post it here to get some feedback on the responsive version

Time for version 3

• If you are sick of cutting and pasting your header and footer on every page
• it's time to add in some templating using PHP.
  Very basic PHP is all you need, it makes it easier to not repeat yourself (see also: DRY).
• Post it here to get some feedback on the responsive version

If you want to get some ideas about designing a portfolio site for yourself check out some of the best selling templates for vcards and CVs over on Theme Forest.

Pick and choose design elements you like and add them into your mockup.

Hi Adam,

You probably have all the responses you're looking for, but I figured I'd throw in my two cents. Accounting for inflation and CPI, it might not be worth much, but I'll give it anyway.

I've been in and out of the IT field for 15 years now. I'm 33. My primary observation is this: do something and take it as far as you can. I've been a web developer, a help desk technician, a network admin, and now a software tester. My new goal seems to be software development. I'll update you on how that's progressing in a few months.

My advice to you is to pick anything: a design concept, a language, whatever. Stick with that one thing. Read a lot of different books on it: if the O'Reilly book on JavaScript isn't cutting it for you, switch up to Treehouse. If that's not working for you, find something else.

You might come to the conclusion that it's not really for you. And that's okay. The most important thing to remember about technology is that it's a means to an end, for those using it as well as for those producing it. As other commenters have pointed out, if you approach software development as a way to solve problems that keep you up at night (for me it's my vast media collection or hands of poker), you'll find it much easier to progress in your work. If it remains a tedious set of exercises, you may or may not make a career out of development, but you probably won't find it to be a lot of fun. So make something fun.

Not content leaving you with metaphysical tripe, so I'll point you to a free gift.

I wish you way more than luck.

Stop reading and learning!

Maybe take sometime to decide what you want to do in webdesign. It's a huge field with many options and not everyone can do everything. Or needs to. If you like design find designs you like and start copying them. Not for portfolio use but for practice and inspiration. Check out dribbble.com for inspiration and start trying to recreate what you like. If you like programming or development then get started on a small project. Learning is great but we all have to create working things to keep being motivated and look back at our progress. Not sure if anyone has mentioned it but you might want to look into Adobe Fireworks as well. Best screen tool around. Much easier than photoshop.

Thanks for all your suggestions! This is one of the reasons that i wanna use Teamtreehouse - it's incredible community :-) Thanks! I got a few ideas I will work on now!

Is it alright to post feedback threads in here, even though you are not a perfect designer?

@Adam - Please post away.

@james I really like your suggestions about versions one two and three! Going to use that idea my self. :)

@Kris - That's how I roll, glad it helped someone else.

Hi - I'm 8 months late, but wanted to say this is a great thread.

I'm a total beginner but absolutely loving learning to code - HTML, CSS, RoR and more. So far I have been taking lots of information IN.

My next big challenge, the really daunting thing, is to actually DO SOMETHING and get my hands dirty. I think that is the best way to get good at coding - just jump in, try to make something and learn from your mistakes.

We'll be terrible at first, but we'll learn. Keep at it. Try stuff, fix things and make your code better.

Eventually, I hope to make something which adds value. This thread was a big help to me - thank you for all the recommendations and for showing your support to the OP.

team treehouse sucks. worthless platform. waste of money. wouldn't recommend to anyone