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Comment by edw519 | Hacker News Reader

Nice post. Bookmarked and saved in my folder for great web design resources.

Although I'm not sure why anymore. No matter how much I try, my designs always come out horrible. Every time I ask someone for their opinion on a concept, they're first answer is, "Hire a professional designer."

Funny, I can visualize 9 layers deep into embedded code or enterprise data, but I have trouble with orange, purple, and all fonts.

FWIW, here is a list of the other links in that folder. Maybe they'll help someone else more than they've helped me.

http://colorschemedesigner.com/#

http://websitetips.com/colortools/sitepro/

http://www.colorsontheweb.com/colorwizard.asp

http://960.gs/

http://webdesignledger.com/inspiration/15-stunning-examples-...

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FWIW I was once in the same boat as you. About three months ago I decided that being able to create decent designs was a tool I needed to have in my toolbox.

What worked for me: I learned to draw. It took a lot of practice as I really sucked initially. I recommend getting a notebook with grid lines and a ruler.

It takes a lot of patience to pay attention to all of the details but it pays dividends. With drawing as an intermediate step between having something in my brain and having something in pixels I'm much better at capturing a vague visual concept, iterating, and bringing it to life.

I suspect this process will be different for everyone- this is just what helped me (after years of limping through the design process).

If you want to learn to draw and don't know where to start, get a copy of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards. You will be stunned at how quickly you can improve.

http://www.amazon.com/New-Drawing-Right-Side-Brain/dp/087477...

I went from not being able to draw a smiley face to drawing myself in a way that resembled a human and was even recognizable with that book.

A good book to read after you are done with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain is Nicolaides The Natural Way to Draw. It's a lot of hard work, but it's worth it in the end.

Hm, my approach is a little different. I agree if you mean decent drawing skills.

I can draw mockups, even with colors by hand, that look in some ways like the design i want. Then i go on(and cheat a little) and let a friend who is skillfull in photoshop cast it into pixels.

Thats some kind of a pair designing process. He does some layers with different components from several mockups and we constantly play with the colors and styles we want, until we get the components in various polished forms.

That way, we develop in a few hours, first digital drafts of our core concepts. Yes, drafts. Three is a good amount, i think. From that we select, probably with customers the best fitting one. Or the best fitting components from all three. Then we can go on and put a prerelease draft together. It's really a lot of trial and error, but in the end it pays off, i think.

The thing you absolutely need for a good design process is enough inspiration and a open mind, in my opinion.

That way drawing the mockups and pair designing the drafts, is a continous flow of good and better ideas until you reach what you need.

I've never really used drawing much other then for making rough thumbnail sketches for websites or icons. Knowing basic techniques, like perspective and lighting, greatly helps to improve a sense of realism in more advanced/trendy site design concepts and icons.

I know what you mean. I've been trying as well to become better at design, if only so I can proudly say I designed my website myself. I've bookmarked several articles about design, but one that really helped me get started was http://www.betaversion.org/~stefano/linotype/news/169/

It's full of useful tips and tricks that I would never have thought of on my own. And for completeness, here are the rest of my bookmarks. Hopefully they'll be helpful for someone.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/01/28/color-theory-for-...

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/02/color-theory-for-...

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/02/08/color-theory-for-...

http://sixrevisions.com/css/font-face-guide/

http://sixrevisions.com/web_design/the-960-grid-system-made-...

You might also really enjoy Snook.ca.

The Six Revisions font-face-guide reminded me of this article (http://snook.ca/archives/html_and_css/becoming-a-font-embedd...) that Snook wrote, and which I have declared to be the most complete guide on font embedding whatsoever.

It might focus more on 'front-end development' than design per se, but much of what he offers is invaluable.

I love colorschemedesigner.com. I hope to write about color schemes soon, and include info about them in my SXSW presentation (if it gets accepted).

Same here, I'm incredibly envious of great designers. For any non-personal project that I intend on making money with, I always hire a designer.

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