I don't think "front-end" development can be learnt methodologically. I'm assuming that front-end development ties in a bit of design skills to really make it effective.

I'm a backend guy myself. I'm probably good at thinking up nice UI, coding it with CSS or Interface Builder. In real life they somehow don't seem right. I'm not sure. I guess I need to delve a little bit more into design theory?

That said, there are some proven textbook recipes for front end development that mostly works.