Web Design Week Two

The web design course in week two was an intense course in HTML, Dreamweaver and Photoshop. All the students had no prior experience of web design and were guided through the essentials for making a website.

Emphasis on creative thinking and planning formed the beginning in of the course where students were encouraged to map out all their ideas on paper. The reasons for this became very clear once we began looking at HTML and Dreamweaver where one is constrained creatively due to the meticulous nature of coding language.

An introduction to Photoshop enabled the students to visualise the ideas they had considered on paper on screen. Photoshop is an ideal skill to acquire alongside web programming as it offers more freedom to explore creative visions than Dreamweaver. 

Once the students had clear visual goals we began our crash course in Dreamweaver. The second part of the week focused on Dreamweaver and HTML. Students were encouraged to allow Dreamweaver to generate HTML code for them whilst they got a feel for this new language. Whenever the students faced problems we would resolve them using the HTML code, this meant students understood the value of learning HTML rather than just using Dreamweaver in design mode alone.

By the end of the course the students had all achieved a website with two, three or even four sub pages. The websites were original, well planned and visually sticking. Many of the students have been inspired to continue learning Dreamweaver and build on the knowledge they have acquired at Discovery Summer.