Academic plan for Web design

April 19, 2010 at 11:16 pm (WRA 210)

If I wanted to go into Web design, I would definitely start by taking Advanced Web Authoring. I’m trying to get into that class for the spring ’11 semester but it’s very popular apparently and I’ve been put on a wait list. Other classes that would be useful would be graphic design classes that got me used to creating graphics and working with images. (I’ve always wanted to say “I’m rendering an image on my Mac” for some reason – I think because that’s the bow-out excuse at the Apple store, saying that “It’s not like you’re going to be rendering images or anything…”) Even if I have no intention of going into Web design, having a graphic design class would be very useful. There is a group called The Society for News Design in the Communication Arts and Sciences college, and they have gotten some good press for the work they do. Since I’m a journalism major and my intention is to become a copy editor after college, familiarity with layout would be a great skill to have. I think there would be significant overlap in the concepts of print layout and Web layout, and I think both approaches would help train my eye for what works visually. In fact, understanding the differences between the two would probably help me be better at designing each type. Web design is interesting, and it seems like one of those skill sets that would be handy even if I wasn’t doing it for a career.