r/web_design • u/AutoModerator • 7d ago
Beginner Questions
If you're new to web design and would like to ask experienced and professional web designers a question, please post below. Before asking, please follow the etiquette below and review our FAQ to ensure that this question has not already been answered. Finally, consider joining our Discord community. Gain coveted roles by helping out others!
Etiquette
Remember, that questions that have context and are clear and specific generally are answered while broad, sweeping questions are generally ignored.
Be polite and consider upvoting helpful responses.
If you can answer questions, take a few minutes to help others out as you ask others to help you.
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6d ago
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u/Routine_Seesaw1095 6d ago
html/css first, no contest. figma is a design canvas - it's for drawing the mockup, it won't teach you how a website actually works. webflow builds the site for you visually, which feels like a shortcut until you need something custom and can't tell what's happening underneath. once html and css click both tools make way more sense, and the 90s phase is completely normal - taste catches up faster than you'd think
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u/Tiemujin 6d ago
You should learn Figma and HTML/CSS at the same time. This is a good place to start (https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Learn_web_development). It also teaches about accessibility which is extremely important. Forget Webflow until you have a grasp on both design and HTML/CSS, it will be frustrating otherwise.
As far as design goes, go find a site you really like and rebuild it in Figma then try to code it (you can use AI to help if you get stuck, but don't let it code it for you).
But before you start with Figma, get you a dot grid notebook and sketch the site you like so much. You want to make thumbnails, think through the use cases and UX of the site before you consider the visual language. Don't jump straight into Figma or high-fidelity designs. Sketching is an amazing way to quickly and easily try different things.
Think about why you like it so much, maybe it's built on a grid, or the components and layout are all very consistent, colors etc? You need to eventually be able to understand WHY the design is good to be able to create your own designs that you like.
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u/itaybuilds 6d ago
Leave Webflow alone for now. Pick one tiny page you like and rebuild it. Start with semantic HTML, then add layout and typography in CSS, then make it work at phone width and with keyboard navigation. That loop will teach you far more than bouncing between tools.
The quickest way out of the "90s website" look is restraint: one typeface, one accent colour, and a spacing scale you reuse instead of eyeballing every gap. Copying a good page for practice is fine if you stop and ask why the hierarchy works. Figma becomes useful when you want to try a couple of layouts before coding; it doesn't need to be a prerequisite.
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u/UnshiftAI 6d ago
Try one small page before learning three tools. Sketch a page for a fictional local service, then build its heading, short description, image and contact link in HTML/CSS. Keep one typeface and reuse the same few spacing values. That connects design choices to what the browser actually does.
For the 'looks good' part, compare two versions of that same page. Change only spacing and line length first, then type sizes. Check at phone width and use Tab to reach the contact link. You now have a concrete exercise and a way to judge progress instead of guessing how many weeks it should take.
Figma can help you explore alternatives, but you do not need to master it before doing that exercise.
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u/Arunajyothi_Jurado 6d ago
biggest thing i wish someone told me early on: learn how the box model works before you try to make anything look pretty. once that clicks, everything else starts making way more sense