20 Free Resources for Learning Web Design

As a teenager it can sometimes be hard to begin learning something new outside of school because you’ll often have to pay for the learning resources (books, videos, private tutoring / mentoring, evening classes, etc) yourself and without a job – Or a job that doesn’t pay as much as you’d like it to, it can be hard to really get to grips with learning something worthwhile with the right resources available. You don’t have to start off with buying second-hand books on Web Design that were published 10 years ago and are no longer relevant because in this article I’m going to list 20 free resources for learning Web Design that are relevant and new materials that have been published within the past few years.

In this article you’ll find the following free resource types:

• Books
• Online Curriculums
• Videos
• Web Communities

Free Books

There are hundreds of free eBooks available online to download and print off for your own educational use. Some of the best free eBooks are listed below to help you get started before you start buying the books.

1. Dive Into Accessibility
2. Taking Your Talent to the Web the Web
3. The Web Book
4. Web Style Guide
5. Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide
6. The Elements of Typographic Style
7. Eloquent JavaScript
8. The Yahoo! Style Guide
9. The Art and Science of Web Design
10. Designing for the Web

Online Curriculums

With online curriculums and structured courses you’ll have a structured learning plan from start to finish where you’ll complete objectives throughout by covering both theory and practicals. Although there are only three listed below, you’ll only need these three to get yourself started on the path to becoming a Web professional.

1. Opera Web Standards Curriculum
2. WaSP InterACT Curriculum
3. MSDN Beginner Developer Learning Center – Web Development

Free Videos

It’s a well known fact that some people love to read a good book and some people prefer to watch a video and listen to a person talking about what the video is about, so I’ve also scoured the Web for some of the best, most useful, free video tutorials available. Enjoy.

1. Think Vitamin – Learn Web Design – Free Tutorial Videos
2. Nettuts+ – Who Needs University? The Best Nettuts+ Screencast Training Courses
3. SitePoint – The CSS Video Crash Course
4. Killer PHP – Beginners PHP Course [Note: Only the tutorials with active links are free]

Web Communities

Just like in the offline world / real life where you can talk to friends and professionals who can give you hints and tips about this and that you can find even more online through their own Websites, free magazines and blogs, as well as online community forums. You could sign up to any of the free and professional communities listed below where you can find help on your Web Design / Development adventures.

1. SitePoint Forums
2. MSDN Forums
3. SoDevious Forums

Hopefully you’ll be able to learn something from one or more of the resources listed in this article and you’ll be well on your way to becoming an amazingly talented Web Designer / Developer. If you’ve got a free learning resource that I haven’t listed here but you think should be here then share it with us in the comments!