Ask HN: Sites and resources for designers learning tech?

#1

Post by dpapathanasiou » Sun, Mar 26, 2017, 10:35 PM UTC

A friend is a talented graphic designer, specializing in packaging, but after reading the latest "Design in Tech Report" wants to learn the tech behind web and mobile sites.

What are some good recommendations in that regard?

[1] https://designintechreport.wordpress.com/

Re: Ask HN: Sites and resources for designers learning tech?

#2

Post by garysieling » Sun, Mar 26, 2017, 11:54 PM UTC

Conference talks might be a good option -

http://findlectures.com/?p=1&class1=Technology&type1=Confere...

Re: Ask HN: Sites and resources for designers learning tech?

#3

Post by kough » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 12:10 AM UTC

As a technical resource for CSS/JS/HTML, the Mozilla Developer Network is by far the best in town – https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/

Re: Ask HN: Sites and resources for designers learning tech?

#4

Post by gingerbread-man » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 1:22 AM UTC

For someone whose goal is to program websites, his first goal should almost certainly be to learn how to program in javascript.

Eloquent Javascript by Marijn Haverbeke is an excellent introduction to programming. It's freely available online at https://eloquentjavascript.net.

Re: Ask HN: Sites and resources for designers learning tech?

#5

Post by soneca » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 2:29 AM UTC

I come from a different background (marketing) with a different goal (become a professional developer), but I believe he/she will gain a lot from the same resource I uses at first: www.freecodecamp.com

Re: Ask HN: Sites and resources for designers learning tech?

#6

Post by tomek_zemla » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 4:31 AM UTC

For somebody coming from graphic design background https://processing.org would be and excellent place to learn about programming. It was designed with creative types in mind, has large communities, many resources including books and courses and a newer JavaScript version. I would also recommend Generative Design book: http://www.generative-gestaltung.de/about

Learning Processing would not be directly useful for building web and mobile sites, but in my opinion be an excellent stepping stone for a graphic designer towards the world of technology and creative uses of programming. Using JavaScript (P5.js) to create visuals could be an interesting path for designer as an end goal and/or relevant and engaging way to learn coding concepts that can be later applied towards building sites or apps of any type.