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Ask HN: What makes for a top-tier web designer?

3 points by alexgpark ↗ HN
I am eager to know what is the process + knowledge + toolset employed by the web design teams at the Airbnb's, Google's, Twitch's, Invision's of the world...

I am a CSS/web design beginner, but want to become world-class over-time - the problem is: I don't know what I should study, so I don't really know where to start.

Any courses, talks, books, etc. that you all consider to be absolute musts or definitive guides?

Or recommendations on the best process for learning?

2 comments

[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 16.0 ms ] thread
brudgers
In my opinion, design is a practice not a curriculum. Great design comes out of a willingness to produce many poor designs and a few good ones; learn from them; and move on.

There's no such thing as a "design in my head". If it's not "on paper", it isn't a design.

Good luck.

alexgpark
thanks for the reply. there's definitely a 10,000 hours component to this but i suppose my desire is to learn an organized system and process, versus piece-meal trial&error youtube videos and tutorials.

This is how I've been learning so far (I have the basics of CSS down) but I can't help but feel I have a huge gaping hole in my knowledge somewhere. The best analogy I can think of is: knowing how to shoot a basketball into a hoop, but lack a playbook for winning games.

It would be amazing to watch someone design a site like Twitch or Airbnb over the course of a week. To see their systems, processes, methodologies, frameworks...