Best way to learn WEB DESIGN?
 

I was just put in charge of taking care of my schools visual communications and multimedia club's website. Even though I know more than the rest of the members I really don't know that much about web design.

So I was wondering if anyone can reccomend a couple books or something that might help me get a jump start on learning this stuff. Also, what's the best program for web design? Is dreamweaver good? Or is it better just to program the code manually?

http://www.w3schools.com has many good tutorials.

I happen to be a huge fan of Dreamweaver. If you know how to use html, you can both design and customize in DW( I don't really know html, but the program is simple enough that I can make changes or corrections to it as needed). Frontpage had been recommended to me to use-never tried it but supposedly it is very user friendly, whereas DW I like to call a PMS program...sometimes it gets bitchy if you do the slightest thing off.
I have 3 DW books-the best is "How to Use Dreamweaver MX and Fireworks MX" as you can skip around to only what you need to know.
Best way to design: Do all the artwork, headers, link boxes, etc, in Photoshop, save them all as Jpgs in a site folder, then in Dreamweaver, create a page, add tables, insert those pieces and link them up. There are actions in DW that allow image swap( on mouse-over, you can make a link do different things, ie:change color, enlarge, whatever)
Advice should you use DW: stay away from using their text commands whenever possible-create what you need in PS and import it. Some computers may default to plain text otherwise when viewing the site.

take some advice. Focus on the design aspect of web design first. You know what looks good to you on web pages and what annoys you. Sketch out a few desings and then go to find out how to accomplish it.

<a href="www.webmonkey.com">Webmonkey</a> has alot of good beginners tutorials on HTML. Once you get your footing there, I'd definately recommend CSS for design. After that, maybe ASP or PHP, and you'll be a web designer in no time! There are books on all of these subjects at your local library/book store, or you can search on google for "HOWTOs" about any of these subjects.

pixelband says good thing. I always use Photoshop to create exactly what a website is going to look like before I even think about setting it up. Some things end up changing, but if you know exactly what you want to do before you start, it helps you to decide what you need to code. It also helps you narrow down your search criteria if you are just learning and need to figure out how to do it.

I learnt webdesign mostly myself. I learnt the very most basics in a webdesign class in highschool, but after a couple weeks of experimenting on my own I already knew a ton more than the rest of the class did. If you learn the code, you don't need to spend money on programs like Dreamweaver. Not at first, anyway. I hand code all of my web pages in Notepad. This can be a lot more powerful than you'd think, and lets you take 100% control over what you're doing. Numbers and letters don't lie.

Even if you use a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor like DreamWeaver, I think it's still a good idea to know the hard core coding to be able to make more precise changes. I've never used a web design program other than Adobe GoLive, which I hate, so I don't really know exactly how they work or how much coding you need to know to be able to use them.

I second todds "notepad" comment, but I use an editor called textpad - it colour codes all your html code so you can spot typos/errors a lot more easily.

edit - make sure you cover css - it makes the job of consistent look and feel a whole lot simpler.

community colleges offer starter classes, some are free....plus google, "web design tutorials" I;m sure your get a bunch