Hey, I've got a bit of a problem here. I'm a British national living in Belgium and unemployed just now. I came here to study franco-belgian comics and I'm quite proficient in illustration. But until I can get to work on a comic of my own, I need a job in the meantime. I'm also interested in being a web designer, but I don't know much about that. I tried applying for a 9-month course in web design here, but I was refused twice. Since there aren't many other local opportunities, I would like to move out and head back to Britain (for social reasons as well as career opportunities). So what I'm really looking for is a short-term course in web design or other new media forms somewhere in England. Googling is a nightmare because I keep getting unrelated hits. If you have any recommendations, please help me out.
I can't provide any info on course work, but webdesign and webprogramming are popular and a lot of tutorials and information can be found online for independent learning. http://www.w3schools.com/ is a good place to start. Some of the basics you should pick up are HTML (and really XHTML), CSS and Javascript and the HTML DOM. Getting more technical, learning how to do server side programming in something like PHP or ASP, as well as mySQL or SQL for database queries allows websites to have dynamic content. When you want to get fancy, AJAX is a newer, popular web technology that's responsible for all that sexy drag-n-drop action on facebook, netvibes, iGoogle, etc. Learning how to set up and customize various Content Management Systems (CMS's) wouldn't hurt, as that eliminates redundant reinvention of the wheel every time you want to create a new website.
Depending how much you know, learning all the ins and outs of web design like macabremouse mentioned is probably more than a 9 month venture. It's also possible the market is pretty satuarated. I don't know what it's like in the UK though really. Anyway, I'm sure the world's greatest artist shouldn't have too much trouble figuring it all out.
