Learn to Design Beautiful
and Simple Websites
Discover all the secrets and techniques for designing professional looking websites in a simple, visual, and practical way … exactly how learning design should be.
Have you ever wondered how other designers work? If only you could look into a professional designer’s mind while working on the project and get the best out of his/her experience, design decisions, and work process. Wouldn’t that be great?
That’s exactly what this handbook is all about. It’s a complete guide to designing simple and beautiful websites from the initial ideas to the final Photoshop project files.
I’ll show you how I design a sample website project step-by-step, while explaining my every move and backing it all up with a solid design theory on the three fundamental ingredients of a good design: typography, colors, and layout.
Thanks to the hands-on tutorial, you can start putting your new skills to work right away and learn by working on your own project at the same time. You’ll end the ebook with a complete project that you designed yourself. Awesome, right?
Learn new design skills that will help you:
- Impress new potential customers with your designs
- Be more creative with a new design process
- Increase the value of your work and charge more
- Improve your workflow and be more efficient
- Get more approvals on your design concepts
- Be a rockstar designer!
“The Essential Web Design Handbook is full of insights, processes and overall, a great way to be a better web designer! The best thing, is that the book might be relevant for lots of year.”
~ Sergio Sala
What’s inside
Design theory and step-by-step tutorials, all in one place.
Chapter 1: Introduction
A short introductory chapter on what the whole ebook is about, who this ebook is for, and what you need to start designing websites.
Chapter 2: Getting Started
You’ll learn about the design process, simple project planning, project management, and sitemaps. Everything you need to get started with your design project.
Chapter 3: Ideas and Inspiration
It’s all about creativity, sketching your ideas, and looking for inspiration. In the practice part, you’ll be challenged to start your project off by drawing your initial design ideas.
Chapter 4: Design Environment
How to organize your project files, what the other design software options are, and how to set up Photoshop for designing websites. In the practice part, you’ll learn how to prepare a PSD file for the future design mockup.
Chapter 5: Typography
This chapter features everything you should know about web typography, font classification, pairing fonts, text styling techniques, hierarchy, and reading experience. In the practice part, you will get to design the web typography style guide for your own project.
Chapter 6: Colors
You’ll learn about color theory, the color wheel, color schemes, and color psychology. In the practice part, I’ll show you how to choose colors and create the color scheme for your design project.
Chapter 7: Wireframes and Layout
First, you’ll learn about wireframes, website layout, balance, alignment, white space, and grid layouts. In the practice part, you’ll know how to plan layouts and design your own wireframes for the project.
Chapter 8: Putting It All Together
Here we’ll put all the pieces of the puzzle together and design the final page mockups. I’ll show you how to use the previously designed elements and create a beautiful design project that is ready to send to a client.
Chapter 9: Resources and Further Reading
Do you want to learn even more? I selected the best articles, books, and resources to that end. You can come back any time and broaden your design knowledge.
“The Essential Web Design Handbook is the next best thing to looking over the shoulder of this design master and watching him work.”
~ Emily White
Step-by-step tutorials show you how the design project is made:
Complete website design project files that you can look into and learn from:
“Rafal is one of the best design communicators I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. His advice is practical, actionable and accessible to anyone no matter where they are in their professional design journey.”
~ Dustin W. Stout
Get The Ebook Sample
Take a look inside the ebook. Enter your email address to get a sample PDF with a full first introductory chapter and 12+ random pages.
What People Are Saying
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The Essential Web Design Handbook is the next best thing to looking over the shoulder of this design master and watching him work. Rafal takes you through his entire design process from inspiration to application. I walked away from this book with so many practical ideas and tips that I will be incorporating into my own design process–especially his typography style guide! I’m confident that what I’ve learned will not only expedite my work, but help me produce more effective and cohesive website designs.
Emily White emilywhitedesigns.com
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I followed all the steps presented in the ebook and I was amazed how quickly I could improve the quality of my design. It took just a few days to change my entire design process! Now I’m much more confident about my work and can’t wait to show off my skills in the next design project!
Bartek Kregiel organicwpshop.com
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As a seasoned design professional and teacher, I can say that Rafal is one of the best design communicators I’ve had the pleasure of knowing. His advice is practical, actionable and accessible to anyone no matter where they are in their professional design journey.
Dustin W. Stout dustn.tv
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It’s often the case that people who are tremendously skilled in a certain area – such as design – can’t teach it. Rafal Tomal defies that notion with his new book. In “The Essential Web Design Handbook,” Rafal takes you through his process, step by step, for designing a well-formed site. Each area covered has been given an equal amount of careful consideration as the others, which means that you’ll get a balanced, thorough understanding of the all of the steps required to design a beautiful website. I found the section on Typography to be excellent, particularly the rules for typographic hierarchy, how to choose leading and font sizes and how to pick font combinations. Thank you, Rafal! It was totally worth the wait!”
Pam Hirsch pamelahirsch.com
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I’ve been a fan of Rafal’s work for quite some time, so when he released The Essential Web Design Handbook I didn’t think twice about buying it. After reading it, I can say it was a great decision! As a Web Developer that also Designs, I’ve been wanting to take my design skills to the next level. This book will help me do that. It’s full of amazing information and detail, an A to Z playbook of Webdesign. The Essential Web Design Handbook will change the way I design, and I’m confident it will take my business to the next level.
Tony Eppright alphablossom.com
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I’ve been into websites since 1997, first as a writer, then as a developer. But although I’ve always had an appreciation for design, I’ve never felt like I could really contribute much to that part of the process myself. Despite admiring others – like Rafal – consistently putting out great work, I just could never seem to ‘get it’ myself. So when I heard Rafal was putting out a book on design, of course, I couldn’t wait. But worth the wait it certainly was. In a world saturated with ‘me too’ ebooks and poorly put together info products, Rafal’s book is the real deal. Already it’s given me a clearer understanding of both the philosophy and the process behind great design. More than that though, I now have the confidence to explore more and experiment myself and for that I am very grateful. Go Rafal!
Nick Davis nickdavis.me
About the Author
Featured on:
My name is Rafal Tomal and I’m the Lead Designer at the leading content marketing software company, Rainmaker Digital.
I’ve been designing websites for over 12 years and worked on projects for many successful entrepreneurs and bloggers.
I got a lot of experience while working on various design projects for both small and big companies in the USA and Europe.
Through all of these years, I’ve created my own designing process that makes me more creative and efficient, as well as helps me get quicker approvals from clients on my design concepts.
Teaching design quickly became my new passion. I love sharing my knowledge and helping other designers improve their skills.
It’s your turn now! Start making your own designer’s story.
Get the ebook here…
“I bought Rafal Tomal’s eBook, it is an eye opener for a non-designer like me, worth 20x what I paid for it!”
~ Rusty Eddy
Get The Essential
Web Design Handbook
No risk. 14 days money back guaranteed.
Ebook + Project Files
Get the complete package and learn from a real design project.
- Over 200 pages of PDF on design theory and step-by-step practice tutorials
- 5 free web design tools available in the Designers Area
- 4 complete page mockups in Photoshop (PSD files)
- 4 wireframes in Photoshop (PSD files)
- Typography style guide and color palette in Photoshop (PSD files)
- 14 days money back guarantee
Ebook only
A more affordable option if you want just the ebook.
- Over 200 pages of PDF on design theory and step-by-step practice tutorials
- 5 free web design tools available in the Designers Area
- 14 days money back guarantee
Frequently Asked Questions
How does the money back guarantee work?
If you’re not fully satisfied, I’m not satisfied. Use my contact page to send me an email and I’ll refund your money. It’s that simple.
What payment options do you accept?
I accept PayPal and all major credit cards.
How do I get the ebook after I purchase it?
Right after the purchase you’ll be redirected to the Designers Area of my website, where you can access all the files you’ve purchased and all the free design tools. You can come back anytime to the Designers Area and log in using your login and password created during the buying process.
What’s the ebook format?
The ebook is in a PDF format. PDFs can be easily opened from almost any device. I also want you to have a great experience while reading the ebook and make sure the design layout is static no matter what screen or software you use.
Do I need to know Photoshop?
The entire practice part of the ebook is based on using Adobe Photoshop. I would recommend that you know some basics. If you’ve never used Photoshop before, you can still learn from the design theory part, and many designing techniques I show in the practice part can actually be used independently from the software.
What Photoshop version should I use?
I would recommend to have at least Photoshop CS6. That’s the latest version where paragraph and character styles were introduced and they’re very useful. However, you can easily follow all the screenshots in the ebook even if your Photoshop is CS4. The interface hasn’t changed that much.
Will I learn how to code websites as well?
No. This guide is from the initial idea to the final Photoshop files only. So, it’s all about the design. Coding websites is a whole new subject.