Hello,
I was wondering if anyone had some advice on the best way to learn Webflow to a proficient level? I have been using Webflow for most of 2023 and have learned a decent amount through tutorials and general practising, but past this I have never had any training and do not possess any website development experience.
Do you think going through a whole Webflow University course or a separate paid course would be most beneficial? Or perhaps learning more of the basics like HTML and CSS?
Open to any suggestions!
Thanks 
Having a basic understanding of HTML, CSS and later JS is beneficial if not crucial to be able create website. Webflow courses are only for learning this platform but not code of web development. There is a hundreds of free courses on web in written or video form you can take.
Webflow is nothing but UI that will allow you to build very basic websites just with mouse clicking. For more than basic you will have use custom code ant here why education become helpful. in both cases you should know how things works and use this knowledge in WF.
m2c
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Once you have a solid foundation in Webflow, start extending it in the directions that interest you and in the areas your clients need. That might be learning GSAP or 3D modeling, or different ways to embed, prepare and utilize video. Or it might be lotties or other After Effects work.
You could also go down the development path… JS, TS, React, Github, systems integration, reverse proxies.
It all depends on what you want to build. If you’re into the design route, I’d watch everything by Timothy Ricks and a few other solid youtubers. If you want to learn dev, you can find good courses even on Udemy, and free ones online.
Either way, try to find a mentor you can hire. It will save you years of bad technique. Then as soon as you can, apprentice yourself into an agency where you can deliver value. Do a lot of personal projects, some free non-profit sites. etc. These are good places to polish up your skills and build out your portfolio.
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Thank you both @Stan & @memetican , that’s really helpful and I am excited to start exploring your suggested areas. In relation to Webflow training specifically, do you have any suggestions for the best place to start here?
If you willing to learn only Webflow you can as we have mentioned finish all courses on WFU. If you willing to learn why they decided to do what they do in WFU you can learn HTML and CSS to understand it.
You will need code editor like eg. VS Code and start learning by doing. As mentioned there is many free sources but I can’t say which is great, just pick one and if you do not like how teacher describe things take another.
There is many places beside YT full of great tutorials eg. “Freecodecamp” (Dave Gray has some tutorials for beginners HTML, CSS, JS …) , “Codeacademy” _(Free and Paid), UDEMY (Paid - offers $10-15 in certain days )
From CSS you will need to have good understanding about how to work with padding, margin and great understanding of positioning, Flex and CSS Grid. Once you have these basics you will be able to get back to WF and apply your knowledge there by discovering UI. What you do not find in UI you will need write with custom code.
Be aware that WF is ignoring standards and use its own naming for some properties and also CSS Grid has some different system of settings than is CSS standard. But you will find it your self and use it the WF way.
You can also get some knowledge about naming standards when it comes to CSS naming conventions and learn some principles of one you would like. Most common are BEM and SMACSS but there is more. You can just adjust and create your own system but principles are identical.
I will suggest you will avoid FS Client first model as it may have sense to use it for Finsweet ( not sure about it ) but IMO it is not optimal to use for single developer (if ever) as its principles doesn’t make sense to me but you may try it and you may find it useful.
good source of content can be "
- dev.to
- javapoint (maybe)
- codrops - this can be helpful (CSS Entries | Codrops)
- codyhouse (experiments & CSS Nudgets)
- Smashing magazine (when you will pass basics)
and zillion other sources
This is enough for frontend beginner to start with but you will need a much more like to have a good understanding of design patterns principles (what and why humans perceive what they see), colours meaning, how to set colour palette for client, what is a branding, image compressions etc. etc.
Good luck on your journey
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Thank you so much! This is so so helpful. One quick question - you mention that I will need a code editor, is this essential to learn in order to understand Webflow comprehensively? Thanks!
Understand WF and understand how to build website are two completely different things.
As WF is nothing but UI that allows you to create and modify elements, the WF backend converts your elements into code. Thats it.
Code editor you will need only if you would like to understand how things works. As I have mentioned if you do not want to understand and build something with WF is up to you.
So if you would like to get most of from WF (as it offers very basic tooling) you should understand how things works by coding and after bring your knowledge into “no-code” realm. I have already mentioned that WF is only layer above code to allows you use mouse instead keyboard. All these curses are about coding and WFU is only about how to work with FW.
So it is absolutely on you which way you will go.
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got it - thank you so much for all of the advice
Ahh cheers good post