The Finest Web Design Podcasts Web Designers Should Listen

Whether you are just beginning to learn web design or have built some aesthetically pleasing successful websites in the past, it's always crucial to keep your knowledge about the current web design trends, principles, and techniques up to date. For many web designers, the most intimidating part is starting the design process, which includes understanding the client's design requirements and end goals. This may involve different design elements, such as fonts, shapes, colors, typography, graphics, and other forms of media that are essential to creating a successful design composition.

The web design process can be ambiguous at times because even though you have all the information, requirements, and other user research data you need when designing a website, somewhere between creativity and principles, lies the problem-solving aspect. As a web designer, you don't only need to produce beautiful designs; you also need to create a functional website that meets the client's end goal. Even though you have all the technical aspects and skills to build a perfectly crafted website, if it's not something the client needs, your creative work can all be wasted.

Furthermore, how we code and style web pages that modern and old browsers interpret whenever a user visits a web page has evolved over the past 30 years. Although web publishing has become increasingly complex, the underlying website structure remains exceptionally simple. At some point in the past, web design only covered desktop layout designs, mostly boxy-table-ish design details that are being viewed on desktop and laptop computers. But with the progress of technology in the web design world, there are more layouts to consider and build for than desktop viewports, including mobile phones, tablets, and different sizes of other devices that can display the world wide web.

Fortunately, with the web design industry standards set in place, we can now build web pages for different modern and old browsers using standardized rules, principles, techniques, and tools that can help ease up the design and development process. These can help solve many problems or challenges for your website and improve how your website looks on different screen sizes of devices.

If you are distinct in pursuing web design or web development as a career, you'll need to bring up your skills to a professional level and keep yourself updated with modern trends and techniques. Web design trends keep on updating almost daily. What is working in the past might not work in the present. Practically every year, modern web technology tools and platforms are being introduced in the vast market that can be utilized to improve the design workflow.

In addition, popular search engines such as Google and Bing constantly caught on to this wave. Different developing factors and algorithms in web design likely contribute to a design's higher ranking. So knowing this stuff is critical in keeping up with the web industry competition.

Nonetheless, It should be no surprise that web professionals require a fair amount of environment and knowledge to keep their skills updated. So how do you keep yourself updated with the modern trends and information on the web ahead?

While you can join some web design and development forums and communities online and interact with other developers (which is the conventional and old way of doing it), one of the best modern ways to keep up with the web design industry in your own phase is through a web design podcast.

Podcasting is one of the most innovative and disruptive technologies that have arisen online over the last few years. It allows you to listen to the topics and subjects you want to hear, whenever or wherever you want. At some level, podcasting is similar to a web blog which is a way of online publishing and communication but in the form of audio. Technically, a podcast involves the process of recording, live broadcasting, and distributing encoded multimedia content through the power of RSS 2.0, a protocol used to specify a podcast feed that usually involves MP3 files to subscribers of a specific brand on a platform.

Podcasting is exciting to listen to because anyone can speak, share knowledge, pitch tools, and products, and express themselves in formal or informal ways. Like any progressive technology, podcasting has become flexible in such a way that it's no longer limited to audio but can also be done and distributed in video format. Podcasts can also be downloaded automatically to your computer or mobile phone, providing a way to listen to or watch content offline if you are not connected to the internet.

Web design podcasts are an engaging way to learn, enjoy, and get updated with the recent buzzwords of the world wide web. It is a great communication medium for the members of the web design community to share principles, good practices, and new tools and express complex topics that currently exist in the competitive web design and development industry.

Below are some key takeaways you can get from listening to a web design podcast:

• Dealing with client or project requirements.
• Modern techniques in responsive web design.
• Best tools, frameworks, and technology.
• Web standards and specifications.
• Methods of optimizing websites.
• Browser and design testing.
• Best UI and UX Practices.
• Design hacks and helpful workflows.
• Using the right tools and solutions for a particular situation.
• Discovering code editors and extensions.
• Ideology and insights related to web design.
• Career tips and soft-skills improvement.

Numerous web design podcasts can be found on the internet. But finding the best podcasts for web design that are aligned with your goals is not an easy task. The following is the list of some of the best of the best podcast that can inspire and keep you updated in the industry.

It is one of the best web design podcasts hosted by Anna Debenham (@anna_debenham) and Brad Frost. This podcast aims to discuss different web design topics, including style guides, effective interface systems, and pattern libraries. A web design style guide, sometimes called a templated style guide, is an element of web design wherein a collection of resources, including fonts, colors, icons, media, graphics, and general rules, are organized to be used for the client or project's brand. During the design process, these style guides can be referenced and followed as a rule or format for adhesive website composition.

Anna and Brad love to discourse these topics in their podcast in a fresh and engaging way. The podcast broadly delivers the topics, accompanied by side notes as the discussion goes deeper into the subject. Intended for passionate web designers and UI/UX learners who wants to improve their design knowledge and upgrade their skills to a higher level, the Style Guide Podcast podcast will help you grow in your career. There are plenty of episodes to exploring from Season 1 to Season 2 with different web designer/frontend developer guest speakers in the industry, which you can listen to whenever and however you like.

The Web Ahead podcast explores the progress of technological advancement and how it affects other technologies, such as web design and development, and the future of the web. Plenty of web technologies have gone through significant changes in the past years, including web architecture, CSS3 specifications, and responsive design. These topics are included in the discussion of The Web Ahead podcast.

Hosted by Jen Simmons (@jensimmons), The Web Ahead is an award winning podcast which won the 2015 Net Awards "Podcast of the Year" which was conferred by Net Magazine. The podcast aims to share rational information about the different new technologies, web design, applications, and the future of the world wide web. Various industry experts and guest joins the conversation on each episode to share their opinions and views on each subject.

Syntax is yet another great podcast for web designers and developers. It is hosted by Web Bos (@wesbos) and Scott Tolinski (@stolinski). The Syntax podcast covers various web design and development topics, including CSS3, JavaScript Frameworks, Pre-processors, Git, API, and more.

Wes and Scott also discuss how to build web design and development stuff with extra tips and side notes as they go along with the discussion. They also discuss fundamental web framework topics such as Typescript and Gatsby JS. The best thing about their podcast is that they took things nice and easy to make each topic as engaging as possible. The Syntax podcast is very beneficial if you're keen to stay up-to-date with the latest web technologies. Check out the new episodes on their website.

The Responsive Web Design Podcast is a web design-focused podcast co-hosted by Karen McGrane (@karenmcgrane) and Ethan Marcotte (@beep). For each episode, Karen and Ethan discourse with web design experts who contributed to the ideology and composition of the famous "responsive web design" approach, which is a design practice that utilizes flexible grids and layouts, fluid images, and the use of CSS media queries to control the behavior of specific elements for every available viewport. This concept was introduced by one of the hosts himself - Ethan Marcotte, when he introduced the idea of modern responsive layouts in his article entitled Responsive Web Design, A List Apart.

The Responsive Web Design Podcast officially ended in March 2018 with 57 episodes but is still packed with insightful and helpful information about the discipline of modern responsive web design architecture. Additionally, Karen and Ethan also discourse on web technologies, branding, and design process topics which is beneficial for those who want a mix of web development discussion outside the responsive web design niche.

Resourceful Designer is a graphic and web design podcast hosted by Mark Des Cotes (@MarkDesCotes). It covers various topics, from graphic design tips and resources to web design guides and tools. Mark Des Cotes loves to share his knowledge about streamlining graphic and web design businesses and how you can beat the competition with a fresh creative perspective.

Resourceful Designer is a podcast intended for beginner graphic and web designers and to help freelancers and business owners who want to step into their individual and business careers. Whether you're looking to learn graphic and web design or want to stay up to date on the latest design trends, Resourceful Designer is one of the best podcasts you need to listen to.

Developer Tea is yet another best podcast online hosted by Jonathan Cutrell (@JCutrell). Developer Tea consists of a short yet informative podcast with around 10 to 30 minutes duration per episode that covers a lot of insights on both specific and broad web design and development topics, including programming-specific subjects, production deployment, proper developer's mindset, good coding practices, and problem-solving discourse. Even though each episode is short, the amount of knowledge and insights you will learn is surely worth it.

If you are looking for a variety of web design podcasts, then the Motion and Meaning podcast is the right one for you. Hosted by Val Head (@vlh) and Cennydd Bowles (@Cennydd) explores the world of web design with the involvement of movement and dynamic design subjects to improve the UI and UX aspect of a website.

Motion and Meaning podcast covers several unique topics, including web design animation and tools, common design flows, helpful solutions to simple design problems, and progressive enhancement. If you are looking to upgrade your web design skills and build web products with promotional web animation that shows off something appealing and engaging, then the Motion and Meaning podcast is an excellent podcast to listen to.

Design Matters podcast is one of the internet's oldest and very first podcasts about design and vast creative culture subjects, running since 2005. Hosted and founded by Debbie Millman (@debbiemillman) and co-hosted by Malcolm Gladwell (@Gladwell) and Austin Kleon (@austinkleon) with the other guest speakers, it focuses on creative principles, design insights, and how design can impact different aspects of society and business. Design Matters showcases various discourses with designers, writers, musicians, and curators, among other guests contributing to a wide range of unique design topics.

Front End Happy Hour podcast showcases different software engineering subject conversations related to web design, web development, and other web technologies. It is hosted by several panelists from Silicon Valley companies such as Netflix, Twitch, Evernote, Atlassian, and LinkedIn, where they discuss various engineering topics together over drinks. Some subjects often discussed are frontend development, JavaScript frameworks, web design, productivity tips, career development, and more.

Each episode is broken down into 45 to 60 minutes to make each topic easy to digest and make the conversation as engaging and exciting as possible. New episodes are released every one to two weeks.

UX Cake is a unique podcast focusing on designer's soft-skills improvement instead of diving deep into web design and development fundamental discussions. It is hosted by Leigh Allen-Arredondo (@leigharredondo), this podcast discourses several topics about UX work and career development, including insights, tips, good practices, workflow improvement, and more.

Listening to web design podcasts will never disappoint you if you are a serious beginner or an intermediate web designer who wants to get updated with the latest design trends and technologies. Hearing different perspectives and ideologies from different tech speakers will enable you to expand your knowledge, gain new skills and motivate you in your career path.