If you're planning on becoming a professional web designer there are some things you need, such as a computer, monitor and software. The equipment listed on this page is the minimum needed to get started as a web designer, along with some books that will help you build your skills and your business.
If you would rather see a Windows setup, I have that as well.
Apple Macbook
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A thin and light laptop is one of the first things you should get to do web design work. If you get nothing else, you should get this. Don’t skimp on your laptop, you want one that will last and present a professional appearance. The Apple MacBook offers a good Macintosh computer for not very much money.
Hanns-G Hi-221DPB 22-inch
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You may think that because you have a laptop, you don’t need a monitor, and technically you don’t. But getting an external monitor gives you a lot more space to design your pages when in your office. You can connect your laptop to this monitor in a dual-screen setup and get even more bang for your buck. If the 22-inch monitor is too large or expensive, you should look at a 19-inch monitor, but I wouldn’t recommend going smaller than that. You can also look at 24-inch and 26-inch monitors. I don’t recommend getting a larger monitor until you’ve bought the rest of your setup. You may need a mini-display port to DVI adapter to get this monitor to work with a Macbook.
Wacom Bamboo Tablet
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When I first got a tablet, I thought I would use it only for drawing on the computer. But I was surprised at how useful it was for doing web design work. It works well to manipulate designs and as a mouse. I prefer using the tablet and pen to my laptop trackpad. There are many sizes of tablet, the 4.9” x 3.4” model is small but inexpensive.
CanoScan LiDE Flatbed Scanner
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Scanners are a useful tool for web designers because you can use them for more than just getting printed photos onto the web. I have scanned all types of things for web backgrounds, textures, and even icons. This is an inexpensive flatbed scanner that scans well above the required DPI for web design work.
Canon PowerShot
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A good, inexpensive digital camera can be invaluable when working as a web designer. It can be very impressive to a client if the design proposal you submit uses a photo of their exact building. The easiest way to do that is to take the photo yourself with the camera in your pocket. This camera is small, but has a lot of power (10 megapixels) and comes in several colors.
Dreamweaver
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Dreamweaver is one of the best web editors available. While it's certainly possible to create professional-grade web pages with other web editors, most professional web designers use Dreamweaver because of the many features it has to help manage and maintain corporate websites.
Photoshop
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The other software that many beginners forget about or skimp on is graphics editing software. But buying a package like Photoshop will serve you for many many years without needing to upgrade.
Flash
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Many web designers rely on Flash to create multimedia and dynamic websites. If these are the types of sites you want to build then you’ll need a copy of the software that creates it.
Learning Web Design by Jennifer Niederst
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This great book will take you through HTML and all the elements of web design. It’s a beginners guide, but it’s great for non-beginners as well. It covers many elements of web design, from HTML, to graphics, to layout, and more.
HTML Pocket Reference
This is a very small book, but it will get you out of jams where other larger books would fail.
