Tell him to read everything here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ There are many great designers out there and unfortunately

Tell him to read everything here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ There are many great designers out there and unfortunately not many of them working for companies with large websites, so just going out and seeing the norm these days is not going to put him ahead of the curve. He should get familiar with Photoshop, etc. You could try Gimp, but that might scare him away. Photo/image editing is a critical piece to almost any web design at a higher level. He needs to understand CSS in and out and understand the ins and outs of when to use certain elements. Yes we're not in 1999, and you shouldn't use tables for layout unless you need a table (grid), but understand why, and understand how you wish you were using tables sometimes because CSS can be a pain. Check sites like this out: http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/perfect-3-column.htm http://matthewjamestaylor.com/blog/perfect-3-column.htm and get familiar with the various kinds of layouts that can be used. Understand lists, etc. Do a navigation bar with CSS hover effects, etc. Don't get caught up with dropdown and fly-out menus. Open up pages in Lynx. Think about accessibility (the deaf, the blind, the partially blind that up their font sizes, etc.), but don't get tied down to overly-accessible sites either. Know your audience. Javascript. JQuery. Love it. Learn it. Prototype. Understand it, get used to it being out there. YUI- same thing. Flash. Yes, you should learn about it along with HTML 5. Then also get into User Experience. Best practices, etc. Maybe try out a Ruby on Rails app and get used to designing and working with forms. Get familiar with the golden ratio. Park a domain for him and have him write a site to market his skills. Even if he is younger, it wouldn't hurt.