Hi David,

Below is what I did but I wasn't a developer as I'd only been learning HTML & CSS for about 2 months. There's a book recommendation and a few links that might help you along the way.

I got interested in design when I realised I was useless and knew absolutely nothing about it or what looked nice. Here's is a look at my skills before I started learning (http://i.imgur.com/IbAs3YW.jpg), I thought that looked pretty sweet at the time and was quite proud of myself lol. I've got a Dribbble account now where my latest stuff is and I'm at around the 8 month mark of learning.

https://dribbble.com/mshanda

Firstly I recommend a book the called "The Non-Designers Design Book" by Robin Williams (not the actor), it teaches you about CRAP (contrast, repetition, alignment and proximity) which is brilliant starting point to grow from. It started me along to path to where I am at the moment. I believe if you want to get good at this you need have an active interest in it and immerse yourself into learning about design.

You can also learn the fundamentals of graphic design at places like Lynda.com and Tutsplus as well as countless books that are too numerous to list.

Once you have learnt some of the basics you should practice your skills regularly by creating fake website designs, I use Sketch but you can also use Fireworks, Illustrator or Photoshop (I recommend Sketch because of ease of use). A good way to practice is to find a design you like and try to recreate it in the program of your choice. If you do this enough you will probably learn skills along the way and start implementing them into your own designs without even realising it.

Lastly you should visit places like Dribbble and Behance everyday (the usepanda website shows new designs everyday from both places) and download the pictures of the designs you like and try to understand why they look good. Once you've trained your eye you'll look at design more critically and be able to notice little things that might irk you such as bad alignment etc. You should also learn about UX, I'm currently reading "Don't Make Me Think" by Steve Krug and it's brilliant. It's a book I've seen recommend by so many whenever somebody asks about UX.

I'll post a few other resources I've found along the way :- https://hackdesign.org/https://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-1-559d4e805cdahttps://medium.com/@erikdkennedy/7-rules-for-creating-gorgeous-ui-part-2-430de537ba96https://designschool.canva.com/blog/

I'm far from great and still have a lot to still learn but I hope some of the stuff I've written above is helpful to you. I believe anybody can improve loads if the put the time into learning and practising. I've come from being completely useless and now I'm actually getting some paid UI design work here and there.

Regards, Marcus