Web Design Online Resources
Go to google.com and type out a search for web design resources. With that, you will get millions of results (75,700,000 as of the writing of this article). That is a lot of results to look through to find what will be useful. I have my personal list of where I like to go when I would like some help if I get stuck on something. I have my favorites for each aspect of the design process from CSS to Javascript.
On to the List
If you are just beginning in web design, I believe it would be beneficial to start out by going to w3schools.com. There you can go through all their tutorials which are relevant to what you wish to learn. This will give you a good idea of the basics, and it is a good start. They also have some examples you can try. Also, there is an online editor where you can make changes to the HTML or CSS and see right there how it will come out.
For CSS help I am partial to welovecss.com. The Web Developer’s Handbook is another great resource for CSS. This is a forum, but it has links to the right resources for tutorials.
For PHP/MySQL help I like to go to The Developer’s Network forums. Also, phpbuilder.com is a good site for tutorials on PHP/MySQL scripting.
For help with javascript, I go to javaScriptKit.com. These are my favorite technologies for web design.
Freelance Sites
As far as finding web design work online there are quite a few sites you can look at. Guru.com and Freelancer.com are good sites to find web design gigs. Guru and Freelancer both are bids based sites where you place a bid on what you want for a certain job. From there the person that has the listing picks based on your criteria which they would like to do the work for them. Craigslist is another decent site for finding work. However, there are a lot of people that post ads to have a website built that don’t want to pay what the work is worth.
Other Sites
CSS Zen Garden is a very helpful site to check out some of the nice things you can do with CSS. About.com is another good site to check out for any help you need whether its web-design related or not.
I have been working with web design for over ten years, and in my experience, it is always good to have some good online resources. I certainly hope this helps you out in your search for useful resources in the field of web design.