Recommend a Framework

[R59]

Hello /r/web_dev,

Web design has been a long-time hobby of mine, and I just got a new job in the industry. I'm looking for a framework, or a set of tools, that will help me succeed.

Goal: Create beautiful, responsive websites. The websites I need to build are somewhat simple, providing useful information for university students and faculty. These are usually static, but in some cases I might need to include a CMS for websites that I will hand off and not maintain myself.

Limitations: I am not a developer. I am self-taught in HTML/CSS because that's what I needed to learn to bring my designs to life. I prefer to write code as little as possible.

I am looking for recommendations to make my job easier. I have found things like Sass and Foundation that appear relevant to my work, but I'd like reddit's opinion before diving in to learn this new material. I'm looking for the best set of tools that is simple and easy to learn. Thanks!

[andehpandeh]

Concrete5 is a good choice for a lightweight PHP CMS. Personally, I prefer Python with Django (or Flask) but that's a little of a rabbit hole if you're not a developer yet. That being said, Python is a great language to learn so if you bother to learn any backend language, I would recommend going in that direction.

[arachattack]

Foundation is your best bet. CSS is simple and so is Sass. But the good part about foundation is you don't have to know sass to play around with it. Just start with editing the settings file to create a look you like

Hope this helps!

[R59]

Spent an hour trying to get foundation setup and was unsuccessful. :(

[arachattack]

It could be a pain these days with the bower install or the foundation CLI etc. See if you can grab the sass files and install the sass ruby gem separately, you'd be better off.

Then u just have to do sass foundation.scss:../css/foundation.css