Ask HN: How to Learn Web Design?

Try designing to communicate

This book is some sort of opening to that world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don%27t_Make_Me_Think

If you want to jump ship later, the paradigm to design for other people will help in other disciplines e.g information architecture, API design

It might be

Ignore the "it might be" please

One of the best books I've read regarding UX. Don't sleep on it.

I was looking for a basic intro to design from a dev perspective (sounds similar to your use case) and found this: https://refactoringui.com/book/

I have the same problem. My designs look like crap. That's why I've decided to try this one here: https://scrimba.com/course/gdesignbootcamp

He talks about design principles, like spacing,colors,etc. - I haven't gotten around to take the course yet, but I'm hoping that this finally frees me from needing a UI designer.