Learn Eleventy From Scratch

This content is likely out of date

The content of this course was written in May 2020, so parts will be outdated. There’s no immediate plan to do a full update, but this course is now open source, so if you see an issue, please raise an issue.

Head over to the project and follow the contribution guide if you would like to help.

In this Eleventy (opens new window) course, we go from a completely empty directory to a full-blown marketing site for a design agency, and along the way, we dive really deep into Eleventy and front-end development best practices.

Over the course of 31 written lessons, split over 4 modules, you will learn core Eleventy platform knowledge—step-by-step—to build out a real-world project. The linear project structure helps your learning because you’re working with a real context, rather than foo bar or fizzbuzz. This also means you’ll actually achieve something at the end that you can build on, too!

Check out what you’ll build

It’s not just a course about Eleventy, either. We’re learning how to build a fast, lightweight website that’s progressively enhanced with the user at the forefront. You’re going to learn some solid HTML, CSS and accessibility best practices just by completing this course.

Finally—if that wasn’t enough to convince your already—you’ll learn about design implementation, details and refinement to achieve a solid, professional end-product.

You don’t need to be an experienced developer to take this course. All you need is basic HTML and CSS skills, with some optional JavaScript skills.

Everything is explained, in detail, in a friendly, conversational manner, and if you get stuck in any of the lessons, you can download the project files, so you’ll have no blockers and you’ll maintain your momentum. Because it’s a written course, it’s available offline by default too.

Now is the time to get into the Jamstack (opens new window), with static site generators. By taking this course, you’re going to get a solid head-start in that.

About your instructor

Your instructor for Learn Eleventy From Scratch is me, Andy Bell—a freelance designer and front-end developer—based in the UK. I have worked in the design and web industries for well over a decade and in that time, I have worked with some of the largest organisations in the world, like Google, Harley-Davidson, BSkyB, Unilever, Oracle, Capita, Vice Media and the NHS.

Over these years, I have worked on both extremely large projects for huge organisations and tiny projects for small startups. This has given me a lot of experience over a large variety of project types. It also means I’ve worked with a lot of teams in various sizes—each with their own constraints and goals. These projects vary between design systems, creative campaign work and good ol’ websites.

I mostly specialise in CSS—whether that is writing a course for Google (opens new window), co-authoring a book on CSS layout (opens new window), or creating a methodology to help people write better CSS (opens new window). Most of my client work involves me applying this experience to help teams write better CSS—often by helping them create a design system.

You can read more about me over on my personal blog (opens new window), or catch up with me on Twitter (opens new window), CodePen (opens new window) or Github (opens new window).