How to become a web designer

Express the business side of your digital lives. Share your experiences and/or your comments regarding a business or organization.

No advertising.

Moderator: General Moderators

Post Reply
imstupid
Forum Commoner
Posts: 84
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:24 pm

How to become a web designer

Post by imstupid »

hey everybody-
just wanted to get your thoughts about skill level and how much is enough before you can get hired as a web designer out there in the professional world. Currently, I am my company's only web designer, however I tend to fix problems using trial and error and posting questions on this forum until my skill level improves.

My question is, do other full time web designers get away with this method on a daily basis, or did the rest of you wait until you were able to create a site start to finish with little to no outside help before you even started seeking out full time web positions? Just thinking about getting a new job, and I don't have enough freelance gigs to stay afloat financially.
User avatar
John Cartwright
Site Admin
Posts: 11470
Joined: Tue Dec 23, 2003 2:10 am
Location: Toronto
Contact:

Post by John Cartwright »

When I was a beginner I got a lot of friends/family to hire me for cheap so I could get a feel of the business. Right off the start I told them it was a learning process and they were cool with it. Its not like they are paying me 100USD an hour, more along the lines of 10. I can't really decide with myself if that was a good idea, or if I should have kept my head in the books and forums for longer, but either way I now have a good sense of the business side of things, as well as a pretty good understanding of PHP and other technologies. I know a lot of companies/individuals couldn't care less about the quality of the code and just want things done. They don't know about valid html, OOP programmer or whatever, or even benchmarking -- so I would suggest let them know the skill level of the developers are to be employed and start at an internship level at low end pay. Better yet, have potential employees partake in some open source project and get the hand of working in a team environment, etc etc. It all comes down to your own personal decision when you feel you are prepared enough.
timvw
DevNet Master
Posts: 4897
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 11:11 pm
Location: Leuven, Belgium

Post by timvw »

On the long term I think it's more important how fast you can learn/adopt a new technology than how well you know one right now...

Right now i think it's important that you don't accept jobs that you can't complete. It saves you and the client disappointments. On the other hand, you shouldn't be to defensive, and be ready to invest learning the things you don't know yet...
User avatar
pickle
Briney Mod
Posts: 6445
Joined: Mon Jan 19, 2004 6:11 pm
Location: 53.01N x 112.48W
Contact:

Post by pickle »

When to decide to put yourself on the market? Right away. I'd bet that you have some skill that can be applied to websites? Put that information in your CVS and only be willing to do websites that seem do-able to you. Certainly, you don't want to advertise that you are capable of doing websites that have more functionality than you can provide.

For myself, while I like to think I could build almost any type of website out there (given enought time), I don't advertise that I can - just that I can do simple websites, because I don't want the stress.
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
imstupid
Forum Commoner
Posts: 84
Joined: Fri Feb 18, 2005 1:24 pm

Post by imstupid »

thanks for all the advice. yeah, I've gotten a lot better, the only problem is I started on html, moved to flash, and now on to php. Understanding how php worked was a great day for me because I realized it opened up a lot of doors to create pretty dynamic sites. It's just getting the basics down perfectly that I guess I'm struggling on, and maybe that's why I question persuing full time web jobs. And you're right, I'm sure some companies don't care what the code looks like, double quotes vs. singles, returns, etc. (just examples), but just want the final product to work correctly. As far as freelance, I've pretty much done it all... flash based portfolio sites, basic html sites for free, and a completely back end only admin site using just php. Granted, that last one involved a lot of jack-n-cokes at 3 a.m. asking you guys for help, but it worked out in the end.

To comment on a earlier post from pickle, I forgot to mention the nice coloring and navbar simplicity. My freelance prices are pretty similar. Since I deal on such a small scale with artists/mom-and-pop type places, I don't think I'll get any freelance job anytime soon that will get me a ferrari.
User avatar
Burrito
Spockulator
Posts: 4715
Joined: Wed Feb 04, 2004 8:15 pm
Location: Eden, Utah

Post by Burrito »

I am a full-time web programmer/developer and I'm a complete hack. I somehow managed to fraudulently sell myself to this company and they've been paying me for almost a year now...

wait 'till they find out the truth 8O

:D :) :( :o 8O :? 8) :lol: :x :P :oops: :cry: :evil: :twisted: :roll: :wink: :!: :?: :idea: :arrow:

^^ every emoticon...wonder if that's ever been done before in a single post?

yes I'm feeling giddy tonight, yipee!
User avatar
Todd_Z
Forum Regular
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 9:53 pm
Location: U Michigan

Post by Todd_Z »

One comment about this => Php Proggers make much more money than web designers in my experience, but web designers have jobs available much more frequently it seems. Why? because web designers can make things look pretty.... If only there was a set of standards that php proggers with no designing skills / visual creativity could live by to make their crappy looking html output half decent looking. I would take "full site" freelance jobs, but I can't put together the damn layout! Its very frustrating.
theda
Forum Contributor
Posts: 332
Joined: Sat Feb 19, 2005 8:35 am
Location: USA

Post by theda »

My skills?

HTML 4.0
XHTML 1.0/1.1
CSS 1.0/2.0

Learning PHP
Learning XML

Despise JS, Java or anything made by Sun Microsystems (Solaris...)
User avatar
patrikG
DevNet Master
Posts: 4235
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2002 5:53 am
Location: Sussex, UK

Post by patrikG »

Don't throw yourself on the market as a freelancer immediately. Reason: you won't just have to program and do HTML-layouting, but also project-management, budgeting, and, most importantly, realistic(!) time management. If you can't give a client a deadline you can keep, you will soon have small or big nightmares.

Get hired by a company, do some low-end jobs, learn from others. It's the right time to be freelancing once you've got a very clear idea of how to do things.
User avatar
Todd_Z
Forum Regular
Posts: 708
Joined: Thu Nov 25, 2004 9:53 pm
Location: U Michigan

Post by Todd_Z »

Meh, its not soo bad - If you are smart about things, and keep a cool head you'll get the business end of it within a month if you work hard at it.
crazycaddy
Forum Commoner
Posts: 43
Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 6:59 am
Location: England, UK

Post by crazycaddy »

thats exactley what im doing now, im 15 years old working fulltime (summer) on £6 an hour. I'm currently working on an intranet which involves a lot of php as the company dont have a clue on how to edit a webpage. :roll: so the whole site is pratically editable through a web browser, and I must admit when I went into the company at the beginning of the summer, I only knew the basics of php, but due to certain circumstances (lack of mysql) I have begun to develop my php file managing skills quite well, also using this forum for help on things i'm completely stumped on(thankyou).

Now heres my advice, try and get a full time job at some point (doesnt have to be all year round) that involves coding php and you won't believe how much you progress. I think this is down to the fact that there is no distractions eg when im at home trying to learn php and get confused I simply result to playing games like CS.
Post Reply