Background info:
I’ve been living overseas for 10+ years in South Korea and recently made a decision to repatriate three years from now. One thing i need to do is get myself a new career to be able to generate income once I move back to Canada.
For the last 3 years I’ve really enjoyed hacking away at my sites and helping friends and colleagues start blogs or moodle sites. However, despite what my friends think, I am really a hack who only knows enough to be dangerous. The thing is i really enjoy working on web sites and would like to transition into web design full time.
Clearly I’ll need to build a portfolio of sites. I’m willing to put the time into that. More importantly however is developing my skill set and qualifications. I recently ordered CSS Mastery and will be going through that as soon as the book arrives. What I would like to do is take some courses to get a focused approach to improving my skills. Ideally these courses would be offered online and be a recognized qualification in the industry when looking for work (assuming I don’t start my own design company).
Does anyone have suggestions for me? courses, books, approach to learning, personal anecdotes and/or professional advice would all be greatly appreciated.
I share you sentiments. I have been teaching myself for a few years.. The problem has been not having a focused direction.. The question I’ve had to answer myself has been whether I want to be a “designer” or a “developer” or perhaps both.. I read books on PHP, Javascript, XHTML, Flash, and on and on.. How much of that is really sinking in?
How realistic is it for me to be both within a short amount of time? Fact is that there are so many talented designers and developer in the web who are half my age (I’m a little over 1/2 a century old). At my age chances of being hired by a design or/and developing company are next to none..So freelancing or doing my own thing are about my only choices.
I think about Jesse of 31 Three, the young man who designed this site for EE.. Here’s what his site has on his home page,
As a developer, you’re an extremely creative individual. Getting your websites to behave in Internet Explorer is proof enough… you are creative. Even so, you may not have the time or know-how needed to get the design of your site looking as clean as your code. That’s OK. I take design as seriously as you take your markup. Have a look around, and get in touch if you think we’d work well together.
So, want to be designer? A developer? Both? What are your strengths?
I have a few thoughts. First don’t bother with the classes you mentioned. If you really want to do this then do it. Get online and study what design works and what doesnt. Make sure to get the tools of the trade and not try to skimp. Usually this means paying several thousand dollars for software and hardware(if you dont already have it). You can really only go so far without the right tools. Go to sites like CSS Remix and study what they do from a code and from a design perspective. Meanwhile get some clients. Charge as little as possible for the first 6 websites that you do. Up your price after 8 clients and when you tart to feel like they are rolling in keep raising your prices till you are comfortable with them. I started out charging 500$ for brochure type sites with a contact form. The sites were developed using tables. I used CSS to style the tables but they were tables. Having some clients allowed me to build my portfolio and my skillset while still paying the bills. Now almost 2 years later (I have previous experience as a gov’t contractor but not in web design) I have too many people calling me and usually start my sites at 2k for the same brochure type site. But that is because my skillset and my demand has increased.
Anyway, I didnt take any classes. I studied some sites online. Got a few books that mostly gathered dust and just kept at it. You can too.
But, and this is a big one, if you have no ability to sell or lack personal interaction skills then you have no business going freelance. You’ll starve. You need to be able to go out and mingle and educate people on why you are their best choice.
Oh… and lesson #1 if you do do this… get a contract. Even if they are a friend… get a contract
There are some great options these days. I still freelance and work from home myself, but I’m back at Uni doing a Masters in Animation now so that’s really my focus for my career path. In saying that - at least you’re posting on the right forums!
I’ve tried so many CMS’s over the years to use as a development platform and it’s been a frustrating experience. EE on the other hand breathes some fresh air into the situation. I call myself a webdeveloper, but in saying that I’m not a competent programmer - and doubt I ever will be. Most of my sites over the years have involved hours of gooogling to sort out just the right solution and hack it altogether.
EE, albeit for a couple of small nagging issues (this will no doubt disappear at some stage: when ecommerce module is launched and I still think there could be some work on the WYSIWYG/Image Manupulation for non-tech clients - but thats another thread!) is the ideal platform for the freelance webdeveloper.
There is an extremely active community, loads of plugins and modules, lots of support and the most flexabile templating system you’ve ever used.
I to like to focus on the design side, but once that image has been approved splicing it up and templating it into EE isn’t must of a task (granted you are comfortable with css/xhtml). There are also splicing services that take your beautiful PSD file and slice it up into a template which you then can integrated into your EE template.
This whole process allows you to focus on your designs while still feeling comfortable in offering a holistic approach to designing AND delivering a website to the client. I’m sure all my ASP.net, php, JS books are going to be collecting some dust for some time to come.
Bottom line is to get extremely comfortable with XHTML/CSS (which is pretty darn easy to be honest) and then with EE you’re free to create and deliver close to anything you can imagine.
My guess is a lot of web professionals are self taught, no shame in that
I believe colleges and universities have a hard time keeping up with the speed at which everything evolves anyway.
Anyway, my tip: have a look at O’Reilly Schools.
Good luck, you already have the right attitude and a desire to learn and do, that’s already half the battle won!
I’m considering taking the SQL for database programming course but I haven’t actually done any of the courses.
Just wanted to give the link because, given the general quality of the O’Reilly books I’m sure these courses are up to scratch. Plus you’ll receive a certificate at the end , which always looks good on your CV
My guess is a lot of web professionals are self taught, no shame in that
I believe colleges and universities have a hard time keeping up with the speed at which everything evolves anyway.
Anyway, my tip: have a look at O’Reilly Schools.
Good luck, you already have the right attitude and a desire to learn and do, that’s already half the battle won!
Thanks for the link - that looks pretty interesting. My current skills are all self taught and I feel pretty good about that, but I want to fill in the gaps and go pro. Hopefully the course you linked to or another will help me on my way.
I agree that doing a web design course isn’t necessary, but if you find the right course it can really help. I spent a couple of years teaching myself web design before making the decision to go back to college full-time last year. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done. It was a huge commitment for me as the course was 11 months of full-time study, but it was so wonderful to be able to throw myself into learning without worrying about work or clients or the future.
If you do consider doing a course, you need to choose carefully. I know people who’ve done web design courses and learnt almost nothing of value. The course I took was exceptional in a few regards:
1) It was very, very practical. We learnt real-world skills instead of wasting time on a load of theory that would have been of less value. Over the year we constructed 6 websites from scratch, include a basic eCommerce site.
2) There was a huge focus on web standards and accessibility. From the world go we were coding in XHTML Strict and all our class projects had to validate and meet the minimum accessibility guidelines.
3) We learnt some basic php/mysql programming, but the focus was on understanding the concepts and being able to use other people’s software (like EE) rather than actually writing massive scripts ourselves.
If you’re looking into books, I recommend the Sitepoint ones. I own several and they’re very practical and easy to follow.
Also, like someone above said, look to the numerous CSS galleries for inspiration and do lots of Photoshop tutorials (or tutorials for whatever graphics program you use). Books and courses will only teach you so much - everything else is practice and repetition!
Ack, my thread has been hijacked by a quicktime debate.
for windows users download quicktime alternative to avoid the evilness that is quicktime/apple
See, this video format debate is par the course for pro web development. You just can’t win. I promise if it was another format someone else would be complaining. You sure you want to go down this path Linguist?
One thing I forgot to mention in the video that I meant to is learn to say “no.” Say no to what you ask? Anything that doesn’t mesh with the direction you want to go. For me at least it was a very difficult skill to learn but its absolutely necessary to maintain sanity.
That being said, I’ll see if I can track down a Flash Player that will play the good file types.
Couldnt agree more with Leslie’s blog post. There are plenty of developer/designer types that go hungry because they dont know how to run a business or dont want to “sell”. I am struck by a product I saw over at sitepoint that was geared specifically to this conundrum.
Not everyone can be absolutely great at all things. You may be a great designer but stink at programming. So are you going to give up jobs that involve a little php? nah…
anyway, I hope that you have gotten some good stuff out of this post. Start brainstorming on where you can get your first clients from. Also look for networking opps in your community(chamber events, BNI etc). Go and be yourself. People dont want another used car salesman showing up trying to close everyone.
Ack, my thread has been hijacked by a quicktime debate.
for windows users download quicktime alternative to avoid the evilness that is quicktime/apple
See, this video format debate is par the course for pro web development. You just can’t win. I promise if it was another format someone else would be complaining. You sure you want to go down this path Linguist?
actually I’m not interested in the debate. I wrote my post like that hoping to draw attention to the futility of it.
Also I really don’t know how the quicktime debate started in this thread. Would it be possible to have it split from this thread since I’d like to keep the original thread on topic as much as possible.
Also I really don’t know how the quicktime debate started in this thread. Would it be possible to have it split from this thread since I’d like to keep the original thread on topic as much as possible.
Also I really don’t know how the quicktime debate started in this thread. Would it be possible to have it split from this thread since I’d like to keep the original thread on topic as much as possible.
I’ve been slowly working my way through CSS mastery and have already learned a ton. Now I need the time to apply it. I’m planning on doing a complete, from the ground up, redesign of each of my personal sites come winter vacation to practice and get a handle on what I’m reading. I’ve also got two projects to work on - one is a colleague and the other is for my church. I definitely have enough opportunities to practice and improve my skills.
With regards to billing clients I have one question. How is payment customarily made. All up front, 50/50, or all on delivery? I’m leaning to 50/50, but would like to know what is most common.
If only I didn’t have to work, I could devote more time to developing my skills and contacts….
First of all, Leslie did a great job on that video and he is dead on. Lots of people have the technical skills to do web development but few have the management skills to really be successful.
@Billing
Whatever works for you and what you can get the client to agree to. Different people have different methods but half down is probably common. I am guessing that few people do 100% up front but for very small jobs there would be no problem with doing that (or even 100% on completion.) A very large project might even be broken up further and be paid by milestones. So different projects also might need different consideration based on size. Another consideration is the type of client. A government or non profit likely has other methods of payment and different hoops to jump through.
Billing cycles can be 30 to 60 days or more depending on the client. For the sake of an example, lets say you have one big project that takes you a month to finish and the client is slow to pay but the check arrives at 60 days. If you didn’t take a down-payment then that project just took three months to bring in any income.
EDIT: Yikes, I think I hit the submit button too early, fixed broken sentence.
and usually start my sites at 2k for the same brochure type site. But that is because my skillset and my demand has increased. 
