I would agree with Paul, below. You must be willing to study regularly. One reason we're so successful as a web company, is that our developers and designers constantly expand their knowledge base. Potential clients seem to really appreciate that we are cutting edge and "current". We're literally one of a small handful of companies that offers 100% custom, hand coded, responsive websites, so we stand out in a crowd and are easily recognizable. Most web companies offer template based design and charge a premium for it. So you might ask yourself: "what am I prepared to do, in order to separate myself from every other developer out there offering similar services? Can I create custom websites, or will I do like most, and build out templates?" Again we're back at what Paul mentioned regarding study. There is no way we would have arrived where we are today, without regularly honing, and sharpening our development, design skills. Furthermore, it has been said that if you want better control (In this case control of your career direction), you must be more than willing to increase your knowledge of the industry, and personal craft. I agree. I think there is another very important question you might ask, and that is: "In a field of so many amateurs, what am I willing to do, in order to make myself stand out as a professional designer / developer?". Are you willing to work 20 hr days, 7 days a week, for at least a couple of years? We were. I think most web companies fail, in large part because they assume a lot of things about web, and that they're not willing to put in the time, hard work, blood sweat and tears to get to the top. Do you want to stand out, or do you just want to be "part of" the field of web development. To stand out, and increase your probability of success, it's a hill 10, and you must be willing to climb, in order to stand out. That's just my opinion, and it doesn't mean I am always right. I'll end with a quote from our CTO. She stated: "Any desktop monkey can build out a free WP theme. Just because one refers to himself as a professional web developer, doesn't mean he is". So I guess the last question is: Do you want to be a rhinestone, in a sea of rhinestones, or a diamond, in a sea of rhinestones? If your answer is "a diamond", you'd better get started quickly and BE a terminator in your field. All others are being left in the dust.
The first two aspects that you consider is, will you like it (it can boring for some and complicated for others), and are you willing to constantly learn new technologies to implement. For example, I use all kinds of different technologies to build dummy sites all of the time just so that I can stay upto date and be ready for the next client. Practice will be a key factor. Good luck with your decision
I have to chime in with Tim and Paul on here and state that you must be ready to continue learning and pushing to learn more as the technology is forever is changing. Also, you must be willing to work hands on with clients. Being a web designer, you have to get personal with the business owner and work together to get an understanding of the business you are building a website for so you can better showcase within the design.
Hi, I just wanted to complement the below answers saying that Web Design has changed a lot. It is not just about creating a good experience to the user. Web design now needs to take in account SEO and marketing. A very well designed website is not enough these days if the purpose is to capture potential leads/clients online. It needs to be developed with an online marketing strategy in mind. I consider that all new web design needs to have marketing elements in it in order to have a higher success rate for your clients.
Two things come to mind immediately. You better like learning new technology, because it changes all the time. And second, you need to be a good independent researcher, able to use Google and other online sources, to learn what you need when the answer isn't readily available.
This really depends on how experienced of a web designer you want to be. The concept of a web designer in 2017 is not too hard. There are many CMS (Content Management Systems) out there such as https://wordpress.org/ that give you the ability to drag and drop your pages to develop a nice looking website with all sorts of cool functionalities such as zooming in when hovering over an image. However you will probably not be charging too much for this type of work and what get's tricky is when the client begins asking for custom designs and features. In many cases when the client asks for this it is most likely that the CMS does not have the function pre-built of what they asked for. In this case you will want to know a lot of coding such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and more. The more programming languages you know the easier it becomes to achieve what the client has asked for depending on what system they use to manage their website (Wordpress, Squarespace, Joomla, Shopify, etc.). When doing custom work such as this you can begin charging a lot more for your work.
At this point you will know if you want to continue your path as a web designer or maybe give something else a try. If you continue down this path I suggest learning Javascript as your first programming language (Khan academy has a great course for this too). From this point the possibilities are endless and you are far more than just a web designer.
Let me know if I can help answer any other questions.
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Answers (1-6)
I would agree with Paul, below. You must be willing to study regularly. One reason we're so successful as a web company, is that our developers and designers constantly expand their knowledge base. Potential clients seem to really appreciate that we are cutting edge and "current". We're literally one of a small handful of companies that offers 100% custom, hand coded, responsive websites, so we stand out in a crowd and are easily recognizable.
Most web companies offer template based design and charge a premium for it. So you might ask yourself: "what am I prepared to do, in order to separate myself from every other developer out there offering similar services? Can I create custom websites, or will I do like most, and build out templates?" Again we're back at what Paul mentioned regarding study.
There is no way we would have arrived where we are today, without regularly honing, and sharpening our development, design skills.
Furthermore, it has been said that if you want better control (In this case control of your career direction), you must be more than willing to increase your knowledge of the industry, and personal craft. I agree. I think there is another very important question you might ask, and that is: "In a field of so many amateurs, what am I willing to do, in order to make myself stand out as a professional designer / developer?". Are you willing to work 20 hr days, 7 days a week, for at least a couple of years? We were. I think most web companies fail, in large part because they assume a lot of things about web, and that they're not willing to put in the time, hard work, blood sweat and tears to get to the top.
Do you want to stand out, or do you just want to be "part of" the field of web development. To stand out, and increase your probability of success, it's a hill 10, and you must be willing to climb, in order to stand out. That's just my opinion, and it doesn't mean I am always right.
I'll end with a quote from our CTO. She stated: "Any desktop monkey can build out a free WP theme. Just because one refers to himself as a professional web developer, doesn't mean he is". So I guess the last question is: Do you want to be a rhinestone, in a sea of rhinestones, or a diamond, in a sea of rhinestones? If your answer is "a diamond", you'd better get started quickly and BE a terminator in your field. All others are being left in the dust.
Have a great week!
; )
The first two aspects that you consider is, will you like it (it can boring for some and complicated for others), and are you willing to constantly learn new technologies to implement. For example, I use all kinds of different technologies to build dummy sites all of the time just so that I can stay upto date and be ready for the next client. Practice will be a key factor. Good luck with your decision
I have to chime in with Tim and Paul on here and state that you must be ready to continue learning and pushing to learn more as the technology is forever is changing. Also, you must be willing to work hands on with clients. Being a web designer, you have to get personal with the business owner and work together to get an understanding of the business you are building a website for so you can better showcase within the design.
Hi, I just wanted to complement the below answers saying that Web Design has changed a lot. It is not just about creating a good experience to the user. Web design now needs to take in account SEO and marketing. A very well designed website is not enough these days if the purpose is to capture potential leads/clients online. It needs to be developed with an online marketing strategy in mind. I consider that all new web design needs to have marketing elements in it in order to have a higher success rate for your clients.
Juan Lopez
Two things come to mind immediately. You better like learning new technology, because it changes all the time. And second, you need to be a good independent researcher, able to use Google and other online sources, to learn what you need when the answer isn't readily available.
Good luck!
Paul
This really depends on how experienced of a web designer you want to be. The concept of a web designer in 2017 is not too hard. There are many CMS (Content Management Systems) out there such as https://wordpress.org/ that give you the ability to drag and drop your pages to develop a nice looking website with all sorts of cool functionalities such as zooming in when hovering over an image. However you will probably not be charging too much for this type of work and what get's tricky is when the client begins asking for custom designs and features. In many cases when the client asks for this it is most likely that the CMS does not have the function pre-built of what they asked for. In this case you will want to know a lot of coding such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP and more. The more programming languages you know the easier it becomes to achieve what the client has asked for depending on what system they use to manage their website (Wordpress, Squarespace, Joomla, Shopify, etc.). When doing custom work such as this you can begin charging a lot more for your work.
I would suggest taking the intro to HTML & CSS class from https://www.khanacademy.org/computing/computer-pro.... This is the easiest coding to learn. You can probably learn and understand this in less than a day. After you have learned this and feel confident try creating a Wordpress site: http://publifiedlabs.com/create-website-wordpress/. The best way to learn is trial and error in my opinion.
At this point you will know if you want to continue your path as a web designer or maybe give something else a try. If you continue down this path I suggest learning Javascript as your first programming language (Khan academy has a great course for this too). From this point the possibilities are endless and you are far more than just a web designer.
Let me know if I can help answer any other questions.