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Web Designer Education Worries

PixelMonkeyPixelMonkey Registered User regular
edited July 2009 in Help / Advice Forum
At the moment I'm studying to be become a web designer or graphic designer at Edith Cowan University in Perth Western Australia. I decided to enter university using a TAFE qualification and did so using a certificate 4 in Multimedia to enter a Bachelors Degree in Creative Industries majoring in Interactive Media Development.

I was wandering if they weren't any web designers, programmers, admin or graphic designers that could provide some advice of finding jobs in the field. I have really been freaking out lately of there being few jobs or somehow failing uni and finding my previous qualification doesn't mean jack.

PixelMonkey on

Posts

  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Unless you feel you are truly talented at graphic design and have what it takes to not only design but also be a charismatic face who can work with clients, then I would strongly recommend AGAINST becoming a true-blue web designer. It is quickly becoming a low paying profession in America, and the ones who aren't low paid are either very good, or working their asses off, or both.


    The deal is... pretty much any monkey can draw a button and make it shiny and put some text in it. That's sadly like 50% of web design. Drawing rectangles and putting shit on them.


    The real money is in code, because about 10% of those rectangle drawers are actually inclined to understand the moving parts underneath, and that makes them valuable.


    It doesn't matter *what* you want to do, I would highly recommend going for the IM Development degree, because it will at least introduce you to programming, and will make you a better hire as a designer to boot.

    The web is a tough industry with extremely low barriers to entry, which means getting a good foot in the door requires extra effort. I was in an IM Development program with about 10 or 12 people. About 3 have actually gotten jobs after a year, and I'm the only one who's actually with a reputable corporation, as opposed to surviving off of freelance contracts.


    There are a few freelance designers on this board who will probably follow up here and they tend to have a more warm-and-fuzzy view of the industry, but I imagine that they would at least acknowledge that understanding code (and not just HTML/CSS), is an essential skill to "making it" in the field.

    Jasconius on
    this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz

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  • PixelMonkeyPixelMonkey Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Thanks Jasconius, I do have a good grasp on the coding/scripting so that should help.
    I'm currently proficient in XHTML, CSS, ActionScript 2.0 and 3.0, JavaScript, Visual Basic Net. I'm currently teaching myself PHP and learning how to use MySQL.

    PixelMonkey on
  • PixelMonkeyPixelMonkey Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Would having a strong portfolio be an advantage when looking for work? What would be a good way too gain practical experience for the portfolio?

    PixelMonkey on
  • NotYouNotYou Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Would having a strong portfolio be an advantage when looking for work? What would be a good way too gain practical experience for the portfolio?

    Did you seriously just ask that?

    Your porfolio is the ONLY thing that will get you hired.

    If you want a job, then it's simple. Just make some jaw droppingly awesome pieces, and then people will be lining up to give you money.

    NotYou on
  • Smug DucklingSmug Duckling Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Try to find something that interests you (like a hobby, or some interesting pieces of information that you can catalogue, or something) and make a kickass website devoted to it with all the database, javascript and css bells and whistles (tastefully).

    You could also make yourself a beautiful blog.

    The way you prove that you can make cool websites is by making cool websites and showing them off.

    Smug Duckling on
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  • SorcySorcy Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    I have to disagree with Jasconius and agree with Smug Duckling.

    While it sound logically that coding gives more earnings than just designing I have found that it is often not true, simply because people do not care HOW it works, just that it DOES work. I've been working as a multimedia developer for 12 years now (started with CD-ROM creation on Macromedia Director, later got into Web), and I've been a codemonkey for the whole time, because I can't design for crap. What I've seen so far is that people (read: customers) really go for the the beautiful websites with lots of graphics, out of the world font setting and zany colour schemes. Not once has a customer cared for how cool my programming has been, how smooth my scripts work or even how well I document my programs. They just don't care. The best result I have gotten so far was "Hey, I wrote your Website so clean and smooth that it is perfectly optimized for Google and other search engines!" - "Google? Did you say Google? We like Google!"

    On the other hand, the people I work with who create the designs get all the credit for the website, even if they create harebrained designs that are horribly to program or even to use, just as long as they look good. Yeah, I sound bitter, and rightly so.

    As Duckling said: create yourself a web page, a blog or whatever, and make it beautiful. Use Wordpress as your underlying CMS, it's easy to use, fast and there are a ton of designs available from which you can spin off your own. Use your new blog to write about what your learned, write little essays about the pros and cons of "graphical buttons in a web 2.0 environment" or whatever ... keep it up to date. If you write something at least half interesting your name will go around and you will have something to show when applying for a job. When someone asks you why you used wordpress (or whatever you'll use) just tell them that you like to work efficiently and choose the tools that fit best. Web companies love this kind of thinking, because less hours means more earnings.

    But the most important lesson I can tell you: if you want to really REALLY earn big bucks in web design there is only one thing you have to know - how to bedazzle people. You have to become the salesman who can sell refrigerators to Eskimos, you have to find a way into peoples minds and make them believe that they can't live without a (new) website and that they are FOOLS if they don't take you, because obviously you are the best at what you do and know all the necessary buzzwords (SEO, Web2.0, AJAX, ROI etc. etc.)

    Sorcy on
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  • flatlinegraphicsflatlinegraphics Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    ignore all tech stuff. and ignore the word web, interactive, etc. learn DESIGN first and foremost. typography, color theory, information design. everything else is choosing a brand of pencil.

    as noted, pretty much everyone can make a button. and chances are, as a first job in the field, that is what you will be spending most of your time doing: making buttons for the art director and senior designers. back end stuff, i'd be familiar with it, but generally not waste your time. as a junior in a firm, they will have a back end programmer that will do that, faster and better than you ever will. as a freelancer, you'd use a framework or subcontract it. CSS, sure. some basic to intermediate scripting and dev, yeah. I feel this is the web version of being a production artist. instead of making mechanicals and clipping photos, you're grinding out overflow:auto and grafting thickbox scripts into pages.

    as far as securing a job: have a portfolio, both printed out and on the web somewhere. then, make friends. join a professional society, like the AIGA. More oportunities will be through friends and networks than from cold submissions. having a blog won't hurt, but make sure its professional and separate from your "hurr, look at these pics of me drunk!!!". and start scrubbing out any references that may currently be out there...

    flatlinegraphics on
  • PixelMonkeyPixelMonkey Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Thanks for the response there is some good advice in here.

    PixelMonkey on
  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited July 2009
    If you go the freelance route, then design will get you more jobs, but if you actually want to work for a company and not have to worry about where your next meal will come from for most of your early career, then you will not want to forsake programming.


    As I stated, you need to be exceptional at design to make it work, and there's a huge throng of shitty designers out there (including all of India and China) who pass off their services on unsuspecting consumers and dilute the job market. Those people will be your competitors, and you need the people skills to separate yourself from them.


    The statement that design impresses the client more than the code is true, but that does not necessitate that designers make more than developers. In fact it's almost universally the opposite in corporations until you hit a senior/creative director level of design, and only then it's a big maybe and depends largely on your repertoire.

    Jasconius on
    this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz

    we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
  • GanluanGanluan Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    In my experience Jasconius is correct in regard to corporations - designers without coding knowledge are paid quit a bit less than developers. In fact, where I work (which has over 100 developers working for an international corporation) we don't even hire straight designers. We have some very skilled people who not only design the sites but can integrate them into our existing codebases.

    Ganluan on
  • Jimmy KingJimmy King Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Jasconius and Ganluan are correct from what I've seen. A very large percentage of the web app developer and web designer jobs I see (locally, at least, it could be different elsewhere) as a full time employee or longer term contractor are not looking for just a developer or just a designer. Most of them I see these days are looking for someone with 1 or 2 back end programming languages, solid javascript, css and html, and (slightly less frequently) photoshop skills on top of that.

    Jimmy King on
  • DHS OdiumDHS Odium Registered User regular
    edited July 2009
    I'll just give my personal experiences. I have a BA in Digital Media. I know how to design, and while in school I learned HTML/CSS, PHP, Javascript, and MySQL. I had to build a full ecommerce website that allowed users to register, and it even processed payment, for a class once.

    I currently work for a very large corporation as a Graphic Designer. I don't touch a single line of code. So my coding skills are probably pretty weak at this point, my entire job is to design, mostly interfaces. So, you can be a straight up designer and not know code. All of our programmers can't do shit for design work - we yell at them if they even think about opening photoshop or illustrator. I will say though, I have a leg up knowing the terminology, because I can talk directly to the dedicated programmers, and understand when I'm designing how things will eventually come together. It's not necessary, but it is a bonus.

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  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited July 2009
    Right, but that prior knowledge is essential to communication, and it's a major asset. If you go into an interview like "lawl what's MySQL", then you are going to get turned away by a lot of companies.

    Knowing all the stuff doesn't mean that you won't get specialized positions. Especially in larger corporations, not every member of a web team is working every aspect. You've got people doing data, you've got people doing java, people doing Flash, and people cutting up graphics... what's important is that if the data guy says something, everyone else knows what it means without needing a translator. That's what makes corporate web teams work efficiently.

    The worst designers to work with in my experience are the ones who could not even tell you what an object is, or why a database needs to exist. Conversely, the worst developers to work with are the ones who haven't read up on HTML since 1996 and have no concept of usability.

    The point that has to be made is that doing an IM development degree is not going to make you some SQL master who can write a Digg killer over the weekend. It's going to pretty much give you the most cursory knowledge required to communicate well with the people you're likely to be working with. It will also give you the ability to learn, if desired, the true mechanics of programming for the web, if that's what you want to do.

    And you probably won't know for sure what you want to do until you actually get a taste for the industry. I had to work for over a year before I decided to specialize. Nobody can tell you what you will end up liking, the best plan is to keep your options open.

    Jasconius on
    this is a discord of mostly PA people interested in fighting games: https://discord.gg/DZWa97d5rz

    we also talk about other random shit and clown upon each other
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