Getting into Web Design - Any Advice?

Johnpoland

I'm currently planning to emigrate, and aim to change careers at the same time. One possibility I'm toying with is Web Design. Looking at the net, there are loads of different courses, establishments offering training, so I just wondered if anyone here has any advice. I'm reasonably computer literate but self taught so have no qualifications in any aspect of computing. I am serious about this change, though, and would put in the work to learn HTML if recommended, for example.

Sorry if all the current web people out there are groaning, but any independent advice based on real experience would be a real help. Thanks in advance.

pinkshoes

Web Designers are 2 a penny nowadays, so you gotta be good to earn a decent living out of it!

Most people I know who do it are self taught, and never bothered doing any courses, and then they just created their own company and joined local community small business groups to hand out their business cards and try to drum up business.

Your best bet is to find a self employed web designer and discuss it with them i.e. how long to learn, do you have the flair for good designs, how long to make a web page etc... start now by drawing up your unique ideas.

Good luck!

leona71

Actually my sister in law has just newly got herself a job as a Web Designer and making a killing out of it....

She went to Uni to study Graphic Design.

Depends where you stay in the country too as web designers are not 2 a penny where we live!!!

Leona

Purdy_1

Have a look at the job centre website and see what qualifications they require you have or program packages employers are asking that web designers should know how to use.

HTH

golly99

I work in the IT industry but not specifically in Web design, i think it depends what sort of level you want to get to. Specifically to compete with the best web pages, you'll have to be a pretty good programmer with the likes of .net, java and be confident using packages such as Dreamweaver etc. Think it's worth trying to find an entry level type of job which will let you learn on the job. Have you had a look at web jobs advertised on https://www.jobserve.com and the computing/computer weekly websites to give you a feel what skills you need? Could also be worth doing an introductory type of course to see if you like it!

Good luck in your career change, just don't fall for those 'do the training, earn 50k a year as a web designer' type of ads!

tiff

leona71 wrote: »

Actually my sister in law has just newly got herself a job as a Web Designer and making a killing out of it....

She went to Uni to study Graphic Design.

Depends where you stay in the country too as web designers are not 2 a penny where we live!!!

Leona

Does it matter where you live?

seaweasel

Also depends on what sort of work you want to do. If you want to be a designer then having a good eye is important and you'll probably want to look at art schools and colleges, however if you want to get into development then programming skills are more important and therefore compsci and similar courses will be more appropriate. Obviously a combination of both skills would be good too.

LittleVoice

tiff wrote: »

Does it matter where you live?

Yes - because the people who want you to produce a website are strangely enough not necessarily those who are most competent with the technology! Many people like to meet the people who will do the work - meet face-to-face, not in cyberspace that is.

thebyp

You'll make a lot more money selling sites to people direct. local business' are much more profitable than web based jobs. To put it into perspective. If we contract for a job in our local area, odds on there will be perhaps five competitors, and of those maybe us and another will be of any merrit. However if we contract on say elance then there is us, plus every other web designer in the world all able to contract for the same job. To boot, the job will generally go to someone in india or asia generally as they can undercut us massively.

So to abriviate that entire rant, yes, it does matter where you live.