Web Design career...

[killakoala]

Hey all. Ive been lurking here for a couple days and decided to join the party. Ive seen tons of articles and posts on graphic design and jobs on this forum but I didnt see any on web design. Im heading into my last year at college and a web design internship. I was wondering if anyone working in the field now could shed some light on it for us? Hows the job market? What kind of skills are absolutley essential? Just stuff like that. If there is a post about this somewhere I must have missed it and I apologize. Thanks in advance! :D

[Kool]

Hi killakoala, welcome to the forum. http://home.comcast.net/~rnick9/koolsmiley.gif

I'm not a web guy so I can't answer your question. There have been a few threads on this lately though, let me see if I can find you some links. In the mean time this forum can be pretty quiet on weekends especially a holiday weekend here in the states.

[chris_bcn]

The job market isn't that great. There are a ton of "web designers" out there that have few skills, but they do have a copy of Dreamweaver nd photoshop. They undercut the professionals and so drag down the value of the job.

In terms of Skills, a minimum would be:

(X)HTML coded to a strict doctype
CSS for layout
Javascript - at least enough to manipulate scripts and understand how they work.
Some Server side like PHP

If you look through the web section you'll find a tom of links - or go to delicious and search for CSS, web design etc. you'll find a ton of links.

Read all of the web design blogs and you'll see what skills you need to succeed

[JPnyc]

To add on to what Chris said, the more you can do with the procedural languages (scripting languages, server and client side) the more employable you'll be. They're harder to learn than the formatting languages so that filters out some of the competition straight away.

[killakoala]

Thanks for the replies. Thats pretty much what I figured. The more rounded you are with formatting languages and serverside stuff the better off you would be.

[chris_bcn]

to be 100% honest I tend to hire freelancers for any serious server side stuff - but good photoshop/fireworks skills, good understanding of design principles - like grid structures, colour theory, great HTML and CSS, good javascript are essential to be a web DESIGNER. You do need some server side stuff, but you don't need to go mad unless you want to be a web DEVELOPER. They are 2 very different beasts

[JPnyc]

Well to me, even a web designer should be a good javascripter. There's no way that only downloading canned scripts can achieve what knowing the language can.

[chris_bcn]

I agree about JavaScript - but I don't think server side scripting is as important (when you're starting out). Obviously the more you know the better, but if you want to be a web designer I would concentrate on front/ client end stuff - XHTML, CSS and JavaScript. Once you're comfortable with those, then move on from there to PHP, mod rewrites...

Don't get me wrong - I think that having PHP skills is great and something that I have to learn more about. and I wish I knew more. I only know enough to get me into trouble

[JPnyc]

No, I agree. Most places separate the client side from serverside work. You don't find all that many places that have one person doing both. However if you ARE one of those who IS proficient at both, you'll need help just lifting your paycheck ;)

[chris_bcn]

Aint that the truth!!!

I'd dearly love to have command of both sides. Not enough hours in the day for studying really

[JPnyc]

Backend was actually what I was trained in, and once you have some grasp of that, front end seems really easy. However now, I'm better at the front than the back through sheer doing. It's MUCH easier to practice the front end stuff. You don't need serverspace, don't have to worry about what your host supports or doesn't, no constant editing then uploading files, etc. And frankly, it's a HELLUVA lot more fun!

[chris_bcn]

exactly - the hard part is the design, not the coding. Clean semantic code is actually pretty easy to learn if you put a bit of time in.

The hard part is the advanced CSS techniques, and visual impact, grid structure, colour theory, accesibility, usability etc

[JPnyc]

Well I'm no designer and never will be. Too left brain dominant. And like many coders, designers coding drives me batty! I remember one job, I coded a prototype, just a mockup of a DHTML menu for my boss as a "proof of concept" that flash was unnecessary (which is what they had), and the web designers took my code and used it verbatim. Messed up the rest of the page something fierce. I wrote it for a specific situation, not an all purpose one. Had they let me know what they were gonna do with it, I would've coded it properly for THAT situation.

[chris_bcn]

I know what you mean. any web designer MUST know how to write clean front end code these days I believe. There's a huge shift going on in the industry, where people who code strict, semantic HTML and CSS are becoming more and more the norm, and old school hack slice and export to HTML merchants are being pushed out.

I consider myself a designer, not a coder, but I make sure my code is semantic valid, and a purdy as I can possibly make it.

I do think there's a massive differnce between a professional web designer, and a professional graphic designer who makes web pages. If you see what I mean