I’m currently in Graphic Design and Marketing (mostly print, social, and email campaigns) and I’m looking to make a career change more to UI. Does anyone have advice on how to do so without proper UI experience? I’ve applied to a few UI jobs and haven’t had any luck.
Thank you!
Have you build your own website? I don’t mean use someone else’s template, I mean design your own theme or template then use this as an example of your UI abilities.
You’re right, it’s a Catch-22 situation where you can’t get the job without experience and you can’t get the experience without the job. Designing and building your own website gives you a real job, will produce something that will benefit you in multiple ways and will give you experience and something to show regarding your UI design abilities. And as long as we’re talking about UI, don’t forget UX — there’s so much overlap there, that they can’t really be separated. For that matter, I’ve come to regard UI as being a specialized subset of UX.
Thanks so much!
I agree UI and UX go hand-in-hand. Ultimately I’d like to transition more into UX because I find it so interesting but I figured since I’m a Graphic Designer UI is a good way to get there.
I’ll definitely look into designing my own website, or at least a mockup of one for my portfolio. Thanks!
I don’t know your comfort with HTML/CSS, but even those UI designers not coding directly, need to know enough about coding to design sites that are optimized for the limitations of what HTML/CSS can do and can’t easily be made to do.
I’d have a hard time counting the number of times, I’ve heard a developer complain about UI designers giving them things that show an ignorance of what’s practical to do and what isn’t. It’s a bit like an architect designing a building using non-standard-lengths of plywood — it’s doable but makes the job considerably more difficult, time-consuming and expensive.
So rather than just mockups of a website, I really would suggest building it as a proof of concept.
Okay thank you! That is great insight!