I’m trying to get of my bahooky and follow my dream career move (into web design) Obviously there’s a long way to go, but what are peoples personal experiences? did you go to college or were you self taught?

I only work 3 days a week in IT support but I’m much more design orientated and would eventually like to move into web design, whether in a job or freelance work to supplement my job.

Cheers

I’d familiarise yourself with “punctuation” if you’re serious about this… 😉

both uni and self taught

bahooky

Nice.

99% of everything IT related I know is self taught – got an ‘E’ at A-Level in ICT, so that should tell you something about how much my college education contributed to it!

Do you want web design, or web development? Two very different careers.

I’d familiarise yourself with “punctuation” if you’re serious about this…

You’re joking aren’t you? An essential requirement for any designer is the total inability to spell, punctuate or structure sentences. We is, like semi-literate innit? we, like, see in pictures ‘n stuff 😉

I’m a (uni-educated) print designer who reluctantly moved into doing web stuff. I’d get yourself into college. Its ridiculously competitive out there at the moment, and unless you’re formally qualified you’ll never get in front of people to show them your work. No matter how good you are. I’m not saying its right. It just the way it is.

Plus, learning the proper structure of typography etc (even print!) will do you no harm at all.

Good luck with it!

I don’t know of any graphic designers that are purely self taught, everyone I’ve worked with over the years has at least been to college and most have done a degree course. Not saying it can’t be done but in my experience it would be unusual.

I’m totally self taught as far as never been formally educated, I’ve been doing graphic design since the late 80’s, I learnt real typography and layout on the job from some very talented designers, that was before mac’s revolutionised the industry, before then typesetting was all hand specified in points, picas, ems. It was then all pasted up with cow gum or wax. I’ve also done web design but now concentrate on branding and motion graphics for TV.

I still have a passion for typography and graphic design in any form, a great way to earn a living.

web/graphics designers are different things. a web designer is expected to understand xhtml/css and maybe php although may not be required to build it. A graphics designer just makes pretty stuff. 😉

I studied something different and ended up as a self taught designer. There really aint much to it especially if your planning working for design/ad/marketing agencies as nobody takes a chance on cutting edge design anymore.

Good luck.

Uni, BA hons 2.1 in graphic design and photography

10 years work experience now

Self taught aswel along the way

Self employed for a year now

The one thing I have learnt is, it’s not what you know but who you know and this has helped me a lot.

There really aint much to it especially if your planning working for design/ad/marketing agencies as nobody takes a chance on cutting edge design anymore

Bit of a negative view, it really depends where you look, these guys create amazing design:

http://www.manvsmachine.co.uk/
http://www.non-format.com/
http://www.weareseventeen.com/

I know a web/graphic designer in Lancaster who might know of some positions going in his company. He’s doing the UI for mobile games at the mo.

Also know of another company in Bolton who are recruiting for a web designer.

ok, after some soul searching and online investigation I think i’m leaning more towards web design, done stuff at college and have a reasonable grasp of Dreamweaver and Photoshop.

So where do I go from here?

I’m guessing learn HTML and CSS would be a good start……any point doing a CIW?

Forget Dreamweaver – learn how do design static layouts in Photoshop/InDesign, and then how to translate these designs to actual webpages in XHTML/CSS.

You might become an excellent graphic designer, but rubbish coder – don’t worry – that makes you specifically a website designer, who understands layouts, fonts, colour schemes, whitespace, information flow, UI, etc.

all good info, going to take me a while, got a lot of knowledge but a lot of holes in the knowledge

Here’s a friends website design portfolio – http://www.flickr.com/photos/9505279@N04/

He’s a graphic designer at heart, but struggles with basic HTML!

Still… the websites he designs, get passed onto the developers, and they work the magic for him – translating static Photoshop design into a real website.

The developers are blind monkeys when it comes to designing things of their own…. hence he does it.