Webby Design

[flying_piggies]

Do any of you lovelies do Web Design career wise? I've thrown the idea of going for a Media College Major around in my head for years, but after doing some freelance, I didn't like the idea of...well doing it freelance heh. I've also done some work for my boyfriends mothers book site years ago.. (so ignore the old layout, it's not nearly one of my

Comments

[anterrabre]

I'm going to preface what I'm about to say with

a) I work primarily in Print (but I have done some web-related work)

b) I have a slight pro-education bias.

c) I'm giving you a general idea of what's going on in the market right now in key markets (ie: Chicago, New York, Cali, Seattle, etc). Your mileage may vary.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it; in this economy education is important. Right now there are people with high certifications and degrees who are all going after the same jobs so if you have the opportunity to park at a school for the next couple of years I strongly suggest you do so. If you do not have it, you better either have a kick ass portfolio of URLs and years of experience, or know people to get your foot in the door. Even then it's not certain because there are companies that have HR doing the initial screening who will weed you out. As hard of a time that degreed people are having right now in our fields, non-degree designers and coders trying to get their feet in the door are having it far worse.:(

There are some schools that are more helpful in regards to door opening than others post grad-time so make sure you do your research.

Whether you decide to go back to school or not, networking is key. I can't stress enough how important that is. Join as many professional organizations as possible, meet as many people as possible. Digital Eve would be a good place to start, and they have chapters pretty much everywhere.

As far as contract work is concerned, get used to it because more and more companies are using temps instead of adding to their staff (and when they DO add to staff it's generally someone they already have a working relationship with, so freelancing at a company can often give you first dibs). I've had lots of friends that I freelanced with get offers at companies they worked for. In addition, it gives you the opportunity to try out different companies, do different types of work and build your portfolio with different work.

Don't let the cheap fuckers get you down. They are getting what they pay for, trust me. ~_^

I hope this helps.

[flying_piggies]

Thanks for this information, it was very helpful. I was hoping to get into something with an actual company, the idea of freelancing gives a bad taste in my mouth. I've done some in the past and it's pretty horrid. The only sort of positive time I had was working on my boyfriends mothers book site since I got creative leeway.

My boyfriend does contract jobs in his industry (animation, he's a layout artist atm.) so I guess I'm going to have to get used to dealing with those as well. (I will search high and low for a stable work place as I go, if I choose this career though. ><)

I'm just trying to look at my hobbies and figure out if I want to make said hobbies into a career. I'm kind of confused on different career paths now. (I would love to get into illustration/something art based at Sheridan here, but they stack their deck with people who have previous schooling to make their reputation look spotless, also same boat as far as contracts and feelancing. =/)

I'm just terrified with the professional outlook of this economy right now. Getting a customer service job is pretty simple, but anything higher up is bad lately, no ones hiring, so if it's still this bad in 1-2-3 years (depending on what I take) I'm going to have my work cut out for me.

Also, anything I plant to do, I plan to be educated in, I'm big on getting the proper education ^^

Thanks a bunch!