hi thinking of becoming website designer can anyone tell me how easy or hard it is to find employment. Advice on pros and cons in this field would also be appreciated

Hey whats packages do you know? I'm a web designer but I kinda do it part-time because im self taught harder to get in with a company don't see why I need a peace of paper to show what I can do, but thats what there all after.

learning dreamweaver right now but keep thinking is it going to be worth it in the long run

Hi

There is a learnig curve but what a lot of designers make the mistake in, is they don't do a lot of networking. They make technology not a tool but a crutch.

Let me give you an example. I know a guy who is a programmer in Rotherham but he is having a hard time, after really learning to design website to get clients.

So, I got him to go out with me and my mates to business forums, other business open meetings, network events, seminars, and other business events. And meetings organisations have that are open to the public. I got him also to put his designs onto a DVD.

He now has 10 NEW clients. Each client paying him over one thousand and a half pounds for website designs. Ecommerce websites. I made sure, he went to meetings with people that got class, and want quality work and people who mean business. He also, subcontracts some of the work to...INDIA as outsourcing. Why say no to business just because you are only one person. Outsource to people and help each other.

Also, he has now got into the habit of going to meetings that Organisations attend. He makes quiet a bit of money in training staff within organisations on I.T. and web design.

Also, when people start up, they tend to not be confident because they don't have a portfolio. So they undercut themselves.

Finally, lack of planning, goal setting and being disciplined to the biggest task first is a key, which many miss. And some don't realise that its about people. Having people skills, is really something that can help to engage clients and attract the right customers.

dumping dreamweaver would be a good idea too, all you need is a good text editor like notepad++, dreamweaver tends to put in alot of extra code that you don't need

The main piece of advice I'd give is 'know your limitations'.

I have doen quite a few websites, most with database back ends and quite complex back end functionality. Professionally I'm involved with web applications such as CRM, GIS and more recently medical systems.

However, I'm crap at graphical design, so when I need something to look rather nmore pretty than I can manage, I'llwork with a graphical designer to get the look of the site whilst I do the coding.

Get good habits form early on; use style sheets, look upon the appropriate use of tables in page layout (even with CSS they do have a place and try and get away form relying on packages like Dreamweaver.

I've seen a page written with Dreamweaver that is about 4 or 5 times as large as an identical page written with a basic text editor.

Take a look at pages you like and see how they're put together. That's a good way of learning how people do things.

dont let dreamweaver do it all for you

make sure you understand the code

use DIVS not tables

thanks for the advice guys but what you guys saying website designing is where the money is ?

thanks for the advice guys but what you guys saying website designing is where the money is ?

It's a very competitive market.

in other words, for most web sites it's price driven, and there are a lot of people who will do work for very little as they regard it as beer money or building a portfolio.

I don't bother bidding for work on any website nowadays that doesn't have a requirement for some beefy back end database or similar server side requirements.

There are lots of people doing web sites, fewer doing PHP / ASP / Perl, so I go after work that features a lot of that side of things.

I definitely wouldn't get in to web design purely for the money. Just my opinion.

I definitely wouldn't get in to web design purely for the money. Just my opinion.

Brill advise. Cause for sometime, we didn't really make much money but we loved what we do. It was sometimes an addiction because for me and my wife, it was about breaking free from working in a job and really puttting what we learnt to do website designs and working together as husband and wife, a family business. Not that its only business we have.

But yes, as Joep mentioned - its has to be more than just money. I personally love it and don't really have much trouble in getting clients but it took quiet sometime to have that kind of momentumn. It took some years for people to get know us. But we didn't spend one penny on advertising. It was all word of mouth and meeting people and treating clients with ok and also honesty. If we didn't like them and their attitude - we didn't do business with them.

You got loads of advices here and I bet more to come. Keep asking if need be. I'm sure many would give more insight.

thanks for the advice guys but what you guys saying website designing is where the money is ?

No. The money is where you focus your energy with. what is it you really want to do? Decide that first and then start studying the market.

Designing websites alone is not where the money is. There are other things that I make money from. For example:

1. Designing a website, ecommerce but with it...I get paid also to produce short film, editing it, and using Adobe After effects.

I make more money doing that and also showreel commercials for broadcasting companies. Hopefully when I sort my portfiolio, I'll let you see.

My wife makes more money in the programming side. She knows mostly all the programming languages and if she uses Dream weaver, she'll be programing codes and not rely on just dream weaver. The website is just part of it. A small part of it because the, the customer wants his own magazine, own dvd inlay cover, and it goes on and on and that's where I come in too.

My advise would be, find some people who are passionate about web design but also other areas such as digital imaging, film making, all sorts and open your eyes to which one that really makes you feel alive.

It might even be all of them. And if you don't know all of them then great, because you can work with other people, pass work to them, which at times we do.