51 replies to this topic

[Cosmic G]

Great article. In addition I would just like to quote from a book that I have read about web design. It goes something like this:

It's easy to learn and to  teach how to create website, but it's hard to learn and teach how to "design" a website.

[Tirus]

Wow, very good article.

I was quite surprised that I actually have or have done all the stuff on the list you mentioned.

Now to decide between the uncertain path of a web designer or the steady certainty of a career as a doctor or something of that sort.

[zhanster]

Doctor it pays better. But you can always be a designer part time.

[austen]

Doctor it pays better. But you can always be a designer part time.

I agree. I plan on being a designer during school, and after school becoming a bioengineer For anyone who wants to make an occupation out of web design though, this is an amazing article!

[Escrima]

An extremely useful article, i've printed it also for future reference. Thanks for posting it!

[Veej]

Great article Mat! I'd read it before but I thought I should just scan over it again to refresh my memory but I ended up reading it all word for word!

Thanks!

[Nike]

This is soooo going on my blog. Don't worry you'll get credit. I am definatly printing this thing out. Wow, awsome job!

[Pax]

You forgot one VERY important point (at least I think you did...)

You MUST must must be promt. Being late for a meeting, or missing deadlines will kill most if not all of your chances of getting re-hired (or hired in the first place).

I just finished my college course on friday for web design and dev, and we had these big presentations of our group work, portfolios etc. in front of industry reps (Creative Group, and other big companies like that) and 3 of the reps ended up coming in between 30mins and 1.5 hours late! Why would I want to work for them? They dont have the respect to show up on time, what would make me think that they'd have the respect for me and my work to get me what I need on time?

I'm sure you can see my point there. I didnt even bother going up to talk to these guys and ask them about their companies and stuff.

Never be afraid to "Fire" your clients. Keep this in mind: If you are working for a total dork who wastes your time because he doesnt like the apostrophe beside the 8th character in the 22nd word on the 95th line in the 4th paragraph and wants you to create a whole new font that looks just like arial but with different apostrophes...tell them to shut up. Your time is worth alot of money, so dont waste it! Get the good clients that treat you like you should be treated! That is what seperates the "top class" companies from everyone else. You think 2advanced or josh davis or any of those #1 types take ANY crap from their clients? Heck no. What they say goes. Now, we arent good enough to have a "what we say goes" rule, but we sure as heck can decide which clients we want to do work for.

Thats just one of the big things that I learned in my course. Value your time, never waste it, it is the *only* resource that you cant work without.

Just because person A might pay you 10,000 to make a website for them, if they are a dink, it may very well take up three times the ammount of time that the website that person B wanted you to make for 5,000. Figure out what youre worth and take your clients based on that. Make them respect you and your work. If you're right out of school, dont think of yourself as the "new kid on the block" because that will show, and others will treat you like that as well. You are a by definition a professional. You are payed to design a website. Act like it and youll get treated like it!

Best of luck to all the fellow web geeks out there!

(edit)
Wow...I ranted on that one lol, didnt realize my post was so long

Edited by Pax, 04 March 2006 - 05:25 PM.

[Donna]

This article was originally posted at 13dots written by one of our Staff Members Mat Dwyer (mdo), we are noticing it's being posted all over the web and Mat has not submitted it anywhere nor has been contacted to ask if you can post this on your site. If you have this article posted please show the courtesy of emailing him to let him know. He doesn't mind but a quick courtesy email is only good manners.



I'll edit the original post to add this, sorry have had to bring this up but well you know

[Paint]

Amazing article! I honestly think this has given me priceless knowledge to my career as a web designer. I cannot thank you enough!

[tarn]

WOOHOO reading that just makes you want to learn web designing even more and go out their and find yourself client and get the experience like matt!

Thank you!

[matdwyer]

It has been a long time since this article, but I'm going to write another on cheap marketing techniques (offline!) for your small business...

Look for it in the next couple weeks... (I'm implementing most of the ideas on my new site, photoscanning.ca)!