I'm 19 and going into my second year at Community College. At the end of this year I'll have my Associates in Arts degree. I really want a career in graphic and or web design. I have made sites in the past for companies and have been learning it since high school. My question; Does anyone know a good way to start out a career like this? And what it takes college-wise? Thanks blades
Craigslist actually has a lot of good job listings for web design and development. The higher paying ones I looked at wanted a Bachelors and 2+ years experience. I'd browse around there to get an idea. There are a lot of good jobs listed, at least in the areas I was looking (Colorado and California).
Man i'd say the most important thing you can do right now is get a portfolio going or your own website that shows off your previous work. Save the entire website you make for people, and have that for reference in your portfolio, because a lot of the times eventually your website will not exist and you won't have anything to show people. So everytime you make a website, keep it on a usb drive or your own webspace or something, and begin to build a impressive collection of work and then use Craigslist to advertise cheap websites done by a student and all that. The best way to get work like that is by word of mouth in my opinion.. so just keep offering to make websites for people dirt cheap and eventually people will come to you and you can charge something more reasonable you may be able to survive off of. Good luck.
Very good choice. I've been doing web designing since I was 11 or so. Now I've gotten pretty good and have website with all of my projects I've created so far. You need to really get a portfolo going of all your websites you've done, have a place they can be accessed 24/7. Buying a dedicated server or hosting your own (if you don't intend on having huge amounts of traffic to your site, do it yourself if you're just showing employers!) is ALWAYS a good choice. I bought my own and most of the jobs I do for people, I just paste them a link of my current projects I got going on and most of them are interested just after seeing the opening animations using jQuery.
Affiliates my friend. Get yourself out there, and get popular. Craigslist isnt a bad method either. Also, fliers. Post fliers at your local Best Buy, Stapes, MicroCenter, places like that. Make sure these fliers contain a URL to your portfolio. I cannot stress enough how much a Portfolio matters, in this particular field of work. A very good portfolio is a must! The more people see of what you can do, the better your odds are of getting a client. Also, with web designs comes other designs that are just as important as templates. Affiliate Buttons, Sigs, Icons, Banners, the works.
Thank you everyone for your feedback. It's got me started in the right direction. For the portfolio should I make my own website that displays sites I've done and my photography and then just put my URL on the cards and fliers.?
Mind sharing how we can expand it. We try to go to the people who actually do the job and get the info straight from them rather than research.