Just had a read through this thread mug2k and I've got to say it's lovely to read how well you've been doing! As someone who is looking to get in to web design it's quite inspirational
Can I just ask what program have you been using to design the websites?
Thanks mate! Can I just ask what resources did you use, or which courses did you look at? Some of your designs look epic!
I'm currently doing a lot of Marketing where I currently work and in my spare time I'm looking to delve more in to Design and what not!Sweet mate! Thank you very much. There's so much out there, it's always nice to see what someone else has done
Let's hear you story anyway
With regard to WordPress development, could you elaborate a little on what kind of work?
I'm the same Noxia, I sucked at programming on my IT course when I was 18, but now it's something I find a lot easier to pick up, and a lot more interesting.
I just wish I had started in web development way back when, when I had my initial interest in it, if only I knew how big it would be. But anyway, I'm here now.
My story is that I always used to mess around in Front Page back in the late nineties/early 2000's and make awful Geocities pages with a colour scheme that would give you a fit, sprinkled with marquee's everywhere and gifs.
I then didn't pay any moe attention to it and went off to work in sales at CPW, then onto a car dealership and then into aftersales at a telecoms company, during the time at the comms company I grew more and more interested again in web development (as I had lost all will to be in the cut throat/BS world of sales) and even undertook a project to redesign their website as it was awful, this never happened in the end because they just ran out of steam for the project. However just doing that gave me the impetus to get off my ass and go to college in the evenings to get something meaningful I could show to potential employers (a portfolio and some basic qualifications) in the process for trying to get a junior role in a web/design company, I fired off some CV's to a few places and never heard back from them. I then saw an advert for where I am at now as a junior, I had an interview, met the people (who oddly enough I had met when in my comms job to dicsuss improving their comms situation and saving them money) and got on really well with them and they offered me the job. I did all this when I was 32.
Now coming up for two years this June and I am loving my job and the varied work we carry out and the different projects we've done. Never did I think I'd be able to do some of the stuff we've done. I work with two great guys who really taught me a lot about design aspects etc, and it feels amazing to see things fall into place now. The last 6 months I feel my knowledge has grown immensley.
Stories like that keep me going. I know that I earn more now than I would as a junior or intermediate wed dev but sometimes you have to put job satisfaction above pay I think. Even if I got an extra 5k it wouldn't change the fact I'm not mentally stimulated at work and I want to work in a professional environment, oh and an office with natural light would be nice too.I'm the same Noxia, I sucked at programming on my IT course when I was 18, but now it's something I find a lot easier to pick up, and a lot more interesting.
I just wish I had started in web development way back when, when I had my initial interest in it, if only I knew how big it would be. But anyway, I'm here now.
My story is that I always used to mess around in Front Page back in the late nineties/early 2000's and make awful Geocities pages with a colour scheme that would give you a fit, sprinkled with marquee's everywhere and gifs.
I then didn't pay any moe attention to it and went off to work in sales at CPW, then onto a car dealership and then into aftersales at a telecoms company, during the time at the comms company I grew more and more interested again in web development (as I had lost all will to be in the cut throat/BS world of sales) and even undertook a project to redesign their website as it was awful, this never happened in the end because they just ran out of steam for the project. However just doing that gave me the impetus to get off my ass and go to college in the evenings to get something meaningful I could show to potential employers (a portfolio and some basic qualifications) in the process for trying to get a junior role in a web/design company, I fired off some CV's to a few places and never heard back from them. I then saw an advert for where I am at now as a junior, I had an interview, met the people (who oddly enough I had met when in my comms job to dicsuss improving their comms situation and saving them money) and got on really well with them and they offered me the job. I did all this when I was 32.
Now coming up for two years this June and I am loving my job and the varied work we carry out and the different projects we've done. Never did I think I'd be able to do some of the stuff we've done. I work with two great guys who really taught me a lot about design aspects etc, and it feels amazing to see things fall into place now. The last 6 months I feel my knowledge has grown immensley.
This is great and the fact you did it at 32 is icing on the cake. Being 34 I worry about my age but I feel a bit better now. If you ever start freelancing I'm sure you can leverage your background in sales to help you get clients, it could be a good combination. You get paid to do what you love I think it doesn't get any better than that
There is so much to learn on the dev side it's utterly overwhelming, I'm still learning CSS at the moment then I'll move onto Sass to make my workflow more efficient. I'll get to WordPress at some point but as you've pointed out above I'll have to learn some PHP first.
I just got a new design job via Elance for $20/hr which is not bad, but most of the work there seems like bottom of the barrel and opportunist clients trying to get websites etc for peanuts. This past week I've done pretty well in terms of work and have the following lined up.
£7.50/hr = Ongoing design work but I'll knock this on the head soon as the money is pretty bad.
£12.50/hr = Ongoing work via Elance.
£15/hr = 8 hour project for a design agency in Detroit.
£15/hr = 10 hour project.
£15/hr = 15 hour project.
I'm pretty happy with how it's going so far, I might make a decent amount of money for once in my life as long as I keep improving, add new clients and up my rates when I deserve it.
Good to hear your doing well with the freelancing, I just wondered how much you charge for a website or what the going rate is? I've seen people offer web design on Gumtree for peanuts but I'm guessing that's just cheap crap.
