When I tell people I’ma web designer, their response is often, “oh great, you can help me fix my printer.� Or, “oh, I have Dreamweaver, myself. And, they buy a copy of Photoshop or Dreamweaver and call themselves a web designer.
What makes a professional web designer professional? How does he conduct himself? How accessible should he be? What are some red flags I should look for when dealing with a web designer? What should I do in case things go wrong?
However, I don’t anticipate becoming a professional web designer after college. I do, however, anticipate continuing to learn about CSS, XHTML, JS, and other technologies. Here’s my thoughts: If you are to make this professional body of
the term web designer is still relatively new. some people just havent grasped the concept that we want to be hired for our judgements in all aspects of it. so they dont care how many hours you spend on typography, they cant tell the
There are some great points in this article and comments, and this discussion follows on nicely from Mark Boulton’s post, and also fits in nicely with the kerfuffle over alcoholic design rips at Airbag Industries.
Fair enough, and please pardon me for misunderstanding. As for universities, there are plenty with solid graphic design programs, but it’s true that few—if any—of them have an up-do-date focus on the web. It’s not shocking,
Jeff, good point that there is a vacuum in the world of educating clients about web design. Again, the AIGA is stepping up the pace in that department, and you’d be surprised at how many corporate leaders in tech and marketing read
how much effort should be dedicated to forcing these clients to unlearn what they “like� and start to like what is “good�? The real education problem here is teaching them that you are designer, not a web monkey.
oh man have you hit the nail on the head! multiple times!!!! “consumers of design are uneducated�. so true! is it our job to educate them? to some extent, it is. but then, is the money worth it? i know i’ve been guilty (aka am currently
Great post, Jeff. I am not a designer, though I like to design for fun. I am also not a professional programmer (I even turned down a web developer job opportunity, because I felt it should be left for someone who is not only more
Shave and a haircut? I think that’s perhaps the best analogy out there, actually. The salon pros have to have tested well on their ability to understand the technical side of the business - they need to know a lot of chemistry,
The question: Once you’ve got the membership set up, what’s to make a potential client care one way or the other? Board Certification works for doctors because people are putting their lives in the hands of doctors.
Rob, you’re absolutely right, and I’d say any organization that served to educate clients and designers ought to work on getting better web education in schools, as well.
Jeff, you accuse people of mistaking the design tools for the design job, but doesn’t this technology certification you’re talking about do just that? After all, as you said, the skills that really earn us our money are our
You can’t teach people taste, it seems. They either have it or they don’t. Yeah, but it’s not just about taste. Taste has to do with style. Design is far more than style. Design has to do with communication, solving problems,
I also wanted to repeat (from my post at Mark Boulton’s site) that certification in other fields, like project management and computer programming, is to many hiring professionals in those fields pretty much useless at finding
Once you’ve got the membership set up, what’s to make a potential client care one way or the other? Good question, it’s still an ideas in progress. I see this as something akin to a Get Firefox campaign where those who are members help
We, as professional web designers, need to come together to find some way to educate clients and companies on the difference between us and the hacks that permeate our industry. You need to be careful doing it though because trying to
Yes! I’ve had similar discussions and ideas but it always comes down to who’s going to do all the work to set this up and maintain it. Sadly, AIGA doesn’t seem interested otherwise they would have done it already (which is weird to me
In which I shamelessly ask Jeff to coerce WO to create a jr-level position. Jeff - I’ve said this before, and your comment sparks me to say it again - when are you going to have a jr-level design position at WO so I can apply? =)
