ACTIONpack Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 My job is about to end in about a month and in the process to find a job job. When looking I see a requirement of skill I should know for a job and it's almost everything under the sea. Most graphic design jobs wants you to know web and most web design jobs wants you to know front and back end coding plus graphics. The 7 years I've been in the graphic design field, most were good at one but sucky at the other. Because most W2 jobs were graphics and my freelance was web, I'm pretty good at both. Now that I'm looking for something new everyone wants you to know everything and the paid is not so well. I'm guessing it's because of the bad market. What is your experience about this? My skill set! Photoshop Illustrator InDesign Dreamweaver HTML5 CSS3 WordPress (Beginner but can do a few custom site) jQuery (Beginner, can do very very simple coding) Flash (Don't know it really anymore) QuarkXPress (Don't know it anymore but can learn it again really quickly) Setting up local servers Building Computers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
neohelp Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 My job is about to end in about a month and in the process to find a job job. When looking I see a requirement of skill I should know for a job and it's almost everything under the sea. Most graphic design jobs wants you to know web and most web design jobs wants you to know front and back end coding plus graphics. The 7 years I've been in the graphic design field, most were good at one but sucky at the other. Because most W2 jobs were graphics and my freelance was web, I'm pretty good at both. Now that I'm looking for something new everyone wants you to know everything and the paid is not so well. I'm guessing it's because of the bad market. What is your experience about this? My skill set! Photoshop Illustrator InDesign Dreamweaver HTML5 CSS3 WordPress (Beginner but can do a few custom site) jQuery (Beginner, can do very very simple coding) Flash (Don't know it really anymore) QuarkXPress (Don't know it anymore but can learn it again really quickly) Setting up local servers Building Computers It is VERY difficult to find someone who can design and code. You obviously choose the design route. If thats what you like, Id stay on that route. There are a lot companies that have a bunch of coders but no designers (my company for example) and then (this is worst) a lot of designers but no coders. If you want, you can go ahead and try the code route but trust me, if you like design, I dont think you will like it. BTW, "jQuery" is not coding, its basically a library for Javascript. Just saying that, tells me you dont like coding (which is not a bad thing, personal preference) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astropheed Veteran Posted August 12, 2013 Veteran Share Posted August 12, 2013 It's the most asset-able to know jQuery, CSS, any popular CMS' and throwing it all together. If you're marketing yourself as a Graphic Designer you will earn less money than if you market yourself as a web developer with a Graphic Design background. There are a lot of people that can convince a lot of people that they are a good designer. Trying to get into the 'design' markets will be incredibly difficult for you and even when you do get in you will likely make next to nothing. Unfortunately everyone with an illegal version of photoshop fancy themselves as a designer, and can sell themselves to prospective employers. A lot of people pirate photoshop..... QuarkXPress will be good for some print agencies that still use it and if applying to those I'd use a Design heavy resume. InDesign, which I see you have, is in general the more useful program in that regard. Flash isn't very important to know. Dreamweaver isn't very important to know. You need to be tip-top at jQuery and CSS for the big bucks. Large companies will segregate front-end from the back-end developers, smaller ones will expect you to handle both. PHP experience will look great to most companies. If you can handle a CMS, any will do, you can get your foot in the door for other CMS environments (most companies will be using a CMS). If you want money, learn to either be a really good front-end or back-end developer. Knowing both makes you fairly indispensable. A good job will afford you opportunities to learn front/back-end coding on the job. When you find this job, cradle it like a baby, love it. Enjoy the time you have with it. It'll be the door to the rest of your future in the world of web. I don't have time to proof-read, work is over, sorry for grammatical errors. Best of luck. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ACTIONpack Posted August 12, 2013 Author Share Posted August 12, 2013 It's the most asset-able to know jQuery, CSS, any popular CMS' and throwing it all together. If you're marketing yourself as a Graphic Designer you will earn less money than if you market yourself as a web developer with a Graphic Design background. There are a lot of people that can convince a lot of people that they are a good designer. Trying to get into the 'design' markets will be incredibly difficult for you and even when you do get in you will likely make next to nothing. Unfortunately everyone with an illegal version of photoshop fancy themselves as a designer, and can sell themselves to prospective employers. A lot of people pirate photoshop..... QuarkXPress will be good for some print agencies that still use it and if applying to those I'd use a Design heavy resume. InDesign, which I see you have, is in general the more useful program in that regard. Flash isn't very important to know. Dreamweaver isn't very important to know. You need to be tip-top at jQuery and CSS for the big bucks. Large companies will segregate front-end from the back-end developers, smaller ones will expect you to handle both. PHP experience will look great to most companies. If you can handle a CMS, any will do, you can get your foot in the door for other CMS environments (most companies will be using a CMS). If you want money, learn to either be a really good front-end or back-end developer. Knowing both makes you fairly indispensable. A good job will afford you opportunities to learn front/back-end coding on the job. When you find this job, cradle it like a baby, love it. Enjoy the time you have with it. It'll be the door to the rest of your future in the world of web. I don't have time to proof-read, work is over, sorry for grammatical errors. Best of luck. I'm not sure what I want to jump into next. The future is the web and print work is becoming an after thought. I would say that I'm a visual person which is why I went into the graphic designer field after college. I use it for sometime but more and more things are going to the web which I'm pretty good at it visual but when it comes to html/css/javascript, it take time to get everything running right. Dreamweaver is the web coding program of choice but I only use the coding part of it and not the design. I find using the design never comes out right and takes longer. At the point, I really don't want to redesign my website, just clean it up to the latest information on current job stuff. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeChipshop Member Posted August 12, 2013 Member Share Posted August 12, 2013 Being a do-all kinda guy isn;t particularly useful if you want to become successful. Find what you excel at and concentrate on it. Partner with other people to get the gaps filled in and you're on to a winner. Currently bringing in the bucks are WordPress and Magento. Get a firm grip of these and the work will flow. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyLH Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 Being a do-all kinda guy isn;t particularly useful if you want to become successful. Find what you excel at and concentrate on it. Partner with other people to get the gaps filled in and you're on to a winner. Currently bringing in the bucks are WordPress and Magento. Get a firm grip of these and the work will flow. Really? The more subject topics you pick up and know the better. You're never going to know everything and be perfectly suited to a job when you hop in it. Especially with design and web. From reading your posts, get more familiar with the stuff you're not that good with. It'll open more doors and you'll feel more confident expanding into areas you wouldn't normally in a job. For example, learn JS & JQuery well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeChipshop Member Posted August 12, 2013 Member Share Posted August 12, 2013 Really? The more subject topics you pick up and know the better. You're never going to know everything and be perfectly suited to a job when you hop in it. Especially with design and web. Common misconception, i've seen so many people burn out trying to cover all bases. You should of course have a working knowledge of everything that is used to create the final product but you must also remember the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyLH Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 Common misconception, i've seen so many people burn out trying to cover all bases. You should of course have a working knowledge of everything that is used to create the final product but you must also remember the saying "Jack of all trades, master of none". A saying which hinders ability. Limiting yourself without even attempting the subject is counter productive. You can be a master of all trades. Learning JS/JQuery thoroughly is only going to give more ideas to the design process, especially considering when you know what you can achieve in JQuery, you can feed that into the design process to boost UI concepts. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MikeChipshop Member Posted August 12, 2013 Member Share Posted August 12, 2013 A saying which hinders ability. Limiting yourself without even attempting the subject is counter productive. Very few can, those that can, good but those that can't shouldn't kill themselves trying. Also 'limiting yourself, without even trying'? Did i not say you should have a working knowledge, surely you'd perceive that as 'trying'. The guy asked for some advice, which i have given. Advice off the back of 15 years of successful experience in the industry working both for large scale companies like the BBC and running my own business. You've got to know when to partner with other people or it's just not financially viable. Of course, ACTIONpack, it's up to you whether you heed my advice or not, just bear in mind that many in our industry would agree 100% with me. Team up with others and don't try to be the lone wolf. Not only will you benefit financially, you'll also enjoy yourself way more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JonnyLH Posted August 12, 2013 Share Posted August 12, 2013 Very few can, those that can, good but those that can't shouldn't kill themselves trying. Also 'limiting yourself, without even trying'? Did i not say you should have a working knowledge, surely you'd perceive that as 'trying'. The guy asked for some advice, which i have given. Advice off the back of 15 years of successful experience in the industry working both for large scale companies like the BBC and running my own business. You've got to know when to partner with other people or it's just not financially viable. Of course, ACTIONpack, it's up to you whether you heed my advice or not, just bear in mind that many in our industry would agree 100% with me. Team up with others and don't try to be the lone wolf. Not only will you benefit financially, you'll also enjoy yourself way more. He's referring to learning JS and JQuery, it's directly related to graphic design and if I was employing someone to design my front-ends I'd expect them to know JS/JQuery as a given. I'm not preaching for him to suddenly learn matrices and the wonders of routing protocols, but rather something that will push him forward in his career and work. ActionPACK, you call yourself a visual guy. For me, JS/JQuery is as visual as it gets. Creating UI ideas and concepts with swooshing elements moving about the screen for innovate UI ideas. Also, the fundamentals of PHP and AJAX also would be ideal to learn. That'd help you understand the process of concept to implementation from development which helps communication between teams. If you know HTML/JS/JQuery/PHP/AJAX fundamentals, you're pretty much rolling in opportunities. Due to so many people learning these languages by themselves or professionally, it is hard out there. I've worked at 3 of the top ISP's in the UK. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicholas-c Veteran Posted August 12, 2013 Veteran Share Posted August 12, 2013 Can't really help in the grand scale of things but I have just moved into a new job as a web developer and all I know is HTML/CSS/PHP and MySQL, All self taught and now I have a job in it!. I have learnt Javascript/jQuery/AJAX on the fly over the last 2 months which is needed for the role really to get sites actually built. If you understand the basics at least the rest is easy.Good luck with finding a job. It's a good move! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
astropheed Veteran Posted August 12, 2013 Veteran Share Posted August 12, 2013 Being a do-all kinda guy isn;t particularly useful if you want to become successful. Find what you excel at and concentrate on it. Partner with other people to get the gaps filled in and you're on to a winner. Currently bringing in the bucks are WordPress and Magento. Get a firm grip of these and the work will flow. It's not about being the do-all guy, it's about being knowledgeable. If you're a front-end coder then you should have a grasp of the back-end procedures and vice versa. You're right in that being strong in a particular area is better than being decent at many, but that doesn't mean you should ignore their existence. Not only is it better to know Front-end and Back-end, it's almost the minimum requirement. I don't find it too difficult to know PHP, JS (jQuery), CSS, (My)SQL and HTML all together with a strong understanding of them all; hell, I know Python better than all of those languages put together. After that I also have a professional certification in Adobe CS and fancy myself as a decent designer. This puts me in an excellent position to make both the front-end and back-end decisions, and I wouldn't hire another guy under me with any less qualifications. Also, I make really good money and that's the reason we work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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