Website Design Blog. Evoart

Sorry for not posting last week everyone. Ive just got back from a week in Tenerife! Anyway, this post has come about after being tagged by a good friend of mine, Mike Jolley. I don’t consider myself ’successful’ yet, as Im still at the beginning of my career, having only worked professionally for a year and eight months, but I’ll do my best to answer these questions. If you want to learn more about me, then please read on.

1. How did you get started in the business?

Now this is a long story, but it all began for me back in year seven at school. Basically I’d stayed on after school for a guitar lesson and a teacher intercepted me as I was aimlessly walking down a corridor passing the time as everyone had gone home. Now this simply wasn’t on, and so the teacher advised I do something more constructive with my time, and so took me into a computer class that was going on. I found the class quite interesting and eventually I joined up. We learnt how to hand code basic websites using only Notepad and Internet Explorer. Now, looking back, I believe that this was an excellent way to start the coding process as I learnt about the structure of HTML from scratch, without having Dreamweaver or Frontpage to fall back on.

Previous to all this though I had been dabbling with Photoshop a little. Like so many others, I owe designing to my addiction to online gaming, something which I have since grown out of. I was in various clans for one particular game and came about to see ’sigs’ being used on forums. Naturally I was interested in how they were created, and thats how I started messing around in Photoshop.

2. What kept you going in those early years?

Im still in my early years, but the main factor that keeps me going so far is my enjoyment for designing and building websites and just creating things in general. I think its really important that you enjoy what you do for a living. The thing I love about web and print design is that you can see the finished product at the end, whether it be a fresh new site launch, or a leaflet you’ve just got back from the printers.

3a. Did you ever feel like you weren’t good enough or you would never make it in this industry?

Yeh, totally! Theres so many fantastic designers out there that I always wondered if I had what it takes. I use to sit and admire all the work in the CSS galleries and literally dream of getting a site of mine in there. Well now I have, and the feeling was brilliant! Even now I sometimes wonder if i’ll go any further in the industry and because of this Im really trying to learn new things and get out of my comfort zone. Digressing from the topic a little, Im a firm believer in setting goals, and so my currently goal is to really widen my skill set, as back then it was to get into a few galleries. Back on topic - come to think of it, sometimes even now bad experiences with clients can leave you feeling like your not good enough.

3b. How did you work through that?

Determination is pretty important in becoming successful, and also motivation. When I feel down or like I won’t ‘make it’ I just look back on what Ive achieved so far.

4. Do you look at others today and think “Wow, I wish I were that good”?

Very often yes. You just have to realise though that naturally you can’t be better than everyone at everything. Each person has their own areas of expertise and you won’t get anywhere (I believe) if you try to beat everyone at everything. Understand what your good at, and work on those things. Its like the whole designer / developer thing - specialise in one area, but have a good sound knowledge of the other area too.

5. How do you measure success?

I personally measure success by achievements, awards, recognition and then on a personal level, wage. Wage is important to me personally, but its not something that anyone else is worried about. For example I could be earning £30k+, but be producing really low level websites. Sure i’d be successful on a personal level regarding standard of living, but in the industry I really wouldn’t be thought of as successful, or recognised as a well known name in the business.

Receiving recognition from a client is a real buzz, and makes you feel really successful especially when a project has reached completion. Its definitely one of the things I love the most about the job, its just a shame that not all clients share the same level of respect for us web designers.

6. By your standard, do you think you are successful?

I think that to a certain degree I have been successful in this early stage of my career, although there is a very long way to go. I landed a fantastic job with Giant Peach and have worked on some great projects for big clients. I have also been lucky enough to receive recognition from more or less all the major CSS galleries, but Im hoping that thats just the start. My long term goal is to be a recognized designer and to speak at the big conferences all over the world. I dream of designing for Apple someday and Im sure a great number of you guys reading this do too! Who knows if it will happen, but its always good to set your sights high.

P.S. I don’t have anyone to tag right now as all my blogging friends seem to have been tagged already! I guess this is a good opportunity to make some contacts. If you’ve got a blog and you wish to answer the same questions let me know in the comments and i’ll update this post and add your link.