Do you know that a web designer is the fastest growing profession in the world? Despite this, there are still not enough good designers. And why? The answer is simple. This is not SEO and not programming. Here you need to feel: your work, the client, the mood of the project. Not everyone can do this.
In this article, we’ll talk about the way to become a web designer, and for dessert, we’ll describe the ideal scheme for becoming a junior designer with minimal skills.
All caste designers can be conditionally divided into 3 categories: Junior designer, Designer, and Senior Designer.
Junior designer
Or the junior web designer. The maximum that he needs to be able to do is to draw pictures in Photoshop. With such a rich experience, he should not expect comfortable working conditions, well, or at least – a good salary. By the way – from this category grows a huge number of stupid freelancers.
The main line of activity of Junior will be rendering of minor pages and long-playing projects. Someone goes through this stage for half a year and goes to the next category, and someone remains so for the whole life.
Designer
Ordinary designer. Such ones often get lost in herds and graze on stock exchanges and forums. They usually know an order of magnitude more than their future competitors (if we talk about the previous ones), but the work is done in the same way, but not always. The obvious question for Junior about the way to become a web designer of the second category is solved with the help of just one component – diligence.
That’s would be difficult to be lazy because both the salary and the responsibility are much higher.
Senior designer
After you learn how to work good and get enough working in a firm, you will most likely have a desire to move to the next stage of evolutionary development. It usually hosts web designers who have an impressive portfolio, looking through which – I want to quit and go to work as a loader. A senior designer is an experienced person. He is trusted both by communication with customers and by rendering complex muzzles (main pages). The next career step is an art director, but that’s another story.
The formula for success
We have developed the ideal formula for the way of becoming a web designer in the shortest time in just 4 steps:
Learn to work with Photoshop to an average level. This does not mean you have to know by heart all the filters. It means to fulfill the tasks facing you as soon as possible.
Understand the basic terms: a modular grid and the principles of working with it, how to build a layout, why it is built, how to choose a color palette and much more. In general, you need to understand everything about creating a medium-statistical site.
Try to find a studio that recruits interns and go there to work part-time or start your career on crowdsourcing design contests. Working in the studio is an excellent textbook. Better than this you will not find anything.
After a lapse of six months, if you try hard, you can get a junior web designer. And then everything depends on you.
Rules and prohibitions of web design
Web design is an intricate thing. When creating a website, or starting a website design contest, you need to take into account a lot of details. To simplify the task, we prepared a list of rules and prohibitions that should be considered by every web designer. It’s good that these principles are quite simple. Let’s go!
Rules
1. The design should be uniform, regardless of platform
Your site is visited from different devices: a stationary computer or laptop, tablet, phone, audio player or even a clock. An important part of the work on UX is to provide each visitor with the same version of the site, regardless of the device.
2. Simple and clear navigation
Navigation is a key concept in the convenience of the user interface. Remember: “It does not matter how good your site is if users can not figure it out.” Therefore, navigation on the site should be:
Simple – every site should have the simplest possible structure;
Understandable – navigation should be obvious;
Succession – the navigation of the first and last page should be the same.
Design the navigation so that the user always understands where he is, where he needs it and how to get there for the least number of clicks.
3. Color links
Links are a key element in the navigation process. If you do not change the color of the visited link, the user can accidentally jump over it again. Understanding where the user has already been and where he is now, helps to decide where to go now.
4. Simple page search
For the first time looking through the site, the user only runs through the pages with his eyes, not reading the text. He needs to find a solution to a problem, and the designer should help him in this through the correct visual hierarchy. Visual hierarchy – the arrangement or presentation of elements by their importance; for example, where the eye falls first, where then, and so on.
Do important things – screen titles, login forms, navigation parts or other meaningful content – a focal point so that the visitor sees them right at the entrance.
5. Check the links!
The user loses credibility to the site every time a 404 error occurs on the link (a non-existent page). By clicking on the link, the user is waiting for the solution to the problem, not the error message.
Prohibitions
1. Open a link in a new tab
This method roughly disables the use of the back button to return to the previous page.
2. Allow advertising to close content
Promotion and advertising on the page can outshine the content, making it difficult for the user to complete the task. Not to mention that everything that looks like advertising is ignored by the user (the phenomenon of banner blindness).
3. Autoplay video with sound
Including themselves, video, music or sounds annoy users. Media content should be used cautiously and only when the user expects it.
Bottom line
The designer’s path is complex and thorny. And you can achieve success here only by diligence and perseverance. No need to wait for the golden mountains – they will not be. But if you really love and believe in what you do, you will always succeed. Finally, finding the best web design company within your budget is a lot like finding the right partner in life.
