How I Became a Web Designer
This is the story of how a girl named Claire did more for my career than my college education. AKA How I Became a Web Designer.
Somewhere around age 13, when us kids were just starting to explore the World Wide Web, I stumbled on a web page owned by some girl named Claire. It was one column and purple with a big *Claire* at the top. I was memorized and intrigued. I created an account at gURLpages, like she had, and made my own one column *Sarah* page. (I looked at gURL.com the other day and sadly, it looks like gURLpages no longer exists. Where will the nerdlettes come from now?)
I spent the next few years dissecting every site with a fancy layout and flashy graphics, teaching myself HTML and then CSS. I wish I had gotten my hands on a copy of Dreamweaver back then because I wasted a whole lot of time coding everything in Notepad. I remember trying to figure out mouseover buttons and frames and being thrilled with my discovery of the iframe. (Any of you nerds still with me here?)
At some point, maybe around 15, I started blogging. I had an account at Blogger and Diaryland and then graduated to having my blog hosted at another blogger’s site.
In college, while getting my degree in journalism, I built websites for bands (they mostly paid in food and merch) and small companies. I also spent a good amount of time redesigning my portfolio. I don’t think any layout lasted more than a couple weeks before I came up with something new.
In 2005, when I graduated from college, the almost 10 years of being a total nerd finally paid off when I landed a job at the TV station I now work at. My degree got me in the door, but my portfolio definitely got the job.
I don’t design much outside of work anymore. I spend most of my day glued to a computer sifting through code, so when I go home I prefer to stay away from the internets.
I owe a big thanks to Claire and her adorable purple webpage for making me the employed nerd I am today.
Comments (11)
Hi!
I`m not a web designer nor a general designer but I definitely design a lot. It started while I was in university (economics and business) and I would write professional-like project, word documents basically but with really cool design of header/footer/sidebars/pictures/graphs, etc. Even though I don`t master Photoshop or Corell or other software like that, I believe I do nice things with surrogate/open source software. My artwork served in real estate (property presentations) for a while but now I use my skill for designing apparel for my own outdoor sportswear brand.
It’s great fun and rewarding.
Cheers!
Aww, cool story!
Interesting! I often wonder how people get where they are. Just found your blog and I’m loving it!
sillygrrl Reply:
August 14th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
kage – thanks for stopping by!
I stumbled on your blog from 20SB and thought your post was really interesting. Though my work I’ve been somewhat forced to learn the basics of Dreamweaver – enough to update our corporate website – but I’d like to learn more. Do you have any suggestions of good online resources since taking classes is a bit out of my budget this year. Any help would be great.
Thanks!
Interesting! I got my start in web development designing sites for bands too — the only difference was that many of those bands happened to be my own.
Also, I learned Photoshop by making flyers for shows. I’m sure you’re in that pool, too.
I’m currently going to school for a Computer Arts/New Media degree. I’m well aware going to college isn’t necessarily needed but I love going to school, and this school allows me to learn the trade of print, web, and interactive design.
I’m a freelance graphic designer at the moment, and it’s good. Would be better if not for the economy.
I got my start in webdesign at the age of 17. I REALLY wish I still had all the old layouts I made, just so I can laugh my butt off. Seriously, a lot of my earlier designs were SO bad. Clashing colors and all.
I remember the joys of discovering frames and dissecting codes from other people’s websites.
Those were fun and geeky times. They still are! I’m still learning and it’s been great.
This topic makes me happy. I can’t talk geek to any of my friends about graphic/web design.
I used to be on gURL.com ALL. THE. TIME. LOVED IT!!!
Your story about webdesigning is similar to mine. I also spent hours and hours coding everything into Notepad without any help. I spent SO much time on it. I used to change layouts once a month, perfecting my creations in PSP. I was obsessed. I guess I still am, I just don’t spend so much time on it any longer.
And, to free up space on my hard drive, I deleted allllll my old layouts about two months ago. It was a tough decision, but I think I’m glad I did it.
sillygrrl Reply:
August 7th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
angela – gURL was awesome! i deleted the files for all my sites, but kept screen shots of most of them. though i don’t have a lot of layouts from my actual blogs.
yolanda – i’m always down to talk about nerdy stuff! i kinda wish i had gotten some sort of media degree just to fill in all the holes of stuff i couldn’t teach myself.
nico – yep, i did plenty of fliers too!
stephanie – just start surfing the web! i figured out most of what i know from finding cool stuff on other people’s websites and then viewing their source code and trying to figure it out. http://www.webmonkey.com/ is also a good resource.
Awesome story. I wish I knew what I wanted to be when I grow up. Since, you know, I AM grown up.
i forgot to mention in my email that i think you are probably a better designer by not using dreamweaver! it’s crazy the jobs people get at the U who only use the dreamweaver design mode. the code is nasty :)