ImmortalKenny

Ok, I'm starting college this summer for web design and production and had a couple questions for the people that make their living off of it.

1. How does the design and production process work? Are there "teams," where each person has a different part in the website? Or is it different for every business?
2. How are you employed? Through businesses, corporations, whatever. Basically, where does your check come from
3. What is a normal day like?

If I can think of more, I'll add them later.
Thanks guys.

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Lude

Well, i am about to start. I'm in college too, but in Mechanical Engineering. I am working on a few websites now. Just standard websites that don't need updating frequently or anything. My hope is to just make websites on the side and help pay for bills so i don't have to work full time and go to school full time. For me, it is just going to be me doing everything. It would be great to go to class, come back and be able to work at my own leisure and not have a boss. We'll see how it goes...

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theRemix

I have been in the web industry for about 7 years now. started out freelancing, and have been self-taught ever since (there were no degrees or courses when i first started, they just started springing up shortly after)

i can tell you that it is not the greatest industry to be in. If you can avoid it, please do. You'll save yourself headaches and hard times. I would say that you need to be drop-dead in love with design and/or programming, yes there are two parts to web development, i don't know any professional that excels at both. i started out sucking at both, but loving every minute of it... both because as i said, i began by freelancing, and i was the only one to do both sides.

so on to your questions.

1. it depends. it's always better to work in at least 2 different teams(of varying size), because good design comes from a good designer, who is probably not a good programmer... and vice versa. work together to create the best product most efficiently. the size of each team varies based on the size of the project. i have worked on many projects as the sole programmer, and i have worked on projects where there were 4 on each "team".

2. my checks used to come from clients that i did not know how to handle.... yes handling a client is a full time job. for the past 4-5 years i've been working for companies to work on their site... and being from hawaii, they were all real estate, and travel industry clients. Now i am currently employed at a full service marketing and technology agency. this means that we don't just do web, we do print, tv, radio, mailers, flyers, and inserts. but i only deal with the web department. I also do side work because there is a huge demand for my services, and side work brings in 5 times more income than a job...

3. My normal day is waking up early, bussing it to downtown, sit at my cube, turn on my computer(s), and begin by reading and replying to emails, then on to replying to bacn to help the needy (which is why i'm responding to this thread, i'm subscribed to tens of forums and mailing lists), and reading my feeds (i use netvibes) so i can keep up with the fast ever changing nature of this industry through news articles and blog posts. Email, Bacn and RSS feeds take up my first 2 hours at work... and never end. My department goes down to grab coffee downstairs and across the street, grab breakfast, and return. sometimes we have a department wide meeting (small and quick) to re-prioritize stuff and update everyone department events and such. Then (back in my cube) on to my task tracker, continue unfinished work from the day before, manage priorities, send notifications where appropriate, work on new tasks in order of set priorities. 6 hours of rushing work, debugging, reading emails, debugging, tracking tasks and logging hours, debugging, looking at analytic data writing summaries and documentation, debugging, communicating with the creative department to get resources for a project that is "coming up" (but is actually 2 weeks overdue), debugging, catching up on bacn and rss again, and helping co-workers with any problems (their debugging issues) they are having, because sometimes even the simplest problems only need a different pair of eyes to look at it, to expose problematic code that the original author overlooks.
sometimes i have to stay later to make sure deadlines are met (even though deadlines are never met).

if you are serious about this, look into working for an agency. if you work for a company on one site, you'll most likely get bored, and stuck in a bubble of one language, one workflow, one environment... it's the smaller of the "boxes". If you work for an agency, you get to explore different styles and experiment with a wider array of ways to skin a cat. things change, keeping this fresh and exciting. you learn new things (this is very big to me).

since i live in hawaii, a very lo-tech region, us programmers get paid less than waiters. but along these years, my passion for creation has spurred me to never stop learning and growing... now i turn down offers left and right, offers to work on a project on the side, offers for new employment opportunities, and offers for new business ventures. i have enough experience to know which offers are worth taking... and which will just take up too much time, for not enough gain. gain does not mean money (only), it means projects to add to your portfolio, learning new techniques, using new tools that you can add to you toolbox, creating new relationships, and personal feeling of pride in your work and achievement (and also money).

after a few years if you get good enough, you can start out on your own if you want. (go back to freelancing), i have no plans for this at the moment, i like working in a structured company for stability and insurance.

it is true that as long as you have a job, are working for someone else, then you will be overworked and underpaid. but now i am now able to charge what i am worth, after 6pm.

hope this answers some of your questions, and i wish you the best of luck, in this highly competitive industry.

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ImmortalKenny

Wow, Remix, that was a sure eye-opener. I never knew that this industry was so involved like the way you were describing it. Holy crap, I don't know if this will be a good thing or a bad thing for me. Hmm, only time will tell I guess. I do spend around 2 hours or more a day designing "templates" and what not, while juggling high school and my part-time job. I do have a passion for this stuff, and it looks like this industry isn't going downhill anytime soon. I think I'll stick with it.

+Rep for your post that I'll probably read over and over again

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theRemix

thanks for the rep+ !

it's good that you have a passion for it, i hope you stick to it and that i can be of some help to you.

it's true it's not going downhill, it's actually becoming "the media". slowly taking over even television.

how i learned everything i know is through books, online articles, tutorials, and forums. i have a huge collection of books, and belong to many communities.

i still do not know which 'sect' of web development you are thinking of going into, you probably are not certain either. but you would be best advised to at least have a great understanding of both disciplines. i believe that what makes me unique and stand out from the crowd is that i am a programmer, but with a solid understanding of design, and i know how to work with designers, but cannot design worth ***** compared to pros. so whichever way you go, learn the foundations of both.

there are many communities that you should join.

If you stumble into the design world, i recommend:
DesignersTalk forum, great talent there, lots of helpful people (some unhelpful, but you can't avoid that), good discussions, and i guarantee you will learn so much... and at the very least pack your bookmarks (i hope you are using something like del.icio.us) full of valuable resources... just by browsing the topics. your potential will be manifested by becoming involved with the community, and participating as much as you can in discussions.

if you find that logic and math turn you on, well then you'll have a plethora of "orgies" to join, so many good communities out there. i would recommend that whatever topic/language/platform/framework that you are currently learning, join the official, or most active, forum dedicated to that subject. i belong to so many, and am currently active in a handful including Dream in Code, google groups, RailsForum, Kirupa (Flash and Actionscript), and Actionscript.org to name a few.

i consider this "street smarts", because these communities find ways to solve problems in undocumented, and sometimes more efficient ways.... at least ways that work, and the application of programming knowledge.
Books and classrooms will teach you one way to skin a cat, communities (people ungoverned by rules and restrictions) have the freedom to explore a million ways to skin the same cat, share the problems they had while doing it, step you through how to skin an uncommon two headed, three tailed cat, and even show off their new circus of bald cats before they become the next facebook.

I am not a savant, i have problems with math, and dropped out of highschool before passing geometry. but i read a lot and re-read the same books front to back, often reading a paragraph more than 3 times just to completely understand it because i apply geometry, trigonometry and physics everyday. so don't ever feel discouraged, just work harder.

hth.

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screenshot of BFG-c2d on gentoo linux
http://remixtechnology.com/view/bfg-...deo-screenshot

ImmortalKenny

I would have to say, you have opened some doors for me already, and I really appreciate it.

I guess I could say I'm stuck between the two aspects, design and programming, I love doing both. I enjoy making websites look clean, professional, and easy to understand, but then I love debugging the code and solving problems. I have a lot to learn in both areas, and could go either way, or study hard and master both. Well, not master, because things change every second, but you get the idea. As far as which 'sect' I'll be going into is beyond me, and I'm not certain yet. I haven't, until now, known how much goes into this field. I've always made little gradients, buttons, icons, etc. in Photoshop and made little blog templates and such using them. Now I know most of the aspects of this field and where it could take me, but it's still hard to decide where I should take myself. Only time will tell. And who knows what this field will be like in 3-4 years when I graduate from college.

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