Do you have to be a programming genius to become a freelance web designer? ?
- Friday, May 14, 2010, 4:00
- Programming
- 5 comments
I have a 2 year degree in web design, I will soon purchase Adobe CS4, and I am familiar with the programming I learned in school. Plus, I will purchase guides and manuals for each program or language, so I should have a leg up, right?
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5 Comments on “Do you have to be a programming genius to become a freelance web designer? ?”
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NO! I am a graphic designer, and NOT a programmer. I create websites. You do not need to know programing really, just CSS, HTML, and Dreamweaver, and Flash and you are good to go. I have CS3. You should wait a while longer before getting CS4 so you know they got most of the bugs out. You should be fine.
No, don’t need to be a genius. Just have to provide a service that your customers want.
Being a good business person helps.
No, to be honest it’ll be hard no matter what – You’ll need to build an impressive portfolio, and become a web-social whore.
virb is a good place for freelance web designers -it’s like a myspace for creative folk (I don’t think it was intended that way, but it is what it is). Any social site will do though, and blog like your life depended on it.
guru.com is your friend -go at it free for a while, and upgrade if it’s working for you.
In the end, these things will be the only saving graces for you – actually, yes your degree and all that will help, but people (in my experience) respond more to something they can see right in front of them. (blog posts, mentions of them all over, completed designs, etc.)
As far as programming, using pre-built packages is generally acceptable these days. We use CMS made simple on every site we build, it “simple” as the name suggests, and takes care of all the general programming for you. There are others we use as well, like Joomla and WordPress. (all free)
I agree with all the other answers and I am a freelance web designer. Look at the projects and make sure that you can complete them and go for it. It is good to challenge yourself with projects sometimes but still make sure that you will be able to complete them.
I would suggest joining some of the online support forums such as http://www.htmlforums.com. Reason being, if you find yourself facing a challenge and need some advice there are plenty of people there who will help you.
Another good site to join if you are going to do any development is http://www.phpfreaks.com/
They are really super about helping you there and they have many tutorials on php.
no thats why they are freelance
it they were genius they be working @ a company