Is a Healthcare Career Right for You?

Take the Free Quiz

WEB DESIGN

WEB DESIGN IS EASIER THAN YOU THINK

When most people think of computer experts, they think of nerdy geniuses with taped-up glasses, using their giant brains to program infuriatingly technical machines.

web design is easier

This image can stop “regular” people (anyone who doesn’t fit that exaggerated stereotype) from trying to get into computer-oriented careers.

The truth is, though, that there are many jobs in the tech industry that don’t require extreme intelligence or nerd-skills. Some jobs (like web design, for example), are much more artistic than mathematical — more about beauty and feeling than about algorithms and code. Most people don’t realize that you don’t have to be a genius to break into the tech world. Web design is much, much easier than you think.

WHAT DO WEB DESIGNERS DO?

Web designers design websites.

Websites are very valuable things. Companies use websites to enhance their brands, promote their products, and sell their services. Organizations use websites to spread information and further their agendas. Governments — from countries to states to counties and towns — use websites to publicize their policies and interact with their citizens. A well-designed website can make a company billions of dollars. A poorly-designed website can make an otherwise upstanding organization look unprofessional.

Twenty years ago, when the web was young, most of the internet looked something like trulybald.com. We’ve come a long way since then. Websites are looking more and more polished, pretty, easy-to-navigate, and user-friendly. If you take a look at professionally-designed websites like uber.com, huffingtonpost.com, or netflix.com, you can see how nice it is when some time, thought, and skill is put in to the design.

This is where professional web designers come in. Instead of just throwing a bunch of stuff onto the internet and hoping it looks good, web designers spend time imagining and planning what a website will look like. This process often starts with old-school tools like pencils and paper, and moves on to making rough drafts using simple and easy-to-use “wireframe” programs. Oftentimes, web designers use pre-made templates and themes, like those found on WordPress.org. Web designers focus mostly on things like color schemes, fonts, and layouts, and often leave the hard-core coding to the web developers.

VISUAL DESIGN VS CODING

Web designers tend to focus more on the look and feel of a website than on the code that lies under the hood. In contrast to web developers, who tend to live in a world of logic, syntax, and code…

web design is easier than you think

…web designers live in a world of shapes, colors, pictures, and letters. You know, the kind of stuff you learned about in kindergarten. That is the bulk of what it means to be a web designer. It really doesn’t get much easier than that.

web design

While many web designers leave it at that — imagining, drawing, coloring, and designing — and still make good money, some go beyond that and learn some basic coding skills.

HTML IS EASY!

While not 100% necessary for getting a job as a web designer, knowing how to use tools like HTML & CSS can be very helpful. These may seem daunting at first, but learning how to use these web development tools is actually much easier than you might think.

For example, if you want to make the words “HTML IS EASY!” bold by using HTML, you’d just write <strong>HTML IS EASY!</strong>. Or, if you want to break some text into two paragraphs, you’d just use some <p> (paragraph) tags, like this:

<p>This is the first paragraph.</p>

<p>This is the second paragraph.</p>

Pretty simple, right?

If you wanted to change the font size in the paragraphs above, you could use CSS to write something like:

p { font-size: 30px; }

More extremely simple examples, which you can actually play with interactively, can be found for free at w3schools.com (among many other places on the web).

You can easily learn the basics of HTML and CSS in a couple of hours, even if you aren’t wearing taped-up glasses. Once you’ve learned how to use them, they become useful additions to your tool-belt; just like knowing how to use a pencil, a box of crayons, or a paintbrush.

WEB DESIGN CAN BE SIMPLE

Good web-design doesn’t always mean complex website structures. Often, it’s just the opposite.

Check out google.com for example.

It’s simple, yet effective. It’s so intuitive that it has become iconic. The page is 90% white space, with a simple logo in the middle, and a big, friendly, welcoming search bar. It’s so obvious what you’re supposed to do, that even a child can figure it out. This is an example of simple, effective web design.

WEB DESIGN CAN BE FUN

Another stereotype that comes along with computer-based careers is that they’re not much fun. One might imagine that staring at a computer screen all day would be extremely boring. The truth is, though, that website design can be a lot of fun — just like drawing, painting, or designing anything else might be. If you’ve ever enjoyed an art class, or doodling on the sides of your notebook in school, or drawing, painting, or designing anything, you might actually find yourself having fun while designing websites.

WEB DESIGN CAN BE REWARDING

There is a popular misconception that if you want to find a fulfilling career, you should focus on healthcare, social work, or similar disciplines.

The truth is, though, that there is important work to be done in web design as well. There are important organizations, like NGOs and charitable foundations, that need web design help in order to raise money and be of benefit to the world. There’s an endless supply of work for upgrading government websites, socially-responsible companies’ websites, and more. Through web design, you can be of great help to your community, and to the world around you.

One striking example from earlier this month, of web designers working to help those less fortunate: web designers offer free services to help refugees.

WEB DESIGN CAN BE LUCRATIVE

While other tech careers (like web development) tend to offer higher salaries, web designers often get paid pretty well for their time. According to data from salary.com, web designers in Miami often earn between $61,023-$81,512 per year.

WEB DESIGN CAN BE YOUR FIRST STEP INTO A LIFE-LONG TECH CAREER

At this point in 2017, it is common knowledge that computer experts and internet entrepreneurs can make more money than basically anybody else in the world. Bill Gates is literally the richest human on Planet Earth. Other young coders, like Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, have skyrocketed to fame and fortune over the past couple of decades as well.

Even mid-level techies, like your run-of-the-mill app developer or your average full-stack web developer, often earn solid, six-figure salaries.

By starting as a web designer, you can take an easy path into the wider world of tech. Even if you never make it to the level of Gates or Zuckerberg — even if you never decide to learn to code anything more complicated than basic HTML and CSS — you still have a great, lucrative, fulfilling career as a web designer. And if you choose to learn more tech skills — like JavaScript, for example — you can easily upgrade to a Web Developer’s salary. Add on some entrepreneurial skills and viola! You’re ready to become the world’s next top billionaire.

To get started as a web designer, give us a call at 786-574-3350, or email us at info@fvi.edu. We have a great new 16-week web designer course here at FVI, that will give you all the skills you need to succeed in this lucrative, fun, and fulfilling career. Click HERE for more information!