On being a wanna-be-front-end-designer:
Even though I have my hands in a lot of projects, I still feel like I’m up to my neck in things I still have to learn..in my spare time. I come from a myriad of backgrounds that make my strengths a little difficult to pinpoint. I have a heavy journalistic/mass com education, solid illustration, photography and graphic experience, and a desire to learn whatever I can about applying it all to the web. Somebody help.
So the trouble is here: How can I, being a graduate, learn the part of front end (HTML/CSS) that I didn’t have the opportunity to be taught in school? Believe me, I’ve fumbled around with code, even made some semi-successful starts and had fun with stuff like Processing. I’m not an expert by any means. In a society where interactive media are only growing (and getting more cash thrown at it) it’s pretty frustrating as a “designer” to feel like you’ve missed the boat on being taught any sort of code in school.
I don’t have an answer for how you learn (proficiently, as some job postings are demanding) the pixel pushing details of design and typography along with every line of html that brings your work to life…While working a full time job, because you are a graduate. I think that there is hope here, though. Those of us who grew up being wowed by what our gaming systems can do, what our phones can do, and what this technological shift has meant for the job market: we want to learn.
And because we want to learn, we’re willing to deal with more just for the chance. All we need is the market to meet us half way and give us the opportunity to eat easy mac in our closet-sized New York apartment learning responsive web to make rent because we didn’t go to a fancy art school. But that doesn’t mean we don’t love what we do.
Otherwise I’m starting a pilgrimage to get Comic San MS off of the web safe fonts list.
Above: Days of Processing, textbooks and solving the labyrinth (from a designer’s perspective) of Github and Terminal with help from talented developer, John Sheridan.
