The field of web design is highly saturated, and that has created an extraordinarily competitive environment for those who are entering the field. Fortunately, you can put yourself at an advantage if you can gain real-world experience through internships, or if you can find other opportunities to work as a web designer while still developing and honing your skills.

Determining the Best Internship Opportunities

If you are a student, you are at an advantage. First, there is a good chance that your school has an internship program for students in your particular field. If this is the case, you can simply ask your advisor or department head what it is that you need to do to sign up.

If your school does not have a formal program, all is not lost. Ask your instructors or professors if they are aware of any local companies that are willing to take on web design interns. You certainly will not be the first person to ask, and if they can, the school staff will be happy to help.

Finally, don’t dismiss your school as a potential internship opportunity. After all, your school has a website that must be continually modified and updated. It’s more than likely that the people doing that job are other students, like you. Don’t be afraid to ask about internships or work-study opportunities within your schools IT department as well.

If you are a self-taught web designer, or you have learned web design through free learning websites such as W3 Schools or Khan Academy, you may discover that finding an internship or other opportunities a bit more challenging. After all, it will be up to you to find opportunities and make connections on your own.

On the other hand, your independent approach to learning web design can also work to your advantage. People love to help somebody that has worked to accomplish something on their own and has demonstrated the self-discipline it takes to complete their education independently.

Whether you find opportunities with help from your school or on your own, your next step is determining which opportunities are best for you. After all, you want the chance to use your skills in practical ways. You don’t want to spend several weeks in an office waiting for somebody to give you something to do, and you certainly don’t want to spend those weeks as a glorified errand runner.

Don’t be afraid to ask questions about your role during the internship. Remember that the business you will be working with will get something out of this also. Here are a few questions you should ask of anybody that is offering you a position as an intern:

• What projects will I be working on while I am interning with you?
• Can you tell me anything about the technology I will be using?
• What percentage of my day will be spent on duties that are not related to web design?
• Which of the skills that I have developed will be used the most during my internship?
• Are there any new skills that I will learn while I am here?

Use the answers to these questions to determine whether or not you should take on any internship that you are offered.

Developing Professional Skills when Internship Opportunities Don’t Exist

If you are unable to nail down an internship opportunity that works for you, then you will have to create your own opportunity. The best way to do this is to step out on your own and offer your services to people that are willing to be patient with somebody that has a bit of a learning curve to tackle but is willing to work at a discounted rate.

Do some research, chances are you will find a few small businesses, churches, and charitable organizations that cannot afford to pay an established design firm to create and maintain their web pages. You may be able to negotiate a win-win situation with one or more of these entities to work on their websites for a small fee, and, most importantly, a reference. Don’t dismiss the idea of volunteering your services either. After all, it is quite unlikely that your internship would have been a paying gig anyway.

Marketing Yourself for Prospective Internship Positions

First, if you have not done so, go quickly to LinkedIn and complete your profile. If you have done so, but aren’t making connections, you may need to make some changes so that it is as effective as possible. Then, send custom invitations to connect with previous employers, the businesses with whom you are seeking opportunities, fellow web designers, and anybody else who you believe could be a valuable connection.

Whatever you do, don’t use the generic invitation that is provided to you. Take the time to write your own. Once you have done this, it is time to put together your portfolio. Use Dribbble, DeviantArt or Behance if you want to showcase the artistic side of your work, or GitHub if you want to demonstrate your coding skills.

It seems almost too obvious to mention, but you’ll want to take the time to create a top-notch resume and to write custom cover letters to each company that you are interested in.

When you are discussing your talents and skills with others, don’t forget to mention other talents you have that may come in handy. For example, if you minored in English, your written communication skills might be a positive if you are going to work with a company that wants you to write content in addition to doing website design.

Finally, make sure that you are always actively developing and improving your skills. If there is a tool or a language that can help you become a better, more marketable designer invest the time and money to master it. You’ll never regret having an additional tool in your arsenal.

A Few Companies with Great Internships

And finally, if you are confident in the marketability of your web design skill set, and are willing to relocate for a great internship opportunity, here are some well-known companies that you may wish to contact:

• Google – User Experience:
  If you are accepted into this program, you will work on projects using your web design or graphic design skills. The goal of these projects is to take complex processes and automate them for users. Interns tthat show talent and motivation will be given leadership positions on future projects.
• Facebook – Design and User Experience:
  If you intern at Facebook, you will play a role in taking research and information gleaned from customer feedback and finding ways to improve the look and feel of the Facebook interface and experience.
• Washington Post – Web Design:
  As a web design intern at the Washington Post, you could find yourself using your talents to help the News, Sports, or Lifestyle departments of the Post’s website. In each 12 week internship cycle, you will work on a variety of projects, and could even see some of your completed work displayed on the website.
• Vox Global – Web Development:
  Are you interested in politics? If so, this may be a good fit for you. Vox interns work to develop political campaigns through the use of multimedia and digital technology. These internships do require specific technical skills such as HTML, DreamWeaver, and WordPress.

The post Finding Internships as a Young Web Designer appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.

A web designer relying on skills and education that they developed five years ago would find their career dead in the water. Likewise, a web designer who believes that the skills they have today will hold up five years from now is fooling themselves.

Web design will remain a viable career option for those that are willing to continually pursue new educational opportunities, work to form solid business relationships, respond to consumer needs, adapt to new technology, understand marketing and branding, and understand that web design is as much about art as it is technology.

Educational Trends Impacting Web Design Careers

The educational trend that is having the deepest impact on the web design industry is continuing shift from the traditionally classroom-based educational model to an open source model of education that is consumer driven.

This new education model offers online, self-paced classes for students who want to learn how to design websites. There are no academic advisers dictating the classes students must take or in which order they must take them. Students simply pick and choose the classes that they believe will be the most beneficial to them.

Khan Academy, Tuts+, Treehouse and iTunes University are just some websites that are adding new layers of innovation to education, especially technical education. Students who take classes provided by these entities won’t receive degrees. To be honest, that usually doesn’t matter to them, and it matters even less to their clients who are much more interested in skills than diplomas.

Bottom Line: Web design career viability depends on the designer’s willingness to increase their skill set via new educational opportunities. As the availability of these educational opportunities has exploded, stagnancy is inexcusable.

The Importance of Designer/Client Relationships

As industries go, the web design market is significantly saturated. There are also increasingly sophisticated tools and templates available to those that wish to ‘roll their own’ websites.

This means that web designers who wish to maintain and grow their design businesses must focus energy on fostering positive relationships with their clients and being responsive to their needs. After all, it is the customer today who has many more options, not the designer.

Bottom Line: Technical prowess is no longer a substitute for communications skills and customer relationship management.

Web Design and New Technology

Web designers that are profitable today are likely profitable because they responded appropriately to the mobile technology boom that began a few years ago. Those who wish to be profitable in a few years will likely adjust their design methods to adapt to new innovations, such as wearable technology.

Another way web designers will use new technology in the future is by adapting the use of tools such as Macaw to design websites over coding websites from scratch. This will be both in response to new technology and response to the increasing demands of customers that website delivery times be much faster than in the past.

Bottom Line: Customer preference will determine the technical focus of the web designer. They must make sure they are paying attention.

Web Design: Addressing Branding and Marketing for the Future

While eCommerce will always be extremely important, the role of the web designer today and in the future is largely that as one who delivers or who facilitates the delivery of content and branding messages to website visitors. This is why in many large corporations, the web design team is part of the marketing department rather than the IT department.

This is because the ability to design web pages that forward the company’s brand is so important that management often decides that web design and marketing should be partnered together as one unit.

For the web design freelancer, future relevance means focusing on understanding marketing goals and learning to design with branding as a primary goal.

Bottom Line: The wall between technology and marketing when it comes to web design has been blown to smithereens. Smart web designers will embrace this by educating themselves about marketing, branding, and content.

The Future of Web Design as an Art Form

Many business owners now use the term ‘user experience‘ when they speak of what happens when customers visit their website. This is because internet users have higher expectations today when they visit websites and those expectations will continue to grow in the future.

These expectations begin with content, but they also include high expectations when it comes to the look and feel of the website. Some of this is related to website navigation, but a good portion of user experience depends on the art design of the website.

Elements such as backgrounds, color schemes, fonts, videos, infographics, and layouts are going to continue to grow in importance when it comes to web design.

Bottom Line: Web designers will need to incorporate art into their development process, or they will need to work closely with people who are able to do so.

Concluding

Web design, at the end of the day, is only as dead as the web designer’s willingness to adjust to industry changes and develop their skills accordingly.

As long as web designers offer good customer service, and can provide websites that function better than websites that customers build themselves, this will remain a viable career field.

The post Is Web Design a Dying Trade or Can it Still be a Viable Career Option? appeared first on Speckyboy Design Magazine.