Career in Web Design

Careers are changing faster than ever before. Old model of “finish high school, get college degree and find a job for the next 20 years” doesn’t work anymore. Millennials change jobs every 2 years on average, they need to stand out from the crowd by showing initiative, taking creative approach to job hunting and such.

> "85 percent of employed persons did some or all of their work at their workplace."
> — American Time Use Survey

More people are looking for alternative ways to work. Remote work is on the wave at the moment and work/life balance is one of these hot topics these days.

In this article I’d like to talk about a career in web design industry. I’ve been designing for over 5 years now and see this market as a very exciting, yet competitive space to get into. Becoming a web designer allowed me to work as freelancer, build my personal brand and travel the world as a digital nomad.

Learning Web Design is Easier Than Ever Before

When I started learning web design there were not so many resources and publications to learn from. I’ve had to follow poor tutorials and experiment a lot on my own. Copying, remixing and working for clients helped me to gain needed experience and develop a unique design style.

After 5 years the picture has changed significantly, there are dozens of great blogs and magazines, course websites, books and individuals sharing their knowledge and experience designing for the web.

The era of code-less web is just in its infancy but we have already seen some promising tools like Webflow, Macaw, Froont or Adobe Edge Animate.

What Will You Need To Get Started?

Start a career in web design industry is relatively cheap and cost effective. You don’t need big investments, get a computer, internet connection and image processing software like Photoshop, Sketch or Figma and you’re pretty much ready to dive into web design world.

Once you get better you might want to invest into more powerful computer, get a tablet or some additional software that would help you save time and make your workflow more efficient.

Making Money Through Diversified Income Streams

There are many ways to make money with web design. You can simply become a freelancer and create websites for clients that you can find through your connections or one of these freelance work marketplaces such as Toptal or Upwork.

Creating digital products is another great way to establish a passive income stream that can take a lot of time to produce but then can be automated and run on its own.

You can design templates and themes for different content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Joomla or Drupal. There are theme designers on ThemeForest marketplace that make millions of dollars from themes.

You can find a remote job and live anywhere in the world as long as you have an internet connection and deliver work on time. Check out RemoteOK, We Work Remotely, Working Nomads to find out about possible positions. Make sure to do your research what is expected how the work is done, so you can prepare before applying to a job.

Learn Web Design and Start Your Freelance Business

For the last two months I’ve been working on researching and putting together a course on learning web designing and starting a freelance career. I’ve applied 80/20 rule, focusing on things that bring the most results from the least amount of effort.

I've designed this course for you to learn web design and business principles to start your freelance web design career, escape 9-5 and become your own boss.

The goal of this course is to give you an overview of the industry, provide you with essential knowledge of design, technical and business skills.

Just for Mockuuups readers I have a special 82% off the course deal.