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Why Web Design is a Good Career Choice for Students

Design JobsUX / UIUX/UI

If you’re trying to become a Visual Designer, you probably already know that your portfolio is the most important tool in your arsenal as you get ready to apply to jobs or look for clients. But when you’re just starting to build up your portfolio, it can be difficult to know exactly what sorts of projects you should be including in your portfolio. And once you do come up with ideas for projects, how do you build them into comprehensive case studies that will impress any potential employers checking out your site?

We chatted with hiring managers across the creative industry to find out what sort of projects they’d like to see in the portfolios of new junior designers applying for jobs. Keep reading for more info about the exact projects that you should work on to build up your design skills and show that you are capable of executing all the types of design work you’d likely be working on as a junior designer. And for all of these projects, we’ve created step-by-step project guides that will help you build up detailed projects in each of these categories and craft an amazing portfolio.

One note – we’re recommending a variety of Visual Design projects to help you get experience building different types of design projects from scratch, but when you’re actually getting ready to apply to jobs, it’s generally a good idea to decide what area of design you’re most passionate about and focus most of your portfolio site on those types of projects. Employers want to know that you have a deep expertise in your chosen field!

Solve real problems with your projects

Before we dive into the specific types of projects you should be working on, it’s important to note that recruiters across the board told us that they want to see projects based on real problems that exist in the world rather than just seeing pretty visuals. They want to know that you can solve problems with your designs. Here are two ways to start solving real problems with your designs, even early in your career.

Find real clients

It might seem daunting to approach real clients early in your career, but even if you’re not being paid for the work, reaching out to local businesses and nonprofits offering your design services is an amazing way to build your skills and impress employers. It’s as simple as walking into local businesses asking if they need help with marketing campaigns or branding, or emailing nonprofits to ask if they need any design support. Employers want to know you can work within real world constraints, so this is a great way to show that you can incorporate constraints!

Come up with ideas for problems you want to solve

Even if you’re not doing “real client” projects, it’s important to ensure that all of your project ideas attempt to solve real problems that exist in a particular industry or field. So when you come up with high level project ideas (e.g. doing a branding project), spend some time thinking about the industries you want to work in. Then look at a few companies in those industries and see how their brand or business could be positively impacted by a redesign. You could even come up with your own business or brand from scratch based on a gap you think exists in your target industry, and design a project for them from scratch. As long as you are trying to solve real problems and test your designs against mentors and peers, you’ll be good to go.

Finally, be sure that instead of diving straight into Illustrator or Photoshop, you spend time following the proper design processes for each project – research the industry and problem, come up with personas, ideate and sketch, and validate your designs with someone else.

Alright, let’s dive into the 7 projects every aspiring designer should work on!

Personal Branding

When you’re getting ready to apply to jobs or reach out to clients, a strong personal brand can help make you more memorable, showcase your style and tone of work, and convince anyone looking at your portfolio site that you’re truly passionate about design outside of your 9-5 job. It also shows that you have an opinion or point of view about design and are willing to boldly attach that opinion to yourself for everyone to see!

Assume for a moment that you are an employer looking through hundreds of design portfolios every day, looking for the perfect candidate to add to your design team. You decide whether or not to pass on most portfolios within about 10 seconds of landing on their homepage. Your personal branding, just like any other strong design project in your portfolio, should follow a design process — the same process that you go through when completing a Branding and Identity project for any client. You need to spend time ideating about what you want your branding to say about you, sketching ideas, refining a few of them, and then choosing typography and a color palette that matches.

Branding and Logo Design

If you’re interested in branding design, then it’s a no-brainer that you’d want to include at least a few branding and identity projects in your portfolio. For this branding project, you should come up with a totally new company in an industry you’d like to work in, or find a company in that industry whose branding you think might be holding it back from greater success. You should go through the entire research → moodboard → ideation → sketching phase before diving into Illustrator. For your final project, include a new logo, typography, colors, and overall look and feel. You can present all of these deliverables in a Style Guide for the brand.

Iconography

Being able to develop iconography with a consistent look and feel is an important skill for most designers to have. Even though there are tons of incredible icon services out there, like Noun Project, you should feel comfortable developing your own icons from scratch if you want to work on the design team for a larger company (or even a smaller studio). For this project, focus on building out a full set of iconography for a digital product or website of your choosing.

Before you dive into research, you should decide where in the client’s product or website these icons will be used and what they’ll be used for. Are they going to be used to accompanying text and information or are they more navigational icons? Write down details about what types of icons you’re going to be designing and where they’ll show up in the product or website. This is a necessary step to take prior to conducting research or sketching.

Marketing Campaign

Being able to create effective marketing collateral for employers and clients is an incredibly valuable skill and something you will definitely be involved in at various stages of your career. For this project, come up with a theoretical product or find an existing product that you like and design a digital and print marketing campaign for the client. In your final deliverables, include 2 Facebook ads, 1 Instagram ad, one print poster (24×36”), 4 display banners (sized at 300×250, 300×600, 728×90, and 970×250), and one 4×6” postcard. Be sure to include copy and strong calls to action. For your final presentation, mock them onto relevant platforms.

Packaging Design

If you want to focus primarily on digital products, this project might not be for you. But if you’re interested in working at a company that sells physical products, being able to design packaging and a label for the products is a great way to stand out from the crowd. For this, you’ll help a client create compelling packaging that speaks to their brand identity while also informing consumers about relevant aspects of their products. Your final presentation should include dielines of your designs as well as the final label design in vector format. You can also include a style guide with things like color, typography, and overall look and feel.

Print Collateral

For this project, you’ll identify a client and develop a set of print collateral for their business, ranging from business cards to posters to postcards. Being able to create effective marketing collateral for employers and clients in a variety of print formats is an incredibly valuable skill and something you will likely be doing at some point in your Visual Design career. For the final deliverables, include on set of business cards (front and back), two print posters (24×36”), two 4×6” postcards, and one additional 4×4’ sign to be used in an outdoor marketing campaign.

Typographic Poster or Album Art

For this final project, you’ll be focusing on showing your ability to generate unique typographic layouts and improving your familiarity with typography in general. You can create a typographic poster for a film or cover for an album, with a strong emphasis on using typography and type lockup to create a mood and visual look. You should only use very minimal photography or graphic elements in your design. This project will focus on helping you become familiar with typography in design and is designed to show you the broad range of emotion that type can elicit. Recruiters love to see well-rounded designers, so even if you’re focus is on web design or product design, showing that you can use typography to create a more emotional response in viewers is incredibly important!

What next?

Working on those 7 projects will give you amazing exposure to the 7 types of projects that recruiters have told us they’d want to see in most junior portfolios. You don’t need to include all of these in your portfolio (in fact, you probably shouldn’t), but working on these projects should help you broaden your design skills and identify the areas of Visual Design you want to focus on in your career. From there, you can start to specialize and deepen your skillsets in one or two of these areas. If you want a more comprehensive step-by-step guide to building out each of these projects, check out our Portfolio Starter Kit, and if you’d like to build up your portfolio with a mentor, check out our Career Bootcamps!

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Want help building your design portfolio so you can land a job?

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4 Must-Have Skills to Become a Web Developer

Front-end CodingWeb Development

Introduction

In order to become successful in any industry in the world, a person should, above all else, invest a lot of effort in both personal and professional skill set development. The technical knowledge required to do the job goes without saying, but it can develop over time through practice and experience. When it comes to industries like web development, whether we’re talking about back end or front end developer skills, personal traits play a significant role, almost as much as technical knowledge or the ability to advertise yourself. As the public interest for web development increases, due to the prospect of large salary, flexible work hours, and ability to scale from freelance developer to CEO in a short time frame, we decided to create an article that will let you in on what it takes to become a web developer that actually works and makes more than just a living out of it.

Communication skills

The internet allows us to communicate and work with people from all over the globe, which brings more chances for work, expands our market, and facilitates information traffic. However, not all clients are able to communicate well in languages other than their native tongue, therefore, it’s necessary to put a lot of work in developing communication skills for numerous reasons.

You should always be able to articulate your thoughts in a manner that the other side will understand clearly. If you try to communicate using technical expressions with a person that doesn’t even understand the difference between JavaScript and HTML you won’t get too far in explaining yourself to the client. Furthermore, if you aren’t able to understand your client’s requirements, you might get into a situation where you spend a lot of hours working on a project that’s far from what was actually expected.

 

Time management

To be honest, any job skills list should include time management as one of the most important assets. When it comes to web development, the ability to prioritize and create a schedule that would provide enough time to complete all of your projects before the deadline comes knocking and leave you with enough space to have a life is of paramount importance.

It doesn’t take a lot of thinking to understand the value of time in an industry that basically creates online business space. As opposed to college where if you weren’t able to produce an essay in time – you could always buy essay on time, if you don’t make the deadline as a web developer it’s not only your business that’s in trouble but also your client’s as well as any other business that depends on your clients ability to launch their web service as planned.

It’s not unusual to encounter issues that will put your progress to a halt for a time, which is another good reason why you need to be good at organizing your days, weeks, and even months in some occasions. If your schedule is too tight, even a minor setback could mean breaching the deadline, thus losing your rating and potentially a client. There’s an old saying that “Time is money”, and with back end and front end technologies, this statement is true to a fault.

 

Deep understanding of UX

For web developers, one of the most useful skills to learn is certainly the ability to create the vision of how users want to use a piece of software and what that piece of software should look like. When you design a web application, you do more than just placing together pieces of code in order to create a coherent working product. You create an extension of your user that allows seamless and intuitive utilization of your product. User experience is the key aspect that determines how successful your product will be in the future, however, to be able to design user-oriented apps you have to educate yourself on various aspects of UX design like creating user personas, conducting analysis and surveys, design patterns and styles – it’s not easy but it’s worth it.

 

Ability to adopt new industry trends

Over time, web developers manage to come up with their own style and way of doing things to get the job done. Although authenticity is an important aspect of any business, more so when it comes to creative fields like the one we are discussing, it’s important to keep up with the trends. Remember how Nokia failed to understand that Android is the key to survival in smartphone manufacturing? The Finnish mobile phone producer was the ultimate brand in its day, but when the industry moved forward they’ve decided to stay and that’s why everyone carries Samsung and other brands that couldn’t touch Nokia before.

 

Conclusion

There are many other useful skills that you can adopt or enhance in order to become successful in web development; however, we decided to go with the most essential ones. After all, it’s important to build the foundation of your success, the rest will follow. Stay creative, stay true to yourself, work on self-improvement, and always keep an eye open for new trends and techniques.

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How To Sell UX Design To Skeptical Ecommerce Merchants

UX/UIWeb Development

With its thin profit margins and heated competition, getting ahead in the online selling world takes a tight grip on spending. Many merchants get started as solo entrepreneurs, and some stick with that approach in perpetuity — as long as they can handle their daily tasks, it’s a great way to save money and make life easier.

Supposing you’re a UX designer, though, this can make it a major challenge to sell your services. Your skills need compensation, but digital entrepreneurs are inclined to be skeptical in general, and UX can easily sound like it pales in significance when compared to something easier for the average seller to comprehend (search rankings, for instance).

You need a smart plan of attack to break down that skepticism and convincingly advance the notion that your design service is the key to spending less and selling more. You’ll need a great portfolio to showcase your skills, of course — but past that starting point, here are some tips that you should definitely follow:

Ask them about how they shop online

The main reason why people doubt the value of UX is not that they believe it doesn’t matter how much someone likes a website: it’s that they don’t really understand what UX means. Sure, they might know that it stands for “user experience”, but that isn’t the same as knowing how it factors into someone’s online activity.

To address this, I suggest starting the discussion with a prospective client by asking them about how they shop online. What are their favorite stores? Why do they prefer visiting them? And when they buy from them, what do they like about the process? Do they enjoy the copy, the visuals, the functions?

This will be beneficial to you in two ways:

  • Firstly, it will give you some insight into how they think and what they care about. This will make it easier to sell them on particular elements.
  • Secondly, it will help them understand why UX matters so much. Talking about their favorite store elements will make it clear that they like those stores for UX-related reasons, which will show them that UX alone can make a huge difference.

After going through their personal buying experiences, you can expect to find them a lot more receptive to whatever else you have to say. Make it count.

Explain how it can cut back on support time

One of the biggest challenges with advancing UX design is explaining the ROI. It can certainly be done using metrics such as conversion rate, but unless you have a particular UX ROI case study under your belt (or think you can get somewhere pointing to general stats), that approach might not have the impact you’re looking for.

But you don’t need case studies or stats to show the value of a lightened support workload, nor do you need to get deep into UX specifics to explain why improvements can lead to fewer queries. You need only point to the questions they already receive, and note how much more time they’d have to work on other things if their system worked better and didn’t confuse people.

Sellers already know the importance of investing in the right platforms. They’ll even be willing to migrate their stores if it’s needed to get the performance and support levels they’re looking for, and you can exploit that existing conviction. For instance, if someone would migrate to Shopify (with its widely-praised 24/7 service) to improve support for their Magento enterprise store, they’d surely be open to a similar argument in favor of some UX customization.

And if they worry that the time spent discussing UX will soak up the saved time, reassure them that modern collaboration tools such as Invision or Figma make it simple to get through proposed changes without needing lengthy meetings or even calls.

Use their competitors for leverage

Argue that someone should spend money for you to help them in a way their still find unclear, and you won’t get very far. Point out to them that all their top competitors are investing heavily in UX, however, and you’ll suddenly be making a lot more headway. Sellers will stubbornly cling to the status quo until industry moves around them and they have no choice but to adapt, so make it clear that they’re being left behind and they’ll hasten to catch up.

How you go about this specifically is up to you. If you can point to stated UX budgets from competitors (they may have announced online how they’re investing their money) then that will work best, but if you’re not privy to such figures, you can simply visit their websites and explain all the UX work that has gone into them (using a tool like Wayback Machine will help you clearly display how those websites have changed over the months and years).

Furthermore, once you’ve been through competitors, you can allude to the changes you’d make to their site to outperform those competitors. Faced with the prospect of not only catching up to their rivals but also moving past them, they’ll have all the reason in the world to find the money to discover exactly what you can do for them.

 

UX design can sound somewhat abstract to the less tech-savvy among us, and ecommerce merchants don’t necessarily know much about tech — today, they can rely on simple tools and SaaS companies to get by. To convince them to invest in it, you’ll need to make the practical benefits so much clearer. These tips should help.

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5 Free Apps That Help You Learn to Code Like a Pro

Coding JobsFront-end Coding

The IT industry has become one of the loudest international industries.

The Internet has opened amazing doors of opportunities and the continuous technology breakthroughs are constantly revolutionizing the way the world works. IT is the phenomenon that was born under the marriage of the Internet and computer technology.

What does coding involve?

Coding is the skill and art of understanding and leveraging technical languages. Coding can generate unlimited outcomes, depending on the coder’s intention, expertise, and system. Since most people look at coding superficially, the entire mystery behind code quickly starts to vanish.

If you’re a passionate coder, I’m urging you to hold your passion for what you’re doing and stay away from corruption like financial greed, inactivity, and laziness. I can ensure you, coding is more than that. I also believe that it’s critical that young coders use this ideology, too.

Here’s what I propose. I’ll play an imaginary game with you, and in the end, I’ll ask you a simple question. Ready, set, go:

You are at the beginning of your coding journey. You’re scared because you’re confused and overwhelmed right now. You are just a very small fish in a big ocean of sharks.

Nevertheless, growth is attainable as soon as you start learning how to fight (learning to code) and by eating the fishes you defeat (seizing the opportunities that bring challenges).

Back to this world. Becoming a master programmer is mostly about intention, strategy, and resources. The resources you leverage can make a huge difference in your learning experience and your professional results.

My question is – how are you going to change the world through code?

In today’s post, I’m proposing the idea that coding tools should be carefully taken into consideration (if not carefully used) by most IT beginners and newbie programmers.

For that reason, I will present the main reasons for this statement and the best apps to learn programming, which every programmer who is starting off should use.

  • Coding apps are specially designed to serve the basic needs of new programmers.
  • Coding apps bring great potential, as they improve the confidence of individuals who are often encountering issues, challenges, and
  • Coding apps are one of the best ways to improve your coding skills. You can read several articles at EduBirdie.com that has proven this statement through various studies that explored and measured the learning processes of IT academicians.

Here are the best coding apps you should leverage to learn to code better and faster.

SoloLearn

SoloLearn is not just a coding tutorial or program, but one of the largest communities of passionate mobile learners. Everything you could ever need to kickstart your coding journey is on this program.

  • SoloLearn offers amazing quality courses that cover the most important coding languages like Python, C++, Javascript, Java, PHP, CSS, HTML, SQL, jQuery, Swift 4, or Ruby.
  • The brand has over 29 million learners, 1500 lessons, and 13.000 quizzes.
  • SoloLearn has a Q&A discussion page where coders can discuss problems and ask various questions.

Programming Hub

Programming Hub’s motto suggests that this coding app will immediately become “your personal programming companion”. Both their mission and value proposition are simple, similar, and very clear:

The Programming Hub aims to provide every newbie coder with access to private tutoring experiences through mobile-based technology. Simply put, the app serves as a third party between learners and educators, and it does its intermediary role extremely well.

  • It aims to discover and promote the interactive side of coding
  • They provide bite-sized quality content
  • Over 5000 programs and code snippets.

Encode: Learn to Code

Encode: Learn to Code is a mobile app that makes learning easy. I believe that this might be the best app to learn to code, based on subjective experience. This simple yet efficient app proposes the idea that “everyone can learn to code”, and the app serves as a personal teacher for the user.

  • The app makes you feel like you’re playing
  • Great for absolute beginners
  • Great task system that engages the user to accomplish more

 

Codecademy

Learn to code, for free – Codecademy claims to have developed what they call “the best app to learn to programme” in modern times. Their system’s positive results have been tested and proven by over 45 million learners over seven years, so they’re worth having a look at.

  • The app prioritizes the choice of the user, providing diverse learning journeys.
  • Codecademy teaches you how to learn by taking real action.
  • One of the best coding apps you can get your hands on

 

Tynker

Tynker is the best app to learn to code designed for kids. If you’re a parent who’s looking to improve his child’s coding knowledge and skills, Tynker is your best choice.

  • Tynker aims to make coding easy, fun, and educational
  • It is aimed at children over the age of 7
  • Every parent can empower their children to become “designers” and “makers” of brilliant solutions and applications

Takeaways

Learning to code is just like learning to play an instrument. It is both an art and a skill, so its complexity cannot be described in very precise words. Nevertheless, a programmer and coder will be able to express their own ideas, intuition, and solutions through an effective language that generates material effects.

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Launching Your Design Career – Tips for getting started

Design JobsGraphic DesignPortfolio

If you are the kind of individual that sees aesthetics as a problem to be solved through the creative use of modern technology, becoming a professional designer can be a fulfilling career choice. Anyone can learn how to do design work provided they study hard and practice often, but the difficulty lies in knowing where to start.

Designed by Peoplecreations

Design is a diverse field, and in many instances it converges with other areas of human endeavor such as art, business, marketing, psychology, software development, and others. In other words, there are multiple entrances to the labyrinth that is design, and your initial choice on how to approach the subject matter will determine whether you will reach the goal in a reasonable amount of time, or get sidetracked and delayed along the way.

In order to help you on your journey towards becoming a professional designer, we offer a curated list of tips that you ought to keep in the back of your head while working on your first designs.

 

1. Explore the Design Landscape

It might seem counter-intuitive, but the best way to get started with design is to begin at the end, and work backwards. In other words, you should first try to determine what would be your end-game as designer, and then connect that with where you are now.

There are numerous kinds of design work available, and not all of them necessarily involve visual aesthetics. Designers work on user interfaces for software applications, they create user experiences for websites, they research how color influences perception, and everything in between.

You should try to get acquainted with these kinds of work, and decide which involve problems you would enjoy solving. After you narrow down your choice a bit, move on to examining what kind of design services are being offered on the market.

For example, if you have an interest in web design, you can check out portfolios of professional design companies to see what will be expected of you when working for one.

 

2. Start Working on a Project

Once you get comfortable with things like design lingo, the big names in the field, and the technologies commonly used, you should try you hand at creating a design. Nothing builds skill faster than using it to solve problems, and the sooner you start, the more experience you will have under your belt down the line. However, creating something from scratch for the first time can be a daunting task – where do you even begin?

We feel that the best approach would be to come up with a specific challenge for yourself, such as creating a simple logo, editing a photo, or making a simple web page, and then browse online for articles and tutorials that will walk you through the process on the technical side. Alternatively, you can enroll in a course that includes practical projects which you can work on while you study.

 

3. Learn to Think Like a Designer

After you get comfortable with creating simple designs, you can start to reflect more on what makes a particular design effective. Ask yourself the following:

  • Which of your designs do you like the best, and what are your least favorite ones?
  • How would you improve a design you don’t like?
  • What are the common elements you find in the designs you like?
  • What is the first thing you notice when trying to evaluate a design?

By getting into the habit of asking questions such as these, you will slowly prime your mind to think in terms of design. Once you get comfortable with doing this, you can try to read up more on design theory.

Having a solid theoretical foundation on design won’t automatically make your designs better, but it will give you a wide perspective on the field as a whole, which is a valuable skill to have for finding work.

 

4. Understand Consumer Psychology

If you wish to pursue a career in design, you need to be aware that what you will be creating is ultimately a product meant to be sold to consumers. And since this is the case, it is essential to something about the psychology associated with both.

Getting into the mind of your intended audience will enable you to tailor your designs to their particular needs and desires, which is crucial if you wish to find and maintain employment in the design industry. There are two principal ways to approach design psychology:

  • One is to start from the top and examine the demographic characteristics of your customers such as age, gender, cultural region, etc., and progressively narrow down your focus.
  • The other is to start from specific customers, and then try to establish commonalities and patterns in their preferences and behaviors related to your designs.

 

5. Reach Out to Other Designers

As with any kind of work, design is a collective effort. Without there being a community of designers beforehand, it would be next to impossible to have any sort of progress in the field as a whole, and each individual designer would have to discover everything from scratch.

Fortunately, the networking potential of modern communication technologies, especially the internet, has enabled designers to connect with each other and share knowledge. As a prospective designer, you should leverage this fact to its full extent.

Whenever you have doubts, questions, suggestions, or criticisms related to design, try getting in touch with other designers and start a conversation. Not only will this help you solve design related problems, but it will also give you a fresh perspective on your own designs, which is invaluable for all creative endeavors.

 

6. Enroll in a Design Class

To take the previous tip a step further, you can enroll in a professional design school if your free time and budget allow for it.

High-profile design schools such as Aalto University, Politecnico di Milano, or the School of the Art Institute of Chicago will give you holistic design education which will enable you to confidently pursue your career goals.

Smaller local schools and colleges lack the prestige of these institutions, but don’t underestimate what they can offer either – being surrounded by knowledge-hungry students and an enthusiastic teaching staff is often all it takes to get one motivated to learn.

You can also apply for an internship at design company, if you prefer a more hands-on approach to learning design. Being an intern has other benefits as well, such as learning how to work within a team, a skill that is highly sought after no matter what kind of design work you plan on doing in the future.

 

7. Present Your Work

Cheerful diverse people showing pie chart on a tablet

Designed by Rawpixel.com

As with most jobs on today’s market, in order to succeed as a designer you will need to promote yourself and your work. After all, if no one is aware of your designs, why would they hire you for a project or approach you with a job offer?

Promotion can take on many forms, from explicit marketing, to simply having your portfolio hosted online, but the idea is always the same – show your work to as many people as possible. Presenting your designs to the public is also a great way to solicit criticism, which is crucial for becoming a better designer.

If you are shy about present people half-baked products, ask your family and friends for opinions. Even if they don’t match the profile of your intended audience, they can still give you valuable clues regarding which parts of your design work well, and which don’t.

 

Conclusion

Few areas of modern business are as exciting as that of design. The ability to earn a living from doing creative work is attractive to a lot of people, and for good reason. But in order to get there, you have put in the effort, and we hope that our tips will be of use to you on your journey.

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5 Interview Tips for Creatives

Design JobsUX / UIVisual Design

Interviewing for a position is an anxiety-inducing experience in any industry. For those working in the creative sector, it can be hard to translate their experiences, artistic point of view, and career aspirations across the other side of the desk.

The interview process doesn’t have to be an insurmountable challenge! Keeping tips like the ones below in mind helps to avoid a frustratingly poor interview experience.

Do your research

Being prepared is a familiar adage espoused by career coaches, but it rings especially true for creative candidates such as graphic or UX designers. This is your opportunity to show exactly why you’re interviewing for the position. Creative Bloq recommends searching creative press for mentions of the company. Are they doing anything that aligns with your creative interests or that you can tie into your professional core competencies? Showing initiative goes a long way in an interview.

Let your work speak for itself

Tech recruiter Dan Garriott told Monster in an interview centered around advice for job-hunting creatives that it’s important not to be overly fussy with the exterior presentation of your portfolio. Don’t be too elaborate with your portfolio,” Garriott said. “You should let your work speak to how creative you are, not the packaging. There’s no amount of packaging you can do that’s going to trick them into thinking your work is better than it is.”

It’s important to showcase your best work as well, with a focus on quality over quantity. Also, providing a print and digital portfolio gives interviewers an opportunity to peruse a larger collection of your work at their leisure.

Sell skills appropriately

Today’s job market encompasses a broad spectrum of different digital skills and job descriptions, but that shouldn’t mean you should stretch the truth in order to get a foot in the door by promising a skillset you can’t quite execute on.

Conversely, don’t be too humble, because the interview is certainly a place where it’s appropriate to brag about your abilities. Feeling too self-conscious about your accolades might be a wasted opportunity to play to your strengths and position yourself as a strong candidate. Additionally, make sure to relate back to the particular needs of the position/organization you’re interviewing for. It shows that you understand the nuances of the job, and would be prepared to take on the day-to-day.

Avoid novelty resume designs

Creative Bloq also recommends that prospective candidates stay away from novelty resume formats, which run the gamut from inflatable resumes (yes, they literally inflate) to intricate paper folding techniques. While being zany is a surefire way to stand out, it doesn’t necessarily guarantee that you’ll be remembered for the strength of your design principles, which is what really counts.

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t use resume formats that are creative, however. An impactful resume for a design, content or UX position is one that is visually appealing, references clients or brands you’ve worked with, and clearly highlights unique skills.

Ask thoughtful, pertinent questions

At the end of every interview, comes the opportunity to turn the tables on your interviewer and ask questions of your own. Make them count! Asking comprehensive, role-specific questions will ensure that you get a clearer understanding of what the job entails, and prove to a prospective employer that you’re serious. Garriott comments that “A lot of people go on interviews thinking that they have to impress these people to try to get the job and no matter what, don’t disrupt the apple cart. But at the same time, you want to figure out what you’re getting into. You want to go in with half a dozen good questions that you can try to get answers from that paint a picture of what the job is really like.”

Creatives are emotionally intelligent, sensitive individuals with a unique and valuable skill set. It’s important to remember that a job interview is as much a test of a potential fit with an organization or agency as it is about a person’s suitability for a position. Even if an interview doesn’t go as well as you’d hope, it’s still ultimately a learning experience.

 

About the Author: Sara Carter is the Co-Founder of Enlightened-Digital, an online technology publication. She writes about emerging themes in technology and business, and their potential to disrupt industries and change lives. 

 

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How Basic Bootstrap Structure Works

Front-end CodingWeb Development

Bootstrap is an open source as well as the most popular CSS framework. A bootstrap structure; which can be installed through downloading a free/premium bootstrap admin template after selecting from the best bootstrap admin templates; is mainly divided into three categories namely: header, main and footer. If for instance we were to create two new files namely: footer.php and header.php, file index.php previously created will take care of the main part. Code duplication is avoided by such a structure. If the footer and the header are spitted apart a lot of code and time saving occurs. It is worth noting that the footer and the header remains the same regardless of the website’s ‘middle’ part.

BOOTSTRAP’S HTML STRUCTURE

A web page using twitter bootstrap has a basic html structure which should start from type of document declaration, navigation and container in body, adding style sheets, java scripts declaration and Meta tags in header.

For uniform rendering of its components and controls across all browsers, a HTML 5 doctype is needed by twitter bootstrap. This is due to the fact that HTML 5 elements are understood by the bootstrap which makes it necessary to include an appropriate doctype tag to the web page.

 

HTML HEADER

In order for a responsive working of the bootstrap with mobile devices and latest browsers, the minimum requirements in the html header part should be to include a bootstrap style sheet and declare a viewport meta tag; which is crucial for a mobile device and bootstrap to be able to respond in accordance with the zoom level and the width of display. Adjusting viewport’s width enables browsers to appropriately respond for the display size.

During the earlier versions of bootstrap, a separate style sheet referred to as bootstrap-responsive existed. Later , an inbuilt responsive in nature base style sheet known as bootstrap.css which is a single style sheet that handles web page responsiveness was developed. This bootstrap.css proves to be very useful for debugging during development.

 

HTML BODY

Before you close the body tag in the html body, the bootstrap java script file and jQuery file must be included. The bootstrap java script file should be rendered after the jQuery file.

 

Layouts

 

Fluid layout: No extra style sheet or additional step is required to obtain a responsive fluid layout in the bootstrap version 3.0.0. It is designed to implement the responsive layout by default. This layout is highly recommended for public websites.

 

Fixed layout: Creating a website with a fixed layout is not generally recommended. This is mainly due to the increasing amount of internet website traffic that is arising from small devices such as smart phones and tablets.  A fixed layout is however needed in some cases such as intranet applications. If this is the case, steps followed to disable the fluid responsiveness of the layout include:

  • Removing viewport mega tag
  • Override width property to a fixed size
  • If you are using NavBar, get rid of expanding and collapsing behavior.
  • Instead of .col-md-* and .col-lg-*., use col-xs-* class in grid layouts.

Bootstrap happens to be a mobile- first framework, therefore anything you create or design guarantees mobile compatibility and responsiveness which honestly is more than amazing.

An inbuilt new website design for bootstrap uses the bootstrap framework’s latest version. In getting started a precompiled bootstrap version can be included using a CDN. You can also download the file. The next step is to unzip the archive file, after which lots of folders and files, which we will ignore, for now appear. Instead head directly to the ‘dist’ directory and transfer all the folders by copying to a new destination; this now becomes your project home. The best thing with bootstrap’s latest version is that it is more modular than previous versions. So assuming that what you need is the CSS reset, all you need to do is to use bootstrap-reboot.css. To use the grid, you similarly include bootstrap-grid.css in the project. When deploying an application online a minified version of bootstrap.css is needed.

Proceeding to the Js files, four folders namely: bootstrap .bundle. js, bootstrap. Bundle. min.js, bootstrap.js, and bootstrap. min.js appear. A bootstrap main java scripts libraries is contained in all these files. Things contained in these libraries include drop down menus, carousels, search auto suggests including other numerous strong java script functionalities. The minified version is used when the application can finally be deployed.

Having adequately covered on the basic structure, I will proceed on adding various components to a web page. Every single day we enter a website; these components are the things that we will always encounter which makes them a very important part of a web site. For the sake of a better understanding, the page can be divided into various parts namely:

 

Menu section: In bootstrap, to design a menu is the easiest thing to do in the web designing world. This is because it is designed to be responsive by default and even has the ability to get new appearances in smaller devices.

 

Header area: Jumbotron, which can display large headers and contents is a highly usable class offered by bootstrap. It is largely utilized by product based websites.

 

The content area: This content should be divided into three equal parts placed side by side. With the bootstrap’s flex box-based grid, doing this is one easy and fast task. A12-column grid system is provided thus dividing the screen into equal parts and all one needs to do is to specify which HTML is occupied by each part.

 

Footer area: Footer area uses the same principle as the content area.

 

CONCLUSION

The above article has therefore explained how the basic bootstrap structure works from selecting the bootstrap admin templates to end. Now you are aware about how easy it is to use even if one has no coding experience.

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How to Start Making Money with Code Before You Quit Your Job

Coding JobsFront-end CodingWeb Development

By Ryan Robinson, Skillcrush

A version of this article previously appeared on Skillcrush, an online education program for creatives, thinkers, and makers that gives total tech newbies the tools to make major career changes.

 

No matter how rewarding a full-time job in tech may be, for plenty of entrepreneurial spirits out there, there’s one thing that’s even more meaningful than great pay and solid benefits: working for yourself.

Choosing the path of entrepreneurship is without a doubt riskier than holding a 9-5 job, and requires way more sacrifice. However, once you’re reaping the lifestyle benefits of being your own boss and making significantly more money than you ever could at your day job, the hard work will all have been worth it.

The question I’m asked the most (by far) when I meet and speak with fellow tech entrepreneurs is, “How do I know which business I should start?” This is always quickly followed by, “How do I start it while I’m still working my full-time job?”

This makes perfect sense. With how many apps, online tools, and businesses that already exist, it can be difficult to come up with the right idea you should be spending your time on. The majority of us don’t have the luxury of being able to quit our day jobs to pursue starting a business today, without having to worry about how we’re going to meet our financial obligations moving forward with no immediate income.

And if you’re new to tech, you’re probably a little unsure about exactly what business you as a beginner can start. Well, it turns out that lots of tech companies were launched by total beginners. In reality, you’ll learn best by doing. But it’s still understandable if you’re nervous about putting your life and income on the line for a brand new business venture.

That’s why I’m a huge advocate of always starting a business while working full-time, so that you can test your way into your new product or service, get feedback, validate the business idea, and start generating income before you quit your job.

When I set out to start a new business, I always make sure it aligns with both my core competencies and my passions. In other words, I need to be good at it, and love doing it. It’s how I make sure I’ll be engaged, even when the going gets rough.

With that in mind, I put together this list of 14 Businesses You Can Start with Your New Tech Skills to help give you some starting points on proven business ideas that can be executed on. All of these can also be pulled off while you still keep your day job—and primary source of income. And the good news is that a lot of these businesses are actually excellent for honing your tech skills and transforming you from a beginner to an expert.

If I missed any good ones, please share your best ideas for tech-related side businesses in the comments below! If you’re ready to get started on a business while you’re still working, join my course on launching while working.

1. Web Design

Web designers are incredibly valuable for technology companies. Web design is all about mastering the art of creating a beautiful, value-driven experience for the people using a website or app. There are always new websites popping up in need of professional web design, and Skillcrush offers a very in-depth Web Designer Blueprint you can complete in just 3 months, to build your foundation as a web designer.

2. Online Courses

If you’re an expert at something, there’s going to be an audience of people online who would be willing to pay to become self-sufficient in your field. If you do development work for a client who’d like to learn how to cover the basics on her own, so they can stop paying you for ongoing work, why not embrace that reality and offer her access to a set of online courses that’ll teach them the basics of what they want to accomplish? Even if you just have a client you’d like to start lessening your workload with, offer to put together a customized package of content for them to learn how to satisfy their own needs after you’re gone and place a premium value on that content.

A great concrete example of how to do this is to create a guide for your clients on how to use and update the WordPress site you built. Then you can sell that package as an online course or resource!

3. eBooks

Packaging your new skills and knowledge into a downloadable eBook that delivers value to those seeking to learn in your field, advance in their careers, or start their own businesses, makes for a strong value proposition if you target the right audience. Check out Leslie Samuel’s great guide to selling eBooks online and start building your strategy.

4. Freelance WordPress Developer

Countless small businesses start out their web presence using a WordPress hosted website before needing to upgrade to other solutions for various reasons. Many of them will pay several thousands of dollars for someone to get them set up online, especially if they need customized features outside the scope of a limited template. You’ll be able to set your own hours, select the clients you want to work with, and work remotely from wherever you choose. Enroll in the Skillcrush WordPress Developer Blueprint and to get the skills you need to make it happen.

5. Online Coaching

As with online coaching and selling eBooks, when you have something you’re skilled at and very passionate about, you can turn that winning combination into offering your services with one-on-one online coaching. Regina Anaejionu will give you a step-by-step plan for putting your skills and experience to work by developing an online coaching business. Check out her content for a jump start on this career.

6. Web Development

As a web developer, you’ll have incredibly valuable skills that are in extremely high demand. Once you command a knowledge of HTML, CSS, and some JavaScript, you can start taking on freelance projects to build your portfolio while you still hold your full-time job. In the Skillcrush Web Development Blueprint, you’ll learn HTML, CSS, JavaScript and jQuery, and even get a start on the much-loved Ruby programming language.

7. Podcasting

If you can create a regular audience for your podcast that teaches others how to advance their tech skills, this is a great way to get sponsors. At CreativeLive, I regularly pay $50-$250 (or more depending on audience size) per episode for a 30 second advertisement on relevant podcasts like The Tim Ferriss Show, the #1 business podcast right now.

Naturally, it helps if you already have an online audience you can tap for listening to your regular podcast, but that hasn’t stopped thousands of people from building successful businesses on the back of podcasting and offering free content on specific topics. Listen to this great episode of the Conscious Millionaire podcast for an interview with John Lee Dumas on how to make money podcasting.

8. Affiliate Sales and Marketing

If you already have a website that’s driving in targeted traffic, a great way to make passive income from the content you’re already creating is through affiliate marketing.

Perhaps your blog content is geared toward teaching others how to build their own WordPress websites or create custom plugins, or you offer free tutorials on building a mobile app. You can monetize the traffic to your website using Clickbank, Skimlinks, and Rakuten—all great affiliate marketing tools and networks that can help you make money from the content you already produce.

9. Tech Blogging

Think blogging is no longer a viable source of income? Think again. Thousands of bloggers creating content around the applications of tech skills are launching self-employed careers thanks to a combination of collecting blog subscribers, affiliate marketing, sponsorships, and other revenue streams. Start with Amy Andrews’ ultimate free Guide to Making Money Blogging.

10. Landing Page Specialist

If you have a way with words and know how to make the keyword-friendly, beautifully designed, SEO-optimized landing pages, why not charge others for your services? Even a short, customized landing page is worth a couple hundred dollars or more in most cases. Just check out what Freelance Copywriter Mike is up to for some inspiration.

11. Develop an App

Sometimes it seems like there’s an app for everything. Yet somehow, new ones keep popping up and selling for lots of money, all the time. If you spot a niche that hasn’t been filled to its potential just yet, and you can learn the coding skills, you could be onto something. Just make sure you validate your app idea before jumping too far in.

12. Copywriting for Websites

It’s not for everyone, but if your tech skills can get you through the door for doing work with a client, and you also have a knack for writing compelling copy, this is a great add-on service. With experience and a great portfolio, you can charge just as much for your copywriting services as you can for your time developing. Pick up this free guide to launching a freelance writing career.

13. Start a YouTube Channel

If you can create value-driven, entertaining video content around tutorials and actionable tips and tricks, people will be happily subscribe to your regular free content. If you can grow your subscriber base to a few thousand subscribers, your videos can start generating pretty substantial income from ads being displayed on them. Many YouTube users make well into the millions each year.

14. Online Subcontracting

Once you’ve established yourself as a freelancer, subcontracting your jobs out to other freelancers can help you significantly grow your client list and revenue generating possibilities.

15. What Did I Miss

Share in the comments if I’m missing any great business ideas that you can start with your tech skills. Bonus points if you’ve already gotten started on it, and share the link to your website.

 

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The Impact of UI/UX Design on Your Website Impression

EducationUX/UI

When speaking of UI or UX design, most people jump to conclusions far too often. While it is true that UI and UX curation is prominent in mobile app development, it doesn’t even begin to explain the terminology. This is why many business owners or site administrators forgo professional UI or UX optimization for a more DIY approach.

However, these elements can have game-changing effects on your website’s perception and first impressions. Studies have shown that 79% of people are ready to pack up and leave a website if their initial impressions are poor. After all, no website is alone in any given niche. Let’s take a look at several ways in which both UI and UX design principles can affect your site’s performance and relevance on the market.

 

Clearing the proverbial air

Implementing UI and UX into your existing (or future) website is all about understanding the groundwork. With that in mind, let’s talk about what each of these acronyms stands for on their own since they shouldn’t be mixed up.

UI stands for User Interface, or as some would like to say user interface “design”. It covers the literal, technical design of different quality of life aspects of your website, mobile app or any other digital medium. The most prominent UI elements are the navigation bar and its subsequent drop down menus and buttons. This is the most basic and fundamental description of what UI is and how it can be viewed.

UX on the other hand stands for User Experience, or also as user experience design. This process revolves around understanding your core demographic, what their needs are and how you can fulfill them. It leans on psychology, customer profiling and testing above all else, forgoing the literal design process.

While visuals do have their appeal, the UX element of a website usually takes the cake when it comes to boosting sales and popularity. Mixing well thought-out UX principles and high-quality UI elements does sound appealing. With that in mind, let’s take a look at some pivotal reasons as to why you should care about UI and UX in your website starting today.

 

1. It adds up to your SEO

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) represents the lifeline of online businesses. If you don’t optimize your content per Google’s regulations, your traffic and revenue will suffer because of it. While it may sound drastic at first, Forbes published a convincing argument for SEO in digital content. It highlights the importance of having a lightweight website with as much accessibility and responsiveness as possible.

If this sounds exactly like UI and UX design to you, you are on the right track. Implementing smart, user-friendly UX solutions to your website will ensure that SEO flags your site as positive and ranks it adequately with search engines. This will result in a higher click-through rate and more new visitors each day.

 

2. Higher conversion rates

Conversion rate represents the percentage of people who stuck around with your website after their initial visit. More importantly, it highlights how many people “converted” into customers, subscribers and active participants. Usually, you will want your conversion rates to be as high as possible to ensure organic growth of your business and website over time. There is no better way to do this than by adding new UX principles to an already well-rounded UI.

For example, one of the best ways to spread your site’s influence globally is to offer different UI languages. Platforms such as The Word Point feature numerous options in regards to translation and localization which can elevate your site above the competition. Remember that your conversion rates represent the end-all metric in regards to your growth – don’t skimp on UI and UX innovations in this regard.

 

3. It helps your word of mouth

When a product or a service is well-designed, word of mouth spreads like wildfire. People like to talk about the things they love with their acquaintances and family members. In today’s digital age, this translates to social media sharing and liking of good content. By offering a professional user interface solution with user experience features that cater to your audience, you will have achieved just that.

There is no greater pleasure than to see your website’s landing page spread around through blogs and social media platforms without direct marketing. By focusing on your website’s UI and UX instead of advertisement, you will effectively communicate your customer-centric business model to the public.

 

4. High return on investment (ROI)

It’s true that web design and UX cost money, time and manpower – but so does traditional marketing. Recently, UX Planet published an article which disputes the notion of UX and UI costs being too high to be worth the trouble. In their article, they explained the idea of paid marketing and how it is a one-and-done deal with recurring costs.

When it comes to website design, iteration and development, costs are set in stone and don’t bloat over time. This is great news for small firms and startups with limited budgets, especially for those in competitive industries. By turning your attention to UX and UI innovation, you can forgo traditional paid ads for organic SEO and search engine traffic.

 

5. Communication and feedback is a given

There is always room for improvement in quality of life features and UX design. In this regard, user feedback and communication play huge roles. Mopinion published a piece about the benefits of feedback in ongoing UX development, touching on the points of costs and brand loyalty.

Your customers are the biggest and most important providers of feedback about usability, ease-of-access and overall accessibility of your website. When all is said and done, you are implementing UI and UX principles to your website for the betterment of the end-users’ experience. Make sure to give them a voice through surveys and live chats, and listen to what they have to say.

 

In summary

As you can see, the implication of UX and UI principles can make a huge difference in the long run. People want instant access and user-friendly features without the hassle of long load times or mandatory requests.

Do a website audit and see how your site performs currently before making any drastic changes to the formula. First impressions matter more than anything, so make sure to do what is best for your customers and let go of impractical features and design choices.

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How to Find Your First Web Developer Role

Coding JobsFront-end Coding

So you’ve decided you that you want to start your career in web development. Whether this is your first job or you’re looking for a career change, there are several steps you need to follow to land your starting role in the industry.

To help you out, Resume-Library has pulled together some top advice for preparing and conducting your job search, so you can find your first web development role in no time!

 

Make Sure You’ve Got the Necessary Skills

This might seem an obvious point to make, but it’s essential. Most professionals that want to work in the industry will have learnt, or spent time strengthening, their coding and web development skills. Therefore, you’re going to have to prove you’ve got what it takes and stand out from the competition.

Make sure you’ve got the basic skills along with a strong set of transferable skills to back these up. If you feel like there’s more you could learn, you might consider an online course to help bolster your skill set and stand you in good stead for your job hunt.

 

Get Experience While You Search

Just because you’re searching for a job, this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t continue to look for experience or work on your skills. While you look for a permanent role you might choose to freelance, volunteer your skills, undergo a work placement or even work on your own project.

Not only is it good to keep practicing and sharpening your web developer skills, but it also gives you some experience to talk about on your resume. You can do this alongside your job search until you find a more permanent role that’s right for you.

 

Perfect Your Resume

This one is very important. If you hope to land a web developer role, you’ll need to write an outstanding resume that’s going to get you noticed. Spend some time getting this right and remember that you must tailor every resume you submit to the specific role and company you’re applying for. A generic resume just won’t cut it.

Be sure to carefully list all the transferable and technical skills that make you right for the role: from HTML and CSS, to JavaScript and PHP. You must also outline any previous experience you have in the field, even if that’s from working on personal projects. This all counts towards showing you’re a great fit for their company.

 

Network On and Offline

Networking is important during all stages of your career, but it can be nerve-wracking, especially if you’re meeting people in person. To help you feel more at ease, here are some tips for networking that will help you land a job.

Be sure to network both on and offline. Joining web developer groups on professional platforms like LinkedIn can be a great way to connect with others in your industry, so make sure you fill in your profile as best you can. In addition, be sure to attend industry events, where you can find out about any exciting job opportunities on offer or any emerging trends.

 

Search for Jobs in the Right Places

When it comes to finding jobs that you actually want to apply for, you need to make sure you’re looking in the right places. There are a whole host of opportunities online, so start by signing up on  job boards like Resume-Library. These offer access to a wide range of roles across a vast number of locations – so you’re bound to find an opportunity that is right for you!

You might also want to search on industry-specific job sites, or use social media during your job hunt. Once again, sites like LinkedIn offer job search options, but you can also connect with groups or hashtags on platforms such as Facebook and Twitter that will help you to find a job.

 

In Summary

In order to find and land your first role as a web developer, you need to perfect your skills and be able to sell these on your resume. Search for jobs in the right places, whether this is using an online job board, social media or networking at industry events.

Investing time in your search is key, but it’s also vital that you’re always working on your skills and putting them into practice. Do this, and you’ll find the right role in no time.

 

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