Graphic Designer Evolution
When I graduated from community college in 2006, I was ready to step out and become a professional graphic designer.
For almost 15 years, I have created a ton of cool stuff for clients of all types and i have learned one solid thing throughout my years of work and it is this:
Being a graphic designer is not enough.
First, people wanted me to design posters and fliers and photo books and phone books and the like, which was fine. It was what I learned to do.
Then, it was all about websites. All my clients wanted websites. Forget all this print garbage, it was all about the digital world and everyone needed a website.
Then, it was all about designing social media pages. I remember getting paid to design MySpace pages and Facebook pages. I had to learn some HTML and JavaScript. But I was a designer, I wasn’t a programmer, but my clients didn’t care. I could make pretty stuff on the computer, so therefore I could make anything. I had to wing it a few times and was constantly being hit with new software that I had to learn.
Now, it’s all about apps and I don’t know code
I was loosing clients because I couldn’t do the work they wanted. Not to mention that designers were being replaced with AI (artificial intelligence). Thanks to sites like Wordpress, GoDaddy and Wix, ppl didn’t need web designers anymore. There’s a thousand places with a thousand choices and they could just type in their garbage and drag and drop some photos. Why would they need me anymore? The small business owner could just pay his nephew $50 to do it, the nephew who is in graphic design school.
Now, there is a logo designer AI program. I used to charge around $1,000 for a logo, but folks can get it done for free so that business model is failing too.
I’ve had to adapt and adapt again. Technology put the petal to metal on human evolution and we are learning and growing faster and faster.
So, I have to go back to school and learn programming. I was just going to teach myself like I usually do and build a game app but a friend told me about a job offer that I could be lined up to get if I got a certificate of some kind. The starting pay was over $100,000!
I signed up for classes not long after.
I didn’t want to go back to school and be the old guy in class who talks too much.
Luckily, online classes are more popular than ever and I could get this certificate from the comfort of my quarantined home. My first two classes are Web Programming and Computer Programming. I’m thinking the computer programming class is going to be way more intense, but I was horribly wrong.
The computer programming class takes things a step at a time. The first week, all we need to do is read the first chapter of our designated text book, do the exercise following the instructions and then do another exercise by ourselves to see what we learned? Make sense?
But the Web Programming class is just nuts.
We had to find our own textbook, read the first three chapters, then read three web pages of notes comparing our book to the notes so we know if we are on the right track. Make sense?
Then we had to find a resource for HTML, CSS, JavaScript and a site with a Creative Commons license for free photos and such. The instructor could have just given us the info but whatever.
Then we had to design a simple web page, then a more complex web page, THEN design a 3rd web page that uses all the elements from the first two pages but can’t be as simple as the first web page or as complex as the second web page. Make sense?
Then we had to take a quiz.
... what ... the .... $&@!%!!!!
I’m trying to get a cert in computer programming but I’m gonna be an HTML programmer by the time I get finished with all this work and by that time my job will be replaced by an AI program.
janainaart
yousharknotpass
theartofmadeline
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