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just practice and work for clanwebsites… when you get good start selling designs… then learn to code and start coding your designed websites (webspell probably best place to start, then move onto others, don’t go on these stupid expensive courses, you can learn yourself with some self motivation and work full time whilst you do so). Then when you have built up a portfolio create your own website and thus making you an established web designer

But i wouldn’t recommend it, not unless you can establish good contacts, something which takes anything from 1 day to the rest of your life… you’ll have to start off doing alot of things for free before you can start going up the ladder, people want past results before they give you their hard earned money

If you have the dedication, only then might you make it as a webdesigner

gl

Well I am considering going to uni.
The problem is I dont want to waste my time with courses that wont help me.
I have no idea if taking a web design in uni is worth it. Most of my friends went on some sort of engineering course and history crap :P

right. I see.
Uni does leave me with a big debt at the end being my main concern with it.
As I say though im not exclusively wanting to be a web designer. Anything simular would be great. If I had my way id go into game design but I know that would never happen.
I know very few people in this kind of work … hence why I am very grateful for you guys replying already :D

Let me give you my two cents Sigh, university is NOT for everyone, this is fact and i think everyone would agree with this. However Uni does give you a passport in life. Once you have completed your degree it means no matter what you have something to back you up.

Professional Companies always go by the degree you’ve done and you’re work experience. My recommendation is if you actually want to go to uni, then make sure you pick the right course… if you don’t pick the right course you might as well work at Morrisons and earn £4.55 per hour for the 3/4 years instead. About 90% of my friends all went to uni and they all started off cleverer than me what with their “amazing” alevels and yet when they got to uni… they did a degree they didn’t enjoy follow through or have the passion for…

Now they’re stuck ina job that a) isn’t professional b) they don’t enjoy c) Are thinking about changing their career, so thats how many years wasted?

If you want help on which courses you think would apply to you i’d be happy to speak to you on irc or msn and explain and make you see which degrees would be suited to you. I’ll give you a good example of this… Me :-) All i knew right was that i liked computers…i enjoyed the logic and i knew how to fiddle around mess about edit things design a little but i didn’t have anything concrete…. So what did i do?

I found a degree which covered everything regarding Computing… and that degree was called BEng Computer Systems Engineering.

This Covered

Maths
Physics
Dynamics an Control (which is mechanical Physics)
Programming (C, C# C++ Java and Low level programming)
Web Design including Flash MX Actionscript 2.0 (in my time :E) php/ html/ css and js (in my time)
Electronics and Digital Electronics which came in handy when we had to make 2 phones communicate lol…
And one of the most important ones was Business Management..
Networking..

As you can see thats jus about the whole spectrum of Computing.. It wasn’t until my 2nd year i knew what career i wanted to do in life… Then i did a Masters and extended on that…

You say your good with “avatars” and “designing headers” , your not gonna find a job just to solely do this, but you will find it along with other stuff you could learn within that degree. Which you may end up leaning towards to, i.e. you’d be a website developer and part of that is doing the header etc…. :)

If your considering going through colleges and doing courses then do it if you think your not suited for uni, there are clear advantages to doing it through college and some clear disadvantages but from what i’ve seen from my friends, going through uni for the majority is the best way if you are looking to actually have a stable and professional career. You can also have a stable one going via college but the route to it being stable is no way as strong as going through uni : >

If ya need any help let me know, happy to help!

*ramble over*

Cheers

Byte

I did a apprenticeship in the it sector and nearly finished my study in business information systems in a german university for applied science.

I think i can give you some hints and advises too (from a non uk view), we can talk a bit in irc if you want to. Im in #iclan and all the standard tf2 channels also.

riiight … no thanks :D

hmm, this is going to be a long post :D

First I have to say that it’s great that you want to find a job that you really like. There is many different ways to find that. You just have to find the one that suits you best. These things I’m about to say are just my thoughts and how I see things.

You have few similar points there that reminds me about my story back in the days. I was pretty much self-educated with great passion for computer graphics. I had a portfolio online and few recommendations from my upper secondary school teachers. I started to look a place for indenture. I sent few applications to different companies. I Went for an interview for the biggest and one week after that I got in. Wow! With an indenture I got salary and a change to study (get) that important paper that says I know these things :) Now I have worked over 8 years here in a quite big media corporation as a new media designer. I really like what I’m doing and never had that crappy feeling that I don’t want to go to work.

The world is full of very talented designers and the competition is quite hard so you need to stand out. Make your own web page/portfolio. Start getting name and study more by yourself all the time. Work a freelancer or help your friends/family with all the little graphics and ads. Do a web pages to your clan, dog or your family. If you really in to this you see those jobs as a great opportunities to learn new things. It takes time but it’s worth it! Don’t drop from your recent job unless you have another place already waiting. Studying is good thing but make sure study the right things. Luckily there are more and more schools that are focused offering courses for graphic design and programming if it seems that you don’t get things going. With your mathematical background I think learning a java or some other programming language isn’t too big of a problem. It’s good to know both sides and know a bit of everything involved the working process. Still try to find out what you like the most – coding and making sites or just pure graphic design. It helps a lot for planning your studies.

I’m not a studying type at all. Although I was thinking university too but I liked working more. I’m soon 29 years old and I have a lot of valuable work experience compared to some of my friends. I still learn something new everyday and educate my self all the time. I’m taking courses and follow the visual trends. Everything is up to you :) I know I was really lucky when I got my job but how you could ever get to anywhere if you don’t try your wings?

Good luck and hopefully everything sorts out for you. I’m also available if you want to talk or you have something to ask.

Cheers, nautti

PS. I think you might find some things to do from these forums also. I think there are many clans who would like have some graphic designs to their sites, logos, banners etc. and why not the whole site. Put some of your work online and tell people that you could make logos for their team :)