Job

davidclayton

I just thought I'd give some good news.
I got a job a couple of weeks ago in a web-design company
[after much looking]
I didn't actually study it in college or anything though.
I went to Carlow and got a degree in Industrial Design [product design]
and wandered towards computers and then web design.

there is hope out there after all.



dave



LoLth: congratulations on the job. Slaps for the shameless advertising

buddy

Was the web design company name removed or something?

Well done man, any chance you could tell us what your pay packet is

davidclayton

website was removed due to my shameless self-advertising.
fair enough.

i'm making a HEFTY 19k
but i'm sure it will progress well over time.
i'm not a man for the money anyway,
more about job satisfaction.

dave

pork99

Originally posted by davidclayton

I didn't actually study it in college or anything though.
I went to Carlow and got a degree in Industrial Design [product design]

I've come to believe that industrial designers make very good web designers. They are no strangers to concepts like usability & combining functional design with good aesthetics.

Graphic designers on the other hand have tendency to think they are there to inflict their personal creative vision on everyone. (I have been as guilty of this as anyone else but you learn)

Seth Brundle

Originally posted by davidclayton
i'm making a HEFTY 19k

sarcasm?
How much is the dole these days? 19K ain't bad when you think that way!

cgarvey

Originally posted by davidclayton
i'm not a man for the money anyway,
more about job satisfaction.

Good man, hopefully that attitude will take you far, quicker. Good luck in the job.

.cg

davidclayton

no really,
i probably would have taken this job for minimum wage!
[don't let the boss hear that though]

buddy

Just curious, what web abilities do you have?

davidclayton

none really [when i got the job],
only a keen interest in design and computers.
i didn't even know html!

getting cracking on fireworks & dreamweaver at the moment
and have since learned html.

the programs i was already familiar with were:
ms office
photoshop 7 [proficient]
solidworks [3d cad/renderer/animator]
bryce
poser

AlwaysAmber

Originally posted by pork99
I've come to believe that industrial designers make very good web designers. They are no strangers to concepts like usability & combining functional design with good aesthetics.

Graphic designers on the other hand have tendency to think they are there to inflict their personal creative vision on everyone. (I have been as guilty of this as anyone else but you learn)

Very true. We've been building and running websites for years now and the one golden rule we have when hiring designers is.. no graphic designers and no art college guys. They may be able to produce stunning graphics, but they have no concept of how it will work on the internet.

cgarvey

Originally posted by AlwaysAmber
no graphic designers and no art college guys.

So who do you hire to come up with designs? ID guys'n'gals?

.cg

leeroybrown

There are plenty of people out there who are good designers but also have a very good understanding of how a website is built up and how to make usability and implementation easier. If they're excellent graphic designers, then all the better.

AlwaysAmber

Originally posted by cgarvey
So who do you hire to come up with designs? ID guys'n'gals?

.cg

I find that big breasted blondes wearing extremly short skirts nearly always have the best design ideas;)

cgarvey

Originally posted by AlwaysAmber
I find that big breasted blondes wearing extremly short skirts nearly always have the best design ideas;)

/me makes mental note not to do business (well, of a web-design nature anyway) with AlwaysAmber!!

pork99

Originally posted by AlwaysAmber
no graphic designers and no art college guys. They may be able to produce stunning graphics, but they have no concept of how it will work on the internet.

I went into web design via graphic design & learned the hard way. I look back on stuff I did 6-7 years ago - cringeworthy!

But yes the problem with graphic design/art college grads is you will have to train them as much as the average punter plus they frequently have a bad case of attitude. Regretably all too often they have been lead to believe that they are geniuses.

I don't know what it's like nowadays but when I was a design student (c1993-96) we were actually discouraged from using computers for our work! We were told "computers aren't relevant, employers are going to value you for your ideas". Yeah right :rolleyes:

buddy

Originally posted by davidclayton
none really [when i got the job],
only a keen interest in design and computers.
i didn't even know html!

getting cracking on fireworks & dreamweaver at the moment
and have since learned html.

the programs i was already familiar with were:
ms office
photoshop 7 [proficient]
solidworks [3d cad/renderer/animator]
bryce
poser

Sounds cool, I'd love to do it but I thought I'd need to know php/asp.

AlwaysAmber

Originally posted by buddy
Sounds cool, I'd love to do it but I thought I'd need to know php/asp.

A knowledge of PHP and ASP would of course help. But the most important thing from our point our view, is somebody who will work well with the rest of the team.

As somebody here has already mentioned, everyone fresh out of college seems to come with so much attitude thats its just easier to avoid them. Another big no, no for us, is anyone who favourite programme is Macromedia Flash. Why do designers insist on putting those stupid flash intros on websites?

davidclayton

yeah the boss hates the flash-heavy sites too...
but a small bit now and again [used properly] can be very impressive.

buddy

Originally posted by AlwaysAmber
A knowledge of PHP and ASP would of course help. But the most important thing from our point our view, is somebody who will work well with the rest of the team.

As somebody here has already mentioned, everyone fresh out of college seems to come with so much attitude thats its just easier to avoid them. Another big no, no for us, is anyone who favourite programme is Macromedia Flash. Why do designers insist on putting those stupid flash intros on websites?

I'll be endeavouring to venture into PHP or ASP. I've only touched on Flash and do think the intro thing is a waste of the customers time & the designers. It should only be used if needed for presentations or for those fancy "movie release" sites.

pork99

Originally posted by davidclayton
yeah the boss hates the flash-heavy sites too...

I've worked in places where the bosses LOVED flash sites. No matter what I said (and God knows I put my case in words of one syllable so they would have no problems understanding me) I was regularily shown some awesome piece of "flashturbation" and asked why I could not come up with something like that.

The implication being that I was not good enough to it; "Look at this site, theres a wee spaceman flying across the screen. Oh look he has buttons on his helmet. Why can't you do that?" No matter what I said about search engine indexing or bandwidth conservation it was outweighed by the pretty shiney things. I used to have fantasies about shooting the f*ckers

Seth Brundle

you just can't beat a spaceman with buttons on their helmet to really finish a site off.

pork99

I asked the main boss in the same company for a p.o. to buy a copy of Photoshop. He showed me some photo album app he had got with his home scanner and asked me why I couldn't use that instead.

davidclayton

Tell him you bought him a new calculator for being so intelligent,
then hand him a banana.

pork99

Originally posted by davidclayton
Tell him you bought him a new calculator for being so intelligent,
then hand him a banana.

That would have been a bit over his head

paulthelegend

The argument about the flash intros kills me aswell...

i spent days working on a lovely drop down menu system in javascript and great layout of a site, worked perfect in all browsers .... and showed them and they liked it and then asked could i do something like this... then showed me a REALLY bad flash intro that didnt even preload any images or anything litterally the logo just turned 360 degree's and a few poxy words flashed by the screen .... HAWWWW i give up! So from then on i just judge by the client... and being brutally honest ... if there stupid ill put flash in, if they are smart i don't ... is this steriotype justified?

pork99

Originally posted by paulthelegend
if there stupid ill put flash in, if they are smart i don't ... is this steriotype justified?

you betcha!

Flash is ok used minimaly with some means of seamlessly delivering a static image to the non-flash users.

Also it's good for things like product demos but always warn the user they are linking to a flash movie and provide a warning about the download time & a link to download the plug in if thats what they want. Ideally provide a non-flash alternative but thats not always possible.

But then again; ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm rotating logo, urrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr drrrooooolllllll