Web design college

tonyj1000

I want to study web design. Be able to build and maintain websites. There seems to be a good job market for web designers. So I'm wondering if anyone has any advice on the best college to apply for?

yoyo

Moved from Comp & Tech

Recurve360

Im currently studying Creative Multimedia in LIT Tipperary(Clonmel). Its a comprehensive course that covers Web Design and Development, Programming, Animation, Photography among many other things.
The Web design stuff is just HTML and CSS in first year and how to make sites responsive across desktop/mobile and tablets, 2nd year focuses on jquery and javascript and there is some server side stuff there too. If your interested have a look at the course info: http://www.lit.ie/Courses/LC517/default.aspx.

Theres options to do a 2,3 or 4 year course.

Unsure of other places to offer it so its just a consideration

tonyj1000

That looks good, thanks for the info. I'd like something in Dublin though. there seems to be a lot more part time then full time,

Recurve360

I think there is a similar course in Blanchardstown if im not mistaken and a very similar one in DKIT. Search multimedia or Computer science as your unlikely to get a full time one doing just web design

tramoreman

make sure if you are doing a web design course part time that its certified by fetac because theres a lot of part time web design courses out there that are only college certs

tonyj1000

Thanks for all the info, yous are a real help. Some people have told me to go for Java programing instead as "web design" is not as good for career options. But it seems to me you couldnt ignore either side of design and programing. just deciding were to start is confusing

designbydan

tonyj1000 wrote: »

Thanks for all the info, yous are a real help. Some people have told me to go for Java programing instead as "web design" is not as good for career options. But it seems to me you couldnt ignore either side of design and programing. just deciding were to start is confusing

HA! Our lecturer is constantly telling the people in my course that MORE of them should be focusing on web design as that's where the money is right now!.

I study Creative Digital Media in Blanch, it's a very good course and you will learn a lot about web design there. Even if you're doing a games design module, or film module for example, you usually have to make a website for whatever the project is (for fake marketing and what not) So if you like it or not you end up knowing a lot more about web design than just what you learn in the dedicated module
http://www.creativedigitalmedia.ie

cormee

Recurve360 wrote: »

Im currently studying Creative Multimedia in LIT Tipperary(Clonmel). Its a comprehensive course that covers Web Design and Development, Programming, Animation, Photography among many other things.
The Web design stuff is just HTML and CSS in first year and how to make sites responsive across desktop/mobile and tablets, 2nd year focuses on jquery and javascript and there is some server side stuff there too. If your interested have a look at the course info: http://www.lit.ie/Courses/LC517/default.aspx.

Theres options to do a 2,3 or 4 year course.

Unsure of other places to offer it so its just a consideration

That prospectus seems to say the only design tool you train on, for one year, is Fireworks? Is that correct? It's weird there no Photoshop, Illustrator, or any mention of design principles, considering it's labelled 'creative'. I currently work as a UI designer, previous to that I was a web designer, and I'd say 50% of my time in both jobs is spent using those packages.

The course mentione, above, by designbydan seems far more geared towards web design.

miralize

cormee wrote: »

That prospectus seems to say the only design tool you train on, for one year, is Fireworks? Is that correct? It's weird there no Photoshop, Illustrator, or any mention of design principles, considering it's labelled 'creative'. I currently work as a UI designer, previous to that I was a web designer, and I'd say 50% of my time in both jobs is spent using those packages.

The course mentione, above, by designbydan seems far more geared towards web design.

I did that course too and the web design aspect of the course was mainly in code editor (Dreamweaver *shudders*). They do have Photoshop/Illustrator though.

Very little UI/UX work involved, that may have changed since I was in 1st / 2nd year 5 years ago.

Recurve360

cormee wrote: »

That prospectus seems to say the only design tool you train on, for one year, is Fireworks? Is that correct? It's weird there no Photoshop, Illustrator, or any mention of design principles, considering it's labelled 'creative'. I currently work as a UI designer, previous to that I was a web designer, and I'd say 50% of my time in both jobs is spent using those packages.

The course mentione, above, by designbydan seems far more geared towards web design.

That prospectus must be out of date so. We only use fireworks to optimise images. This year I have:
Created a Character and background in Illustrator.
Used Flash Pro for Rigging my character to walk and paralax scroll.
Used AS3 in Programming to program the character.
Created about 4-5 responsive websites using media queries etc.
Stopmotion Animation compiled in Premier Pro.
Rotoscope Animation in Flash.
Created Book Covers in Photoshop.
Only thing we didnt really cover was After Effects and there is a bigger focus on that and introduction to Maya in 2nd year. There is quite a bit to it

But i agree, on paper at least the course above looks beter from a web development perspective.

BlueJohn

I just about to complete a 2 year course in BCFE in interactive digital media. Done the one year course before that. Very good courses with some real nice tutors like viv. Heading to napier next year to do a degree in creative computing in Edinburgh.

Course deals in web, animation, 3D and a few others. First year is a fetac 5 and the 2 year course is a BTEC 5 or 6. BTEC is the new thing. We were the first year this new course structure has been tested on. And while there is a lot to hate about it and its new approach, a lot of the tutors are trying there best to work around it.

If you want to take a look at my end of year project for web here it is (****ing stupid site I cant post my project sorry)

Now the php/mysql isnt in place so a lot of the functions aren't working yet but you can get an idea what is expected of you in the second year of interactive media. If you want to progress through the whole site use seasonal in the nav. The site alllows the user to come on select a card from a category of their liking and customize it with text/font/sounds. then send it to a person of their liking through email.

If you have no idea about web, animation and stuff do this first.
(I cant post links just go BCFE and browse th courses, its DMP/DMH)

If you have some background work in web or any of the course subjects I would skip the one above and apply for this.
(I cant post links just go BCFE and browse th courses, its DMP/DMH)


Just add to what you guys were talking about above. Fireworks is vastly superior to Photoshop when it comes to designing templates or sites. Its tool set and features give you much better control. You can have a whole template site design in one file and some of the pluins are fantastic. Shame is been killed by adobe....

huligan

Learn it yourself - try youtube, there are thousands of free video tutorials - start with understanding what is web design and how it works and continue with HTML -> CSS ->JavaScript or jQuery -> and then go into back end and learn MySQL free database + PHP server scripting - That is pretty much all you need:)

Recurve360

huligan wrote: »

Learn it yourself - try youtube, there are thousands of free video tutorials - start with understanding what is web design and how it works and continue with HTML -> CSS ->JavaScript or jQuery -> and then go into back end and learn MySQL free database + PHP server scripting - That is pretty much all you need:)

You spelt college wrong...

Not for the want of starting an argument here but if you want to succeed and actually get a job in industry you are going to need some kind of degree. Sure you could learn online and it would be a great help, however your going to take years to get a name for yourself and gain big clients without a degree or prospects in working with a big web firm.

I know this because I personally learned online in my free time before I came to college. Sure you will get some work but if you are serious about web development go to college. If for nothing else but it will help establish a connection with people which could be of benefit

_ciaran_

Recurve360 wrote: »

if you are serious about web development go to college.

Sorry but that is rubbish.

If you are serious about web design & development then build websites.

Work on your own projects and develop a portfolio. A decent portfolio will land you an internship which, assuming you're good, will lead to plenty of interesting employment opportunities.

If you are genuinely interested in it you will learn much more through tutorials, stack overflow, treehouse, lynda, nettuts, codecademy, meetups, conferences, .net magazine, smashing magazine, the book apart series etc... than you will in a degree course which might have a handful of relevant modules in it.

Don't get me wrong, if you are just leaving school or if time is not an issue then by all means pursue a degree - it's good life experience and well rounded. Just don't expect to come out the other end with a **** hot portfolio and wearing a web dev cape unless you are prepared to go at it in your spare time.

A degree will get you in the door if you are applying to certain large companies who have it has a prerequisite (a certain gambling company comes to mind) but if you don't have the chops in your portfolio you'll be promptly led out the back door anyway.

A degree will also look better on your CV and maybe put you in higher favor with recruitment agencies but again - getting your foot in the door is only going to help you if you have the work to back yourself up.

If you're genuinely interested in it my advice would be to get stuck in, build stuff and enjoy it.

BlueJohn

Well you defiantly aint going to get a job without putting in the effort and building a proper portfolio which is to a certain standard. College can be quiet good in helping you understand the basics, cause really thats at most your going to learn throughout most of these level 5s. It gives you the ground work and you really have to build on it from there if you want to really get good.

Really its all about the amount of effort you put in personally. There are a lot of technologies to learn in web design/development and it can be pretty off putting without knowing the basics.

If you feel college is a waste and have the motivation to learn, join one of the many tutorial sites. I use Treehouse and its great.

huligan

Recurve360 wrote: »

You spelt college wrong...

Not for the want of starting an argument here but if you want to succeed and actually get a job in industry you are going to need some kind of degree. Sure you could learn online and it would be a great help, however your going to take years to get a name for yourself and gain big clients without a degree or prospects in working with a big web firm.

I know this because I personally learned online in my free time before I came to college. Sure you will get some work but if you are serious about web development go to college. If for nothing else but it will help establish a connection with people which could be of benefit

I absolutely agree with you, but many people think that web design is Wordpress or similar CMS and I just wanted to give some advice to let this person see if he really is suitable for coding before he jumps into it - because as you probably know web designers->developers are not just plain HTML and CSS coders - it takes much more than that to get a job

And I learned online as well so this is another reason I recommended youtube as I find it a great source for studying, especially if you are just starting

cormee

It's probably worth reminding, at this stage, that there is a massive difference between a web developer and a web designer. Sure, some companies may try using developers as designers, but in the majority of cases the difference between the work produced by either is instantly recognisable.

BlueJohn

If Op is still here, heres my finished project for PHP this year.

just replace the dots with dots...
www(DOT)remotegoatdesign(DOT)com/websitetestjohn/index(DOT)php

any feedback on the deign and layout would be nice.

irishdude11

_ciaran_ wrote: »

Sorry but that is rubbish.

If you are serious about web design & development then build websites.

Work on your own projects and develop a portfolio. A decent portfolio will land you an internship which, assuming you're good, will lead to plenty of interesting employment opportunities.

If you are genuinely interested in it you will learn much more through tutorials, stack overflow, treehouse, lynda, nettuts, codecademy, meetups, conferences, .net magazine, smashing magazine, the book apart series etc... than you will in a degree course which might have a handful of relevant modules in it.

Don't get me wrong, if you are just leaving school or if time is not an issue then by all means pursue a degree - it's good life experience and well rounded. Just don't expect to come out the other end with a **** hot portfolio and wearing a web dev cape unless you are prepared to go at it in your spare time.

A degree will get you in the door if you are applying to certain large companies who have it has a prerequisite (a certain gambling company comes to mind) but if you don't have the chops in your portfolio you'll be promptly led out the back door anyway.

A degree will also look better on your CV and maybe put you in higher favor with recruitment agencies but again - getting your foot in the door is only going to help you if you have the work to back yourself up.

If you're genuinely interested in it my advice would be to get stuck in, build stuff and enjoy it.

He said 'web development'. And he is right, you won't even get past HR without a decent college degree. Web design on the other hand is artistic and hence a portfolio will be much more important.

But for web development, companies don't need to 'take a chance' on somebody with no college degree when there are plenty of people who do have the college degree (and who also have examples of previous work to show).

You are only going to get half arsed low hanging fruit jobs when you are starting off on your own steam as a web developer anyway so the examples of your work are only going to show that you can get the job done, they aren't going to set the world alight and make some company hire you over somebody else with the same body of work, but who also has a 4 year degree under their belt.

cormee

irishdude11 wrote: »

He said 'web development'. And he is right, you won't even get past HR without a decent college degree. Web design on the other hand is artistic and hence a portfolio will be much more important.

But for web development, companies don't need to 'take a chance' on somebody with no college degree when there are plenty of people who do have the college degree (and who also have examples of previous work to show).

You are only going to get half arsed low hanging fruit jobs when you are starting off on your own steam as a web developer anyway so the examples of your work are only going to show that you can get the job done, they aren't going to set the world alight and make some company hire you over somebody else with the same body of work, but who also has a 4 year degree under their belt.

Not sure I'd agree with that. The company I work for, a software dev co., are most interested in, in order of importance -
- Skillset
- Result of skills test on day of interview
- Work experience
- Qualifications

I'm not suggesting someone with no qualification at all would get a position, but a 'decent college degree' is absolutely not necessary if you impress with the first three.

irishdude11

cormee wrote: »

Not sure I'd agree with that. The company I work for, a software dev co., are most interested in, in order of importance -
- Skillset
- Result of skills test on day of interview
- Work experience
- Qualifications

I'm not suggesting someone with no qualification at all would get a position, but a 'decent college degree' is absolutely not necessary if you impress with the first three.

You won't likely won't get a chance to impress with the first three. You are ruling yourself out of a massive % of good development jobs if you do not have a college degree. Go to indeed.ie and search for development jobs and you'll see nearly all require a degree. And of the few that don't, they generally seem to be specialized roles for people with years of industry experience.

Companies don't hire someone just because they have a degree...it's more that the degree is a baseline to get yourself considered for a position in the first place.

_ciaran_

irishdude11 wrote: »

Go to indeed.ie and search for development jobs and you'll see nearly all require a degree.

You will also note that other requirements on development job specs range from C# experience to space-travel. The requirements listed on those things are often template specs added by the recruiter or the companies HR department.

As a front-end developer with no college degree I have had plenty of job interviews where the initial job spec listed a degree as a requirement and it hasn't been an issue.

As previously stated, some large companies might have a policy enforced by their HR department on only hiring graduates. This kind of gig would be off limits to me but it's not what I'm into.

Admittedly, I'm assuming the OP is interested in agency work seeing as he wants to design & build websites.

If it's a corporate development gig you're after then I'd imagine a college degree would be a must.

Niall OConnor

I just finished 4 years in LIT Limerick. Studied Multimedia and Programming design. We learned about web design, usability, web development, 3D Graphics, Project Management and Java Programming.

Would Highly recommend it. I also agree that you would need a decent portfolio to start off with. Its a good idea to advertise in done deal perhaps for website work when you are qualified.