We’ve all started off as complete newbies in this Web Design/Development game. But what has influenced you along the way and made you into the professional you are today? Is there something that really stands out to you, a turning point along your journey when you realised, yes, this is the perfect career path for me!? Were there any times that you doubted that you could seriously make a living in this line of work? What keeps you motivated? Let’s hear all your stories and hopefully maybe give some wise words of advice to fast-track newbies starting off like you did!
web design isn’t exactly my career, i only dabble in it
that said, my early (late 90’s) influences were:
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netscape 2 and html tables
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david siegel and the 1px transparent gif – “the web is dead and i killed it”
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hotwired’s monkeyjunkies mailing list, and the exodus to evolt.org
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joe gillespie’s “web page design for designers”
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peter-paul koch and javascript
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the hilarious and bloody debacle that was css in ie4
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blooberry.com “indexdot css”
I’ve started off as a professional, for what calling yourself a professional is worth. I’ve started programming for clients with no prior experience. All it takes is one client and you’ve got your experience. And it takes fundamental programming knowledge, which in my case comes from a long time hobby of desktop programming as well as university education.
I just decided that I will do it for a living, it’s happened all of a sudden without much contemplation. There were no influences as I was completely clueless about the web dev world. Forget books or names. The idea of working from home sounded good and I just did it, being oblivious to challenges, for better or worse. I now realize what kind of self-confidence it took, though it probably was more to do with ignorance and arrogance. However, it has worked out.
Yes, as a freelancer; that’s when I quit. Didn’t take long enough to realize, “hey, I made a website for this guy now it will make him money for time to come; why not make one for myself!”
A weird combination of self-confidence, ignorance but willingness to learn, arrogance but willingness to learn from mistakes, and absolutely loving doing this stuff.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend being ignorant or arrogant as it can get you in trouble sometimes, but self-confidence and loving what you do are great things.
What motivated me to go one: obvious the money.
Also what made go on is good ideas of motivations like: there are times when you get what you want and times when you learn something.
Having something like this in my head made go on.
i was a translator three years ago and I met some paper documents about internet marketing and make money online.After that,I think I should make a little money at my spare time so I started to focus on it.I learned wordpress,html,php,seo,adwords,and also I earned a little being as an affiliate.After two years,I quited my translation job and went to a software company as SEOer,and I did my job well.At the same time,my affiliate commission also increased.Now,I am a department manager.
I don’t think I can class myself as a professional, or even close to one. I realize that there is a lot more to learn, but knowing the correct principles certainly helps you on the way. The community here really helped me stay on the role, which helps.
The best advice I can give to anybody is to do a job worth doing and don’t be afraid to justify what you’re doing. There are thousands of people out there who take horrid shortcuts, those people might make a quick buck, but I would be very surprised in a few years time if they are still here.
Invest in your learning, and take time to learn new things.
A wise man once told me that you can’t compete on price. Price yourself accordingly, but don’t try to compete with ready-made solutions or outsourced individuals in developing nations. Each path has it’s pros and cons, but when you’re dealing with English-speaking people, then communication is a lot easier. So everything bears a cost, despite what one might here.
Don’t try to find devious ways to do things either. Honestly is always the best policy and clients can see right through pushy sales tactics.
I remember starting out with websites when I was around ten. I had always been into computers, and I used to love playing with Windows 3.1 and DOS as a small child. However, when I got an Internet connection and learned that with a free host like Geocities anyone can have their own website I was completely hooked.
Eventually, I grew out of the WYSIWYG stuff and started learning HTML to get cool things on my web pages. I had starry backgrounds, a cool MIDI theme tune, everything a ten year old would want on a web page.
Obviously, I grew out of most of this, got a copy of Photoshop and started building proper websites. I learned that I needed server-side code to do anything cool that interacts with users and saves things on web pages and I became hooked on PHP.
By the time I started university I could program in several languages, including C and Java. I studied Computer Science and my mind was blown by the theory behind it all. Eventually, I was able to apply theory to practice. Now I am a Lead .NET Developer, despite being one year out of university and having only used .NET for three years.
In short, what made me a professional was a degree in Computer Science, and an appreciation for the theoretical side of what we do for a living. I still maintain that if you don’t understand the why, then you’ll never truly understand the how.
I am not a professional. Though probably one of the turning points regarding professionalism was when I started studying the Technical Recommendations. That is one of the things that will sort out the men from the boys.
Obviously forums are always a good place to practice answering questions too regarding real-world problems faced by web designers.
I absolutely agree. In my case, I don’t even understand anything until I see the “why”.
From a very young age I was fed math in large quantities by my mother, this has helped me tremendously with everything I ever did.
While in the web world, “Build Your Own Web Site The Right Way Using HTML & CSS” By Ian Lloyd was my first turning point, it finally allowed me to actually understand what I was doing, and make something that made sense, instead of attempting to slice images into tables, or using fully made WYSIWYG editors that I still don’t understand. It also helped me to connect to a server with FTP, which I had a lot of trouble with at the time (there was also a webdeveloper who has since abandoned websites, who provided me with server credentials for the first server I connected to).
Then the second turning point was “Paul O’B”, who influenced me the most regarding CSS, he provided me with the hardest CSS scenarios possible, which now made real life scenarios a piece of cake, and helped me gain confidence in my skills to create quality front end markup & styling, and grew a desire in me to experiment and pioneer new technologies and ideas, which lead me to meet even more influential people and share ideas with them, something I didn’t dream of back then.
After that I migrated mostly into the back-end of things, which is just bits and pieces from everywhere in excessively large quantities, I caught the server side quite easily because it is very similar to math, for example I recognized functions and variables immediately, and matrices that are in actionscript for example.
Now the most help I get for server-side questions, even though the people there are occasionally snobby, is stackoverflow, unlike sitepoint where you can talk and meet people, it is more a straightforward question-answer place with a massive amount of people and some experts helping out, mainly pointing me towards design patterns that I was unaware of.
Nowadays it’s more a creative thing than a technical one, and involves me social studies than software, were just bits and pieces from random places on the Internet are enough to get through any technical barrier.
What keeps me moving is the sense that I’m accumulating a library of code, that I’m not only getting more knowledge, but that I’m also refining that knowledge into something that is superior and improving my skills at the same time.
These day’s I can spot more problems and bugs in a application than I ever could before, but unlike the old days, I no longer react as harshly to other people’s flaws, now I that the online world is young, and I want to figure out a way to improve it, at first for myself and then everyone else.
What keeps me moving is web perfection, and the fact that you can’t reach it.
I start programming on a commodore vic-20 around the age of 5 not sure what intrigued me to start but I recall copying the source code for what I thought was for a PAC-MAN game.
I eventually discovered Flight Simulator 4 and began playing relentlessly progressed into version 5 and gained an interest in how to expand the scenery to my local town so via CompuServe and some local BBS I started learning about the BGL file structure.
From here I learned about VB, C/C++ and Pascal, eventually diving into VC++ and Delphi. Around 96 or 97 I landed my first commercial job (I wouldn’t call it professional) building a web site for my uncles part time business.
That was it for a long time, I had no high school education so I was forced into pumping gas and working bottom feeder jobs. Then one day I decided to make a go at PHP and web development. Found a client online based in Texas and the rest is history, I’ve been doing it ever since. 
I attribute everything to Flight Simulator
Cheers,
Alex
What influenced me was the gratitude I get after doing a really cool projects. I knew I was going to do this for my career when it didn’t feel like work anymore.
It’s nice to see these kinds of interesting questions here on SitePoint Forums, thanks for asking it. I’m only ~24 years old but I’ve been doing web stuff since I was 12 and I’m working with it professionally so I’ll gladly answer this one.
Turned out a rather long post—these kinds of questions brings it out of me! Too long to proof-read so disclaimer; will likely contain grammar and spelling errors.
Background
- My father bought an Amiga 600 early on and it fascinated me how one could create things on it such as the games I was playing. I’m not sure why I got so interested, but somehow it got it all started.
. - We then got a 486 PC and dialup internet connection and that’s where I got really inspired. Suddenly so much was possible. Just talking to other people in a chat room was fascinating at the time. And the amount of information out there was amazing—I could read and learn about whatever I wanted to. Magical.
. - So I had to buy an HTML book. Quickly worked through it and started experimenting with markup. As mentioned, I was 12-13 years old at the time. It was beautiful to write markup and see it turn into a bunch of interlinked web pages. In the beginning I remember trying out hosts like Lycos Angelfire. No turning back from this point on.
. - Another thing that fascinated me was dynamic content. I had no idea how it worked so I got myself a book on ASP and started learning and experimenting. Server-side scripting was exciting and I soon built ASP sites that connected to MS Access databases. I remember creating a community site called Danodomain, featuring things like private messaging and profiles.
. - Getting a bit tired of ASP and wanting to move on to “real” programming, I figured the natural way to go was to learn a compiled language. So I taught myself C++, and I absolutely loved it. I was about 14 years old at the time and the new stuff I learned, such as polymorphism, abstract classes etc was just so much fun.
. - After this, I heard about something called PHP and when I checked it out, it looked like a language for the web, similar to the ASP I had learned, but the syntax was more similar to C++. And it was dynamically typed. I fell in love all over again and spent a lot of time with PHP.
. - As I went to high school, I chose a school specializing in programming so by then, I had already decided what I wanted to do. I wanted to do game development and didn’t have patience to wait for school so I taught myself OpenGL programming in C++.
. - That didn’t last too long, however. It involved way too much of the kind of math I really don’t like. At the age of 17-18 I lost much of my motivation and inspiration for programming. Figured I could make more of a difference in the world if I did business manager or was an entrepreneur. Told myself I’d never work directly with computers, since I wanted to “make a difference”.
. - So I went half-way around the world to study business administration at a college in the US. Part of me missed programming a bit but I really loved marketing and business.
. - Dropped out. First job I took, after a couple of months or so, was as a computer technician… So much for not working with computers, eh? Anyway, after 7-8 months working there it dawned on me. I was naturally very good at IT, and web development especially. Suddenly it became so clear, that this was what I was supposed to do. No doubt.
. - So without professional experience, not having written much code the past couple of years, I optimistically started looking for a web development gig. Meanwhile I learned some design patterns and experimented. After a few weeks I was hired by a web agency after them having looked briefly at the experiments I was playing with.
. - And well, I have since then worked in the business and now run my own web development shop.
Influences
- So obviously, I was inspired and influenced at a very young age, by the potential I saw in the internet. It brought with it so many possibilities, and I found it incredibly fascinating. These days, it’s still at least as fascinating as it was back then but I tend to take technical stuff for granted all too often.
. - What keeps me going most is the desire to always improve, learn more and become better at what I do. That’s an extremely strong motivator for me, along with a playful desire to experiment and deliver the best possible solutions to my clients.
. - I’m not greatly influenced by external sources. I’m much more introvert. But of course, I’ve read Stephen Prata’s C++ book, seen Steve Jobs keynotes, read Kevin Mitnick’s security book, DHH’s Agile/Rails book, Jason Fried’s Rework/Getting Real, read about John Carmack of ID Software and lately I’ve read about and listened to people like Andy Clarke, Jeffrey Zeldman, Dan Cederholm and so on. These people have all influenced me in one way or the other.
But as I’ve mentioned, the main thing for me is that it really feels like this all comes naturally to me—much more so than anything else I’ve done—so once that was figured out, it all becomes quite simple.
If I would give any advice, it would be to find that thing—the thing that doesn’t feel like work. That thing you would do in your spare time if you didn’t work professionally with it. The thing that makes you forget the time and sit up all night. Sounds like I’m talking about a girlfriend/boyfriend here but what I’m talking about is another kind of passion.
I decided at the age of 28 to completely change my career, from a printer to a web designer. Never really had any computer knowledge so it was a very steep learning curve. Received plenty of knocks along the way but keep going and now I have a great job with some very big clients. To be a web designer you must a desire to learn new things, if you ever get bored of learning your in the wrong career
In my age, people who could work at a computer-related company is very proud due to the niche and “high class” business nature.
My background was not computer but immediately graduate, I entered a software development company. From a sales person until Internet marketer today. I am yet the professional but I like my job very much. I suppose it has been my dreamt job since young.