practical planning for jacking in job - any web designers out there - what would you recommend

[jeangenie]

I'm seriously hacked off at work and planning my exit strategy
don't want to go straight into another company job for various reasons but am considering trying to get some freelance web design/construction graphic design work in due course
now I am creative (have fine art degree) and also technoliterate (have computer science degree and worked as a software engineer for 3 years back in the dark ages) but have been working in IT management for last 10 years so feel a bit distant from the coalface so to speak - I would like to start getting my hands dirty again
what would you recommend as a strategy to train myself up so that I would be able to begin offering my services in the web design (or construction, coding would be ok as long as I know which tools to learn)or graphic design domain?
If anyone does this for a living and would like to help me by farming out jobs to me I'd be happy to do something FoC with a bit of guidance from you in order to train myself up
I will be eternally grateful to anyone who plays any part no matter how tiny in getting me out of the job I am currently in [hopeful grovel emoticon]

Hi jean, do you have any friends or family in small companies where you could offer to redesign their website? I'm working from home atm for a friend doing this, and as a result have a couple of other jobs from other small businesses. This would be a relatively easy way back into web design without lots of pressure.

hi nopuds (great name btw) - my problem is that I have never actually DONE web design, so what i am after are some pointers wrt what technologies I should be training myself up in and how, as well as some real life experience in using them. Having never done it I couldn't offer myself for a proper job yet (and actually don't have any family/friends needing stuff done to act as guinea pigs unfortunately) but would love the opportunity to perhaps work for someone more experienced FoC and get some hands on guidance along the way

what technologies do you use and how straighforward were they to get to grips with?

have you looked at any of the ecommerce software like jshop, cubecart or actinic wopuld you consider working with those..customising for individual sites?

or ecommercetemplates

will take a look zippi - thank you for the pointers, at the moment I am interested in all aspects of the provision of online services so that is very useful

do you do this kind of thing then? have you used these packages?

I'd suggest you'll need to know some of the following: CSS, Java, PHP, ASP, Flash... for a start. Maybe do some online courses while you are still working... I'd agree with nopuds, help out mates if you can, also get some free webspace and just practise!

Personally I use Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Dw is fairly easy to pick up as long as you know HTML etc., Ps is a little harder. I guess you need to think about which area of web building you'd like to concentrate on. If its developing then there's coding such as asp.net.

Its useful to know principles of web design such as usability and accessibility. Its ok to have a beautiful website but people need to be able to use it!

Also learn what different browsers can support. Many non-IE browsers (ie Firefox, Mozilla) can't support designs which are laid out in tables for example (and this kind of layout isn't considered v accessible anymore). But any website you build does need to look the same in any browser.

I know that's a bit long but maybe it will give you a few pointers as to what to look for. I'm finding it hard to list exactly what it is you need to do, sorry!

What about any evening classes to give you a starting point?

oops, x-posted with everyone else! Guess I spent a little too long thinking about it .

Agree with littleEasterlapin about the other codings!

creating web sites the missing manual and sams teach yourself web publishing with html and css

and html dog best practice guide to xhtml and css

are interesting books

also checkout sitepoint forum

I am interested but lack the computer oomph to do it myself when it comes to the difficult parts....I am the person who needs the technical help!

Zippi, I don't have the technical side either but my friend does, so I do the design, pack it all off to him and he does all the coding etc needed to make it work properly! Could you do that as well?

Why am I encouraging this? Just going to take work away from myself

those software ecommerce solutions I listed all have active forums too so if you did have a go creating a site then you have the access to forum support which is often very good

I also use DreamWeaver and PhotoShop. I code from scratch but DW is very useful for previewing your pages; if you don't know HTML, you can create stuff using the DW tools then look at the HTML code that has been created.

Frames are considered a no-no these days, and tables are terribly passe (although sometimes I find you just need one! ). CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) are essential - you apply the CSS to the whole site, then if you want to change colours, fonts, backgrounds etc, you just change the CSS file).

If you're good with coding, I'd definitely look at Java, PHP, CGI etc.

Other "hot topics" are accessibility and usability, you could research those.

do you do ecommerce sites?

FYI, this is the CSS for the Mile for Maude site, if you need an example (apologies if you know all this already!) and this is the one for this page you are on at the moment!

zippi, was that to me or nopuds?

oh anyone! everyone!

I have done, as part of my Masters mostly, but not at the mo... I've used JShop and Actinic

am I allowed to hijack and ask what you thought of them

Umm, effective but basic? Although that might just be me not having enough experience using them.

MS Commerce Server was good, but it's expensive software

guys this is great!
am about to go into meeting but will come back later and mull it all over
any further tips/pointers/advice on how to get started really welcome
you are all making me feel very excited about the possibilities now, thank you, thank you, thank you

that's interesting the V&A shop is jshop

here

I have done loads of research on this but still being indecisive as to whether i get someone to do it for me or do it myself

if i do it myself then I hopefully learn and as my dd1 puts it I could design websites even if I was too decrepit to move

but things move so fast

this is an ecommercetemplate site

burts bees

I must do some work now

will come back later

have any of your thought of having a kind of co operative support group if you are starting out this is what I lack someone to help me like jeangenie says

so although the support forums are good they aren't the same as a colleague or a mate

zippi, I think my "not having enough experience with them" point is shown there those sites look great!

If you have a techy question, why not stick it in the Geeky stuff topic... I keep an eye on that one as do lots of others... I can help with various technologies, and would need help with others... sort of a Mumsnet techy forum (no scary teenagers making fun of you for not knowing Web 2.0 )