Moving Your Career Beyond Web Designer

Web designers must possess a wide variety of technical and design skills, and they are usually good at juggling many things at once. But while web designers have been designing websites for a couple of decades now, the industry as a whole is moving towards something new. It is becoming standardized and commoditized. The design in "Web design" is starting to be of less importance.

One of the primary reasons we are at this point is because it has become extremely easy to design a website today using templates or intuitive CMS systems such as WordPress.

As a web designer, you might be wondering whether yours is a dying profession, and if you should seek to go beyond your web design skills.

Is Web Design a Dying Profession?

The question I hear often these days is whether or not web design is a dying profession. Many types of professions have come and gone in the past, so is the same thing bound to happen with web design?

This question is on many people's minds because, not only is there a lot of competition from DIY web design software, the web design field is also extremely oversaturated. There are so-called web designers working from every part of the world these days.

However, the short answer to this very complex question is most likely no.

Quality Is Still Hard to Find

Although there are web designers everywhere, quality web design is still hard to come by. If you've tried finding a qualified web designer before, you know that it is no easy task.

You can find hundreds of web designers but most will not be at the top of the field. That is because the great web designers are already hired. Great web designers don't usually need a job and often have several opportunities lined up waiting for them. But how do you become a great web designer?

Improving Your Skills

Constantly improving your skills is important to any career. Becoming good at something is much different than mastering something. Many people can be good web designers, but only a few can be great.

The difference between the two is that one merely does it for the money while the other is obsessed with the field.

If you are not a master yet, but feel a very strong desire to get there, then you're already ahead of most other people. If you're passionate about learning new things in web design and someone who reads Stack Overflow daily, then you're on the right path.

Expanding Your Skills

If you're a great web designer, you might be secure in your career for a while. Because you are a rare breed, you cannot easily be replaced by another person or software. However, it's only a matter of time until you have more competition.

That is why you need to constantly be in the process of expanding your skills. You have to move beyond web designer in order to secure your future. HTML, CSS, and Photoshop will only take you so far for so long.

The most useful skills to attain next would be JavaScript and jQuery so that you can solidify your frontend web development skill set.

If you're already amazing at JavaScript, then it is time to take a leap and jump into the world of backend development such as PHP or Ruby. Although frontend development faces increasing competition from oversaturation and DIY software, the field of backend development is nowhere close to that. Because this field is much more complex and unique, your skills should be in demand for a longer period of time.

Future of Web Design

As I mentioned before, the web design field is so standardized today that is is simple for just about anyone to buy a high-quality theme and install it on a WordPress website. With the availability of many page builder and customization plugins, you can put together a great-looking website without spending much money.

Although automation can never truly replace quality web design, it can lower the number of opportunities for those that provide that quality manual labor.

Not everyone wants or needs the highest-quality website with clean code that can be read and understood by 99% of other web designers. Most small business owners just want to have a web presence, which can be achieved without the need for a web designer.

If you expand your skills beyond the basics of HTML, CSS, and Photoshop, you are more likely to be able to provide things that automation cannot. Even simple scripts that do routine and basic functions can be much more useful than what automation software provides.

Transitioning into Entrepreneurship

When you are at a point where you master frontend development and become really strong at backend development, the next logical step is entrepreneurship. By the time you reach this elite level in the field, you should have no problem landing numerous clients and making a good living working for yourself.

With the right skills in your toolbelt, you can essentially do whatever you want--because you can do it all yourself.

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