What happens if you want to shift focus in your creative career and move into website design and development? In today’s minisode we have a listener who is wondering what it takes to become a website developer and how to fill in the holes in her skillset.
Emily Thompson 0:02
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Kathleen Shannon 1:21
Hey, guys, it's Kathleen and Emily here. And we have brought on our assistant, Caitlin, to help us record these minisodes which, as always are bite sized nuggets of information for you to digest at the end of your week. All right, here we go. What do you have for us, Caitlin?
Caitlin Brehm 1:37
Well, I got a great question through our email recently. So here it is. It's from Vanessa. She says, Hey, Emily, and Kathleen, I love your podcasts and your knowledge and guidance is so refreshing, raw and inspiring. I've heard your stories and they resonate with me so well. I am truly one of those people who want to do everything. And even my major in art school with Visual Communications, which is, in my opinion, the jack of all trades or master of non majors, I finally come to a point in my career in fashion, or I want to create websites, specifically, ecommerce, specifically, as many years of my career have been in fashion. As master of none, I'm finding I have holes in my skills and wanted to ask you guys, Emily, specifically, how you came from owning your own jewelry line to becoming a web designer slash developer? Did you take the time to learn yourself? Did you take classes Did you outsource work and the areas you felt like your skill have lacked? She's gotten a lot of experience in different jobs. And she has gotten experience through creating databases and email stuff and a lot of more techie things. So she says, after all this, I've come to realize that I really love the web design aspect of it all. And in this day and age, it can be very lucrative. I just don't know what my next step should be. Any tips would be so helpful. Thank you so much, Vanessa.
Emily Thompson 3:01
Oh, the doozy what a loaded question, a loaded set of questions. So to talk a little bit about how I made it into web design, I started designing websites when I was a teenager, something I was doing when I was bored before I had a driver's license or a boyfriend. Right. I was the cute nurse sitting at home before
Kathleen Shannon 3:22
I started making out with boys right?
Emily Thompson 3:25
It was designed website making websites. Um, so I was doing websites for probably a decade before I actually started selling websites. And the shift between my jewelry line and becoming a web designer slash developer was whenever I decided to launch my own website for my jewelry line. I found myself redesigning my website more often than I was like making new jewelry lines. And I had people coming to me asking me where I got my website done. Whenever I would tell them me, they would ask me if I would do there. So it was very organic. The path that led me to becoming a web designer, and developer, and all the skills I learned I taught myself or I learned online, I didn't take any official classes, but I do love some YouTube and lynda.com it's l y n da.com. I believe, for some video tutorials that would help me piece together what I needed to piece together. whenever it comes to outsourcing. I've never outsourced anything that I couldn't do myself. So I never took on projects that were beyond my own abilities. And partly because I was not traditionally educated. I had a hard time taking on projects that I couldn't manage because I didn't know what was going into them. So every project that I took was a project that I could complete everything myself and I began outsourcing whenever that workload began. too big for me to do it myself. So. So on that front. I think whenever you are organically building something like this staying within your realm of possibility is really important. So you can get a grasp on what it is that your hand up, and what it is that you're creating for clients. And in terms of tips, it says, can be very lucrative girl easily working your ass off for that lucrative vnus. Doing websites is definitely the hardest job I've ever had. And I've had some ridiculous jobs in my day. It's really big projects. And even though you do have to have the skills of designing and developing to make it all work, client management is the thing that makes it all run smoothly. So you really become the manager of another person, or another team of people or your own team of people. websites are all about management, managing the websites, managing expectations, managing your clients, and managing yourself to get it all done. Because a lot goes into it.
Kathleen Shannon 6:02
and managing content.
Emily Thompson 6:03
Oh God, and then there's the content.
Caitlin Brehm 6:07
So actually, I have a question for you, Emily. And I've wondered this for a while that you started off building websites? Are you building them from scratch? Or would you say that you can start developing websites from like a WordPress template that's already started. And maybe start out by tweaking design rather than building it compare yourself.
Emily Thompson 6:26
I'm both I think a couple of my very first websites were just totally from scratch. God, that's so nerdy to say out loud. But as I started doing them, for other people, it definitely started with really complex things, especially ecommerce, I was starting with templates or templates that other people were creating. And I would take them and lay over my own design. And then I'd want to, you know, move where the search bar was and change the way something looked or whatever. And that's picking sites apart like that is definitely how I became became much more in tune with the kinds of websites that I wanted to create the platform that I wanted to create on a very a huge proponent of a designer or developer choosing a single platform to design and develop for because every website platform, whether it's WordPress, or Squarespace or I like a Business Catalyst, they all operate differently. And for you to become really good at one of them, you need to know how that one works very specifically. And most of those have templates. So you can start with templates, and go from there, you can even build your own templates. That's another another avenue that some people take instead of doing client projects, which are huge, huge tasks of management. And creating pre designed templates. And selling those in some sort of marketplace or on your own is also another way to get into web design and development without doing the client side of launching websites,
Kathleen Shannon 7:55
I want to jump in and say something really quick because I too, was a visual communications major, but in no way actually felt like a jack of all trades, master of none, I do feel like that, that degree set me up to be able to do a lot of things. But my passion was in typography and print design. And so I really specialized in that area. And I want to say to you, Vanessa, that one of the things you're saying is I've come to realize that I really love the web design aspect of it. So I think that that alone is your answer, you love the web design aspect of it, play around with it, I would recommend taking a class only because it might help keep you structured and on track with really learning the things that you need to learn. But if you had come to us and said, I've come to realize that I really love the fashion design aspect of it, then you could have kind of turned your career toward that trajectory. So I think it's really cool that you're starting to find something that you really love and have a passion for you recognize that there is a business model in it. But I would never do anything just for the money. So for me, I do not love designing websites. So I always outsource that to Emily. And so that's also something that you can do is maybe you love the user experience of kind of setting up the site architecture and hierarchy of a website, but maybe you don't actually like coding it. So maybe you find a web developer that is really great at coding has an eye for design and someone that you can really collaborate with. If you don't want to spend the next five years of your life becoming an expert at coding out websites. This is just an alternative option that I wanted to throw out there just in case. It's not the coding that you have a passion for, but something else in the arena of websites that you would rather pursue or spend your time doing.
Emily Thompson 9:44
Yeah, and no matter what path you choose, I think if you can find the thing that you're interested in, regardless of your experience, I mean, I was a web designer and I have a degree in geography. So in so many ways, like some of that stuff really. It doesn't have to dictate what it that you want to do, if you're interested enough in it, learns and things, dive into it to get a couple of clients, see what you like and don't like about it and either go further down that path or transition into whatever it is that you find most interesting along the way. Diving into websites is, it's a fun thing. I did it for six and a half, six and a half to seven years. And I did love it. There are so many cool things you get to do, you're building something, you're helping people grow businesses, you are part of the online space, all of that stuff is very exciting. So whatever it is that you try to do, or whatever it is that you want to do, put the energy into and go for it.
Kathleen Shannon 10:41
Yeah, get real nerdy about it.
Emily Thompson 10:44
Oh, girl, so nerdy.
Kathleen Shannon 10:46
I mean, I totally nerd it out on typography. You nerd it out on coding, whatever you're passionate about, just nerd out on it real hard. So what's the secret to being boss? The secret is that there is no secret. There is no single formula course or book that will teach you what you need to know in order to have anything and everything you want.
Emily Thompson 11:08
But here's what we've learned along the way. Being boss is setting up a solid foundation built on intention. It's understanding how to define success on your terms. It's committing to big ass goals. And it's breaking those big ass goals down into small actionable steps.
Kathleen Shannon 11:28
It's about making faster decisions, trusting yourself to see it through enjoying the process along the way, knowing how to measure what's working and what isn't. And surrounding yourself with smart, ambitious friends along the way. Those are the secrets to how bosses get what they want.
Emily Thompson 11:46
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Kathleen Shannon 11:58
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Emily Thompson 12:18
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