I’d venture to say that most of you aspire to live a lifestyle that seems incredibly out of reach. You want to work at home or work on the road or start a business or become an author or whatever else. When you’re starting out, the path isn’t clear at all. In fact, it doesn’t even really exist. It’s a little like diverging from a main highway and driving straight into the forest. You only have the vaguest idea of where you’re going, but you can’t see too much further ahead.
When I started freelancing two years ago, I was in that exact situation. I felt like there was something different for me, that I had somehow been set apart to live a life devoid of mediocrity and filled with joy and contentment and meaningful work. The problem was that I didn’t know how to get there. I didn’t know what would give me joy and contentment. I didn’t know what meaningful work was, I just knew what it wasn’t.
The deeper you go into lifestyle design, the more you’ll see the many options people have to live life on their own terms. There are many paths to freedom, but some are more common than others.
In this series, we’ll take a look at five professions that are ideal for wage slave rebels starting with today’s profession… web design!
Web Design
When I quit my job in September of 2007, I wanted to be a web designer. I didn’t know how to be a web designer. I didn’t even know of any web designers. I did, however, have some knowledge of what it involved, lots of interest in the subject and a driving passion to pursue it.
Design is something that everyone inherently understands in some capacity or another. Most people can recognize good design (or at least know when they see bad design). Most people, however, can’t create good design and I’m not aware of any high school or college course that can change that. They mostly teach you how to use the applications that have the potential to create good design.
Why do I say that? Because you should know that you don’t need any kind of formal education to be a great designer. With a handful of books, some interaction with designers and plenty of mistakes, you’ll be an expert in no time. If you have an interest in design or find yourself obsessed with packaging or WordPress themes or fonts, you probably have what it takes to be a designer.
Why Web Design Over Graphic Design?
I choose web design over graphic design simply because it costs less and takes less to get started. Web design is also more ideal for online working. You don’t have to deal with suppliers or printers and you can handle everything from your computer.
The Bare Essentials
Computer This can be any kind of computer you want. If you plan on working from the road or being location independent, grab a laptop. I use a MacBook myself.
Photoshop Photoshop has become the standard for web graphics.Photoshop is pretty expensive. To lessen the cost, I purchased a cheap old version and then upgraded. Upgrade versions are cheaper. If you want a free alternative you could also use GIMP, but I’d advise against it until they give it a single window interface plus there’s no telling what incompatibility issues might come up.
Editor To write your website code, you’ll need a text editor. Microsoft Word or OpenOffice won’t work for this. They include formatting that doesn’t work in the browser. The editor has to be able to output nothing but plain text. For Windows, you could use something as basic as Notepad or as elaborate as Dreamweaver. I use Coda for Mac and I’ve also spent some time using TextMate and Espresso. All very good for coding.
Browser If you are reading this, congratulations! You have a browser! As a web designer, you’ll want to use Firefox, Safari, Chrome or Opera. These browsers adhere pretty well to web standards and in 99.99% of cases render the way you intend for them to.
Internet Explorer is now your enemy. Internet Explorer 6 is Satan. Seriously.
The Art of Web Design
Here are some resources aggregated from across the web that will help you understand the web design process more fully and get you designing and coding today.
- Design and Code Your First Website in Easy to Understand Steps
- From PSD to HTML, Building a Set of Website Designs Step by Step
- Building a Website (1 of 3): Photoshop Mockup
- A Guide To Web Typography
- 10 Web Design Rules You Can Break
- 300+ Resources to Help You Become a WordPress Expert
- Learning XHTML in Five Easy Lessons
- 30 CSS Best Practices for Beginners
- 20+ HTML Forms Best Practices for Beginners
- 30 HTML Best Practices for Beginners
- Design a Beautiful Website from Scratch
- 30+ PHP Best Practices for Beginners
- Designing for WordPress, Part One
The Business of Web Design
These are resources that will help you understand the more businessy side of web design. These might seem boring to you, but knowing how to run a business is essential to your success. Take a look!
- The Roadmap to Becoming a Professional Freelance Web Designer
- 9 Marketing Tips from a Six-Year-Old’s Lemonade Stand
- Freelancing and the Power of Partnering
- The FreelanceSwitch Rates Calculator
- The Monster List of Freelancing Job Sites
- How to Get More Referrals
- 10 Essential Steps to Making the Perfect Pitch
- 12 Breeds of Client and How to Work with Them
- 20 Time-Saving Tips to Improve Designer’s Workflow
- 6 Simple Ways for Freelancers to Increase Productivity
- 10 Excellent Tips for Designers to Improve their Income
- 10 Tips for Working with Clients Remotely
- 20 Quick Tips for Aspiring Freelancers
Part 2 – Drop Shipping/E-commerce will be published Wednesday, 23 September. Make sure to subscribe!
Related posts
- What Aspiring Freelancers Can Learn From The World’s Greatest Web App Company
- Lifestyle Design is Dead
- The Beginner’s Guide to Lifestyle Design
- Lifestyle Design for Normal People: Four Baby Steps Toward Absolute Freedom
- Five Things Lifestyle Designers Should Be Thankful For Today
Hey, I'm JD. I'm a writer, web designer and contrarian entrepreneur. Wage Slave Rebel is a place where I (and others) explore alternative and ethical ways to earn a living apart from the corporate hierarchy. The goal of this site is to help people escape wage slavery and start reaping the full rewards of their skills and passions. 
This looks like it's going to be a great series. I have talked my partner into trying to do freelance work and she has recently decided on web design. She has learnt so much so quickly. It also pays pretty well too and each project is different.
Looking forward to the rest of your series.
Web design isn't a bad choice for anyone wanting to go freelance. There's a good bit of money to be had in it! As you've pointed out it's pretty easy to learn, especially if you have some innate design sensibilities.
Hi J.D.
This is a great idea for a series of posts. Many people have a vague idea of what they would like to do, but often don't know where to get started. It can be very overwhelming for newbies.
Personally, when I came across a beautiful illustration or design, I used to think that there was no way I could ever do that. However, just like most things in life, they are very easy if you have the right tools and know what to do. Those tutorials are a great start. It really easy amazing what you can great if you have a good model to follow.
Thanks for sharing.
That's exactly how I started out. I remember specifically wondering how people could create paper textures and the like on designs. When I found out about Photoshop brushes, that's when I got serious about design.
Lynda.com is a great resource for learning the tools of the trade (any of a zillion trades really). At $20 or so a month it's a way better investment than the Art Institute in your neighborhood.
I'd add a well thought out answer to, "Oh, well… my nephew said he'd build me a site for $200," to the list of bare essentials if you're going to work with small-ish businesses.
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Very true. The "knows someone who knows someone who can do it for cheap" client mostly needs to be ignored, at least in my experience. It kind of proves they already don't value your work.
But Lynda is awesome. I used it for learning Ruby on Rails, which wasn't the best topic because their course was out of date by the time I did it, but for most things it is such a great resource! Personally, I'm more of a visual, "need-to-break-stuff" learner and Lynda provides that more than plain text tutorials ever could. For example, with Rails, the MVC architecture was really hard for me to get on paper. I couldn't wrap my head around it. But Lynda showed me what I was missing.
Lynda is a great way to hack a college education.
Hey JD!
Great post man! I find web design is not so easy, but like you say with time and dedication you can learn to create something cool. Its all a learning process and you need to discover how to use the tools to be able to create what you want. Also, with design, I think less is more. The more simple you can make a design, the more effective and attractive it offen is.
Stumbled it! Cheers Diggy
I'm a design minimalist myself. Maybe you've heard that the most talented musicians are able to play the notes that aren't there… that's a good way to explain my perspective on design. Whitespace as an element is invaluable and the rest of the design depends on it.
Really excited to read the rest of this series. And there are a lot of good resources in this post for me to look over, I don't necessarily have a desire to learn much about web design (I have a pretty basic knowledge), but I could definitely brush up on some CSS stuff. I can't wait to hear more about dropshipping, I have always been curious about it, but never really had any clue how to learn more. Great idea J. D.!
The dropshipping post is a little hack so that I can make my personal research on dropshipping an actual productive thing to do! I'm really just wanting to know for myself how to get into it. I've always been interested in that sort of thing, but I'm not quite sure it's worth it yet.
Great post, I love to see info about web design go up. I've been designing sites for over 5 years now and I'm a wrench man of sorts. Dreamweaver is my bread and butter but knowing how to plug in all the other elements are vital. I love how web design is the ideal web worker job. It's not going away, people will always pay for it and the jobs are plentiful.
One thing to note for those not well versed in the topic is that graphic design and web design are not the same. I can't really do anything advanced in photoshop, and graphics are really what put polish on a website, but knowing website design means you can build the frame of the car, without that, it's just wet paint. I broke off and was 100% freelance for about 2 and a half years in 2006, congrats on taking up this skill! I open my door to you and anyone else with web design questions or online integrations of any sort! I've most likely done it or can tell how you to find out.
JD. I couldn't agree more, simple is best and beautiful.
I had never thought about it like that. For me, web design is any design that will be displayed on a screen in a browser, whether it's pure typography or mixed with images. I don't separate working with Photoshop from web design. What I call graphic design is any design that will be displayed on a physical medium, like paper, packaging, banners, etc.
That said, I should have made it more clear that you don't have to be a Photoshop expert to be a great web designer. Some of my favorite web sites have totally typographic designs. It might even be better that you don't use Photoshop in the beginning because if you can make a beautiful design without images you have mastered the essential elements of good design. After that images are just icing on the cake.
Great information JD. This is actually something I have been dabbling with, and would like to start taking more seriously and you just provided some awesome resources!
There are so many good resources out there for web design that any one who wants to do it really has no excuse not to. You definitely don't need college for it or any special courses. Like Andrew mentioned above, you might want to try out Lynda.com if you're a more visual learner.
Hi! this is what i wanted to hear. something that one can self learn and do not need any fancy degree to qualify. it is easy to get intimidated out there, but your article in very simple and meaningful way, conveys that it can be done, IF one’s interest lies there, and there are enough resources out there to dig into. thank you for the great insights. two thumbs up:)
A slight correction. “there are enough resources out there to dig into” no condition there. There actually are.
Oh god how I hate IE6.
This is a really wonderful post. Super informative and something that you can more or less hand to someone and tell them to 'go get yourself a career.' Great step in the right direction for free online education!
I've stopped caring about IE6 for anything I do personally. I kind of just make sure it looks half-assed alright for people on IE6. Like with WSR. I'm sure the logo has that jacked up gray background being a png and all, but I don't bother. Also, most people who visit WSR use Firefox or Safari.
Hey JD, I can see me following this series intently. Right up my alley. Loved the IE satan reference- I just made the move from XP to Ubuntu; can't believe I didn't do this wayyyy sooner!
Good freaking job, Caron! Ubuntu is an excellent choice, much better than Windows! I prefer to use Unix-based operating systems. I'm on a MacBook with Mac OS X (based on FreeBSD) and I also run Ubuntu on here. Love them both.
My only complaint about Ubuntu, honestly, is that it doesn't support multi-touch gestures on the MacBook (or at least it didn't last time I checked) so I can't fully run it. Running it virtualized solves this problem, but I'd really like to dual boot into a purely Ubuntu partition.
Hahaha… I had to actually read your reply a few times to get me through the OS lingo but I got there. I'm incredibly non-tech-savvy but it's all a learning curve and getting my mojo on with Unbuntu has been awesome. Looking forward to your future posts buddy.
Yeah, sorry. I kind of geeked out on you there. My bad!
Nah geek is cool. Without geek talk I don't know the vocab to look out for so I can learn more. Bring that geek out and be proud. Mmmm… Is there a Geek Pride Day somewhere in the world?
Hahaha… I had to actually read your reply a few times to get me through the OS lingo but I got there. I'm incredibly non-tech-savvy but it's all a learning curve and getting my mojo on with Unbuntu has been awesome. Looking forward to your future posts buddy.
This is just what I need. I'm in a diverging road right now, deciding whether i should quit college to pursue making a business or do it while still studying. And the kind of business that I want to do is still vague to me, that's why I need all the refrences i need.
Web design might not be my thing, but I'm exited to hear about your the other possible careers. I'll be waiting!
I'm a college drop out and proud. You shouldn't drop out without putting a good amount of thought into where you'll end up. Knowing you want to start a business is a good start though. I hope this series helps you out in forming your ideas.
What a timely post! I just made that transition. Thanks so much for all of these resources! I can't wait to read the rest of the series.
Oh, weird! I was on your site earlier today. Someone on my list tweeted it. I clicked your link and there I was again! Congratulations on your transition! Hope things work out nicely for you!