Comments on: Formal Education in Web Design

By: Web Design, Creare.

Web Design, Creare. — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 09:14:53 +0000

It should not matter what background you have or what education you have achieved. Design and creativity can not be taught. They simple come from within. Web design in particular only requires you to think logically about the brief in hand. The customer will most probably want better functionality to help represent their company. Design is only key to attract and keep the user entertained.

I myself studied multimedia at college for 2 years and can safely say, that we were not taught about good aspects of design. It was simple a brief handed to us, a few lessons of Flash and Photoshop and away we were. Each student’s design methods were varied therefore allowing each design to be completely different.

I think it is good to learn and experiment on your own. If you are not influenced by others work, you are less likely to copy their initial ideas and will produce your own style of design.

By: John

John — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 22:37:32 +0000

I liked the story so I cribbed some of it for an article.
This story had some of what makes a good story. There was a lot of feeling and a real passon for the business. The art is Kick Ass..

Personally, I use FP2003 but it can’t do anything like this.

This is great..

By: Sam Design

Sam Design — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 08:24:24 +0000

I feel the best way for a designer to learn something is to learn it off of their own back and develop their own style, I feel that if you were to learn it completely in a school like environment you wouldn’t be able to produce as unique work.
Most clients and web design companies will choose a good portfolio over a formal education certificate.

By: beth

beth — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 23:41:27 +0000

Deanna, small world! I seem to know very few people from our alma mater who are doing exactly what they studied. Perhaps this is the nature of college in general, or the commercial art field? We start in one direction and stumble across something else we like along the way.

By: HeavyGod

HeavyGod — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:00:12 +0000

Really good and really interesting post. I expect (and other readers maybe :)) new useful posts from you!
Good luck and successes in blogging!

By: Deanna

Deanna — Sun, 25 Nov 2007 20:32:39 +0000

I went to your school, I think we might have had a class together. I totally agree with this post, and I am in a “bizarre quasi-art related profession” right now, designing aerosol can labels. I’m miserable!!! I’m glad I went there but I wish someone would have slapped me in the face when I decided to study computer animation with no intention to leave Cleveland.

By: Cleveland Web Design - Brad Colbow » Blog Archive » Time to Update the Blog

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 14:28:50 +0000

[…] Beth Dean got me thinking about web design and formal education. […]

By: beth

beth — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 21:20:46 +0000

Maybe once our generation of designers gets to teaching others, we’ll see some improvement in web design education.

Jen I think you’re absolutely right.

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 20:59:58 +0000

I’m not exactly a full-fledged web designer, at least to my mind - it’s only a part of my work, and I didn’t have any formal education in it at all. I was a computer science major at a liberal arts college. But I was always naturally artistic and interested in design (I went down the compsci path just to be contrary, because I tend to do things like that), so web design has always been a good way for me to marry the two.

I might have focused more on web and graphic design education if worthwhile courses in it were offered at my school. Unfortunately, what they did offer in that vein was laughable. I think the entire field is still so new that the structure of good teachers and courses is not yet in place. In that case, it’s almost necessary for some designers to teach themselves. Maybe once our generation of designers gets to teaching others, we’ll see some improvement in web design education.

By: Brad C

Brad C — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 19:38:10 +0000

I agree with what Patrick said. In design like any other field it’s passion for your work that will ultimately push you ahead.