I “should have a solid foundation in HTML and CSS”? Great. Now you tell me. Alright, well I guess I feel pretty solid on HTML, but I think I’ve just scratched the surface as far as CSS is concerned. You see, HTML is simple and finite—if there’s an opening tag, there’s a closing tag. It’s completely logical. But CSS is not quite so set in stone. For me anyway, I feel like CSS is just a process of trail and error—if I fish around long enough I’ll get what I want.
Anyway, I guess I should get on with the actual topic. Web Design in a ton of fun. I like being able to build a site completely from scratch. What concerns me is that there seems to be many ways to create websites automatically. Programs that you just put your information in and it builds the site for you off of a template are all over the place. It just makes me wonder if there’ll be enough need for designers. Will we become obsolete at some point? I hope not, or I’m just wasting my time in school. I suspect that our skills will have to progress past just designing websites into some of the more advanced applications to keep relevant. Like Ryan said on his blog, to stay in technology you really have to be a lifelong learner.
As the web grows larger and larger I really feel like my impact on society, as a web developer, gets smaller and smaller. There are so many websites now that it’s difficult to get yours noticed at all. We’re coming to point of information overload that I think will eventually completely turn people off.
I’m no psychic though, so we’ll have to wait and see.
Farewell
17 years ago
2 comments:
Hi! I am in the same boat you are, I could use a lot more practice with CSS. It is amazing what people have done with it, but I seem to struggle to make it do anything at all. I guess it's like doing anything else, practice makes perfect.
That is a very good point that anybody can put a website up these days. I have used one of those template programs myself. It worked pretty good until we tried to make changes, then nothing seemed to work anymore. But one thing about the template websites, is they seem to for information purposes only. Blogging is about the most interaction I have seen on a template site. Many business and people are wanting to attract traffic to their site, so they are wanting the interactive sites. I think there is still room for many developers, there just won't be much business from the families that want a photo-journal that is easy to create themselves. Which plays into the learning technology as it comes out so that we don't fall behind on what we are capable of doing.
I was also wondering about those templates. They are slick, easy and very fast, one can have a site up and running in no time. I have some friends who used one and the results are scary, it looks terrible. The template was from CoffeeCup, a fine company, and made in 2004 or 2003. http://melissagravesbrown.com/ is the site. She is an artist friend of mine along with her artist husband. Great people.
I recently saw this quote that applies to what you and Mr. Jund said about education: "You've got to be equipped with the ability to change and learn throughout your life. That's one lesson that every student should take away. You haven't finished by the time you come out. You've just started." Frederik Flake, De-contruct.com. The quote is from the magazine Computer Arts, issue 152. An expensive magazine ($15.99 USD) the graphics, articles, interviews and examples/DVD are outstanding and worth the price. The DVD is jammed full of free goodies.
To be a great designer, both Web or print/ink, one needs to be a chameleon. With the ability to change and adapt to a new environment quickly makes a great designer, my opinion.
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