Why I became a website designer

For those of you who don’t know me, I am an immigrant from Colombia. I came to Canada looking for better life and work opportunities and I have found them. I am a happy Canadian citizen and I consider myself lucky to be here.

I worked as a dance teacher for Dance Conmigo and as a photographer for Alain Photography. But during COVID-19 everything changed. I wasn’t able to teach dance classes nor I was able to do event photography. I had to do something with my time.

I was looking for something that I could do using the Internet that would allow me to work remotely and that would limit my contact with other people. I was looking and looking at many online courses and remote universities, until I stumbled with website design. I took a course at John Abbott College, and 9 months later I had a diploma as a website designer.

As I mentioned before, the major catalyst was COVID. I was forced to look for something else to do, but here are the other reasons why I became a website designer:

Creativity

Web design allows for a lot of creativity. Many people see two things in a website:

• Its functionality and
• how beautiful looking it is.

The functionality is very similar for most website. They all have a Home page, our Products/Services page, some kind of Portfolio page, and a Contact Us page.

But after putting all the information out there, how do you make it look pleasing to read, appealing, and persuasive enough to the the visitor to buy the products or services offered in the website. That’s were creativity comes in.

The tools of creativity in web design are the colors, the fonts, the images, the positioning of all that.

I will say that building a website is composed of 30% technical skills and 70% creativity.

Technology

Website design has advanced to the point whereas a designer can get away with having zero knowledge of programming languages such as HTML or CSS. Personally, I know very little of those languages, but a designer has to learn how to put many pieces together such as payment systems, scheduling systems, connecting a design with the internet, etc. For a graphic designer, technology is the tool that allows to use their creativity.

Talk about business strategy

Many web design clients are young business that are trying to figure out their way in a crowded market place. For example, if one your clients happens to be a corporate trainer, there isn’t much you can add to their business of training, but there is a lot you can add to when you share ideas of how to make their business more attractive in cyberspace. This knowledge can be very helpful to business owners.

Becoming a valuable member of society

Many of us want to contribute to the wellbeing of others. By designing and building websites, you become a valuable member of society. You are as important as a house builder, a plumber or an attorney. You do something that improve the lives of others. If people like your work, and you offer good value, your clients will become your cheerleaders and promote your services to other business owners.

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