I quit. Yes. I quit graphic design. If you
want to know why, stay tuned. It's coming
up next.
Hey guys, Angelina from Mint & Porter Design
Co. here. In this video I'm going to talk
about why I decided to quit graphic design.
For those of you who know me, you've known
that I've been a graphic designer for quite
some time, many years now and I worked in
marketing departments and I've really, really
enjoyed my time as a graphic designer. And
so a huge shout out to all my friends and
clients and design community that has supported
me along that adventure. So I was recently
really inspired by a friend of mine who went
from a computer science major at, I believe
PCCC, which is the local community college
here in Colorado Springs, to working alongside
some of the best ... Dog. Hi. She wants to
be in the video. And she went from going from
a CS major to working alongside some of the
best designers here in the city.
And that was on a pretty short time, just
a couple of years and that was all through
coding. I'm basically just going to cut the
chunk of branding out of my business and just
be a web designer. So now you know what my
plan is. One of the things that I wanted to
do was be a master of one and not a jack of
all trades. And I went to school for web design
and graphic design, but I've not been able
to utilize all of the things that I want to
with web design. And I have a clear passion
for it and I think that it's something that
I need to kind of double down on and niche
down. And so that's my plan for 2020 in my
business is to niche down and become a web
designer solely and a front end web developer.
So yeah. So shout out to my friend who inspired
me to take ... I'm excited for her and inspired
by her and I think we need more women in tech.
So if you're interested, just get on Code
Academy. Start learning to code or maybe dive
into UX and UI user experience and user interface
if you are a designer. It doesn't come easily
to me to code, but I think if you set your
mind to something you can definitely do it.
So that's what I'll be doing. For this year,
I'm going to take the time to brush up on
some coding languages and some things I've
already learned, but I just never really had
the time to do what I want with that. And
so I went to school and I learned HTML, CSS,
and JavaScript, which are kind of like your
trifecta of what you need to know as a front
end web developer.
So I have a really solid foundation in that,
but that was a couple of years ago and tech
is constantly changing. And then furthermore,
I mainly work in WordPress, so I've lost a
lot of my JavaScript skills and I need to
really relearn that. Especially that being
an object oriented programming language, which
as I just stated, does not come easily to
me. But I think with persistence, anybody
can learn how to code. Definitely believe
that. So, yeah, that is one of the things
that is making me be solely a web designer.
So solely a web designer and concentrate and
be really good at what I do. And then another
factor is the job outlook. And I know this
is a few years old, but I looked at the 2018
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and being
a web developer is supposed to grow by 13%
in the next 10 years. And I know that doesn't
seem like a lot, but it does say it's above
average of a job outlook. So I just wanted
to set myself up for the future and just go
into a career that I can continue to develop.
That was my Siri. Huge shout out to anyone
that's let me develop their brand. I really
can't tell you the pride in my heart swelling
when I see a brand come to life. I am so proud
and I'm so proud for my business owners who
are getting started and they choose me and
I'm honored to create something for them.
But I would just like to segue that into making
their websites. And I partner with some amazing
brand designers so I'm still going to be able
to point them in the right direction to produce
what they need. The other thing is, is that
I'm really involved with AIGA here in Colorado
Springs. That is the American Institute of
Graphic Artists if you're unfamiliar. So we're
just a design community.
And like I mentioned, I know a ton of amazing
brand designers, but I don't know a ton of
front end web developers. I know a few and
I'm grateful to know those few, but I would
really like to niche down and just be the
front end web developer or web designer in
our sea of designers here in the Springs and
become well known for that. So that's another
thing I think that might help to niche down.
I know people that are just illustrators and
just motion designers and I think what they're
doing is very smart. So yeah, I would like
to be just a web designer. So there's that.
Another thing is I'm not doing this just for
job outlook or salary, anything like that.
Those things do go hand in hand with why I
picked this industry. However, I just really
love web design. I've been working on WordPress
for a number of years. I actually originally
wanted to be a travel blogger and that's how
I got into web design, because I set up my
own website. I was really inspired by The
Blonde Abroad and her website at the time
was beautiful. And then I started getting
into video headers and parallax and UI and
UX and the analytics and what makes a website
tick. And I just got really excited about
it and I was like, it's funny how when you
start something you never know where that
journey may lead you. So in the end, I went
into some trips in Asia and whatnot, but I
didn't become a travel blogger. And I think
being a web designer and a graphic designer
has served me very well. So yeah, I just want
to continue on in my passion of web design.
I want to create some killer websites. I would
like to do some really cool things with CSS.
And also, not only websites but then I would
like to create email marketing templates and
banner ads or whatever. Anything in the realm
of web that could use code of some kind, front
end web development, I would love to produce
for small business owners and just for personal
projects. So yeah, I'm looking forward to
that. So what am I doing in the coming months?
I'm going to be doubling down on my knowledge
of HTML and CSS. I definitely will be relearning
JavaScript because I've all but forgotten
that. So yeah, those are my trifecta languages
that I need to know for front end web dev.
Of course most of my work is in WordPress
so I'll continue to learn that.
I did actually go to school for coding from
scratch, those three languages I talked to
talk to you about. However, fun fact, I actually
just learned how to do WordPress from YouTube.
So shout out YouTube. Thank you guys for putting
all your content out there. I hope to do the
same. And with that, my channel is now going
to be focused heavily on web design. So I
do have a few graphic design tutorials up
there. I'm still actually going to be going
to some design events. I'm very excited. I'm
going to be going to Creative South 2020 in
Columbus, Georgia this year for the first
time. So stay tuned on my channel for that.
I'm going to be videoing my experiences there.
I'm going to be learning my basics and then
some other things I want to learn are ... I'd
like to learn kind of version control and
GitHub so I've been looking at that. I would
like to revisit JQuery and really get a good
grasp on that.
I've learned Bootstrap and Foundation in the
past, but again, I don't really use it anymore.
I loved Bootstrap though, so I would really,
really like to look at re-learning that. Something
that came after I learned how to do these
things was CSS pre-processors like SASS and
LASS and I know that ... Or is it LESS? I
don't know. I'll have to look at that. I know
that speeds up your CSS. And of course that's
going to help being a front end web dev. So
that's something I'm going to look forward
to learning. I have dabbled with Joomla and
Drupal, however I again, everybody kind of
just goes for WordPress so that's what I've
stuck with and I love my WordPress, but I
would like to know other content management
systems. So I'll look into learning Joomla
and Drupal. One thing that I keep seeing grow
is Magento, which I do.
The other day I was talking to a web developer
and I said like Magneto or something like
that. And I was like, no, this is not X-Men.
So Magento for e-commerce. I've already worked
a little with Woo Commerce so I got that for
WordPress. And then I'd like to learn a JS
framework. I don't know what the most popular
one is right now. I've heard like Node and
React and Ember. So I need to kind of look
at the job market here in Colorado Springs
and see what's needed or if you know of the
popular ones you keep getting asked for, if
you're a web dev, please leave it in the comments
below and I'd love to hear what I should learn.
And then of course, like as a personal project,
I'd just like to learn PHP. Side note, PHP
originally stood for personal homepage. A
web dev friend asked me that the other day.
He was like, "What does this stand for?" And
I was like, "Uh, I don't know." So it's funny
because most of the time we use index.html
as our homepage. So fun facts, fun web dev
facts. I would love to hear from you in the
comments if you have recently niched down
or had a similar situation with your business.
Were you a graphic and web designer and decided
to just do one or the other? Were you a graphic
designer and decided to be an illustrator?
I don't know. Did you work in a restaurant
and decide to come become a web dev? You know,
did you have a complete 180? Have you flipped
your business? Have you niched down? Have
you decided to just become master of one and
has that benefited you? So let me know. Type
it in the comments. I'd love to hear from
you and I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for
watching.
