Web Designer

[Sean99]

Hello,

My brother told me about this site and it looks great! I'm currently looking into Web Design Certification through one of these places;

http://www.gurudigitalarts.com/info.html

http://www.nait.ca/16295.htm

I'm a newbie to all of it really. Do you think these courses hold any weight and will help me get a job after I'm done (Certified)? Also, I'm planning on purchasing some of Digitaltutors CD's, can you become Vender certified after getting a good knowledge of the Cd's? Sorry about all the questions.. Thanks Sean :)

[JonO]

Hi Sean,

While I can't vouch for either of those certification programs you listed as I'm not familiar with either, I can tell you from experience that when it comes to applying for a web design job, most employers are going to care more about what's in your portfolio than what certificates you have. Certifications can help to show your familiarity with the technical side of web design (i.e. can you properly format an HTML document, can you code in PHP or JavaScript, etc) but doesn't really touch on the creative side which employers will also be looking at. The best way for a prospective employer to get a feel for what you can do as a web designer is to see examples of your work, so I would say that creating a solid portfolio of websites is probably the most important thing you can do to help yourself land a job in web design.

Cheers,
Jon

[danlefeb]

These days, getting some freelance web work is pretty easy to do if you look for it. Even if you have to do some non-paying work, like personal sites, I'd highly suggest doing what Jon says and build up a portfolio of websites that you've done. It shows you can do the work.