So, if you made it to this blog post, I bet you’re wondering, should I learn web design?
Well, in today’s post, I’ll be diving into this question so that you can hopefully find your answer. This post is filled with questions to ask yourself so that you can try to figure out if it is a service that you should offer or not!
Without further ado, here are the questions you should ask yourself if you’re wondering, should I learn web design?
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Do clients ask you to design their website?
If you have lots of clients who ask you for website design, then it might be a sign that you should start offering website design as one of your services. This is the reason that I feel like a lot of people end up offering website design, especially if you’re already a branding designer or you do virtual assistant work or anything like that.
But if you have people that are in your circle who are like, gosh, I wish you did websites, then it might be a sure-fire sign that you should start offering website design.
If you have a lot of people asking you about website design, in particular, you could also just do a few trial runs before you announce it as an official service so you can try to test it out.
Especially if the people that are saying that they wish that you offered it were clients who already worked with, or they’re friends or family friends or something like that, just so that you know it’s someone that you’d be comfortable kind of doing trial and error with.
Can you take on more projects?
Next, if you’re wondering should I learn web design, if you have the time to take on more projects and if you just really like design, then that could be another sign that you should offer website design as one of your services.
Website design is definitely a service that I think a lot of people underestimate how time-consuming it is. I used to do branding and website design, and I found website design to take way more time than branding.
I used to do branding projects in one week with brand strategy, and then web design has always been a two-week service for us. I even know other people who offer both of these services, and their branding usually takes four to five weeks, and then website design for a lot of people can even take eight to ten weeks. It just really depends on the designer.
You’ll definitely want to keep in mind that it is a much longer service, and that’s because you have to go really into detail, and you also have to have the time to have a strategy call with a client just like you would if you were doing branding.
It also can take longer if you have to do longer pages. Sometimes you will get clients who will want a really long sales page, and that alone can take a few days to design. So it is definitely a time-consuming project.
But if you have a lot of extra time, then it could be a sign that you should offer website design!
Do you have an interest in layouts?
Another one is if you have an interest in layouts, and I would say this is the main thing that actually got me into website design.
So I have a background in publishing from college. Even all through high school my dream was to work in a publishing house just because I love book layouts so much, and I was a huge reader (ahem, still am). I even interned at quite a few different publishing houses around the Boston area when I was in college, and it was just so much fun.
I planned on working in publishing when I graduated, and then I ended up starting my own business instead. But really, what kind of led me into website design is the fact that I’m obsessed with layouts.
A website is basically just a very interactive version of a book layout, right? Because you can have all these fun interactive elements throughout the site, you can have movement, you can have fun hover effects, and things can animate in and out of the page as you scroll.
So if you are a sucker for a good layout and you’re wondering should I learn web design, then it could be a sign that you should try website design.
Are you up for a challenge?
Another reason is if you’re up for the challenge and you understand that it truly is more than just throwing up canvases!
So a lot of people seem to think, especially with Showit, that you can just throw together some pretty canvases or sections and just call it a good website, and that is not the case.
I don’t think there’s enough talk around website strategy and what goes into actually making a good layout and why good layouts matter, and how they can actually help a site visitor get guided down the user journey that you want someone to be taken down.
So definitely, just know that it can be a bit of a challenge, especially when you are new to website design, to try to understand all of that, but it is a lot deeper than just trying to make something pretty. If you’re coming from the brand design realm, then you’ll pretty much understand that already.
Are you resourceful and patient?
If you are very resourceful and patient, I think web design can be a really great service for you to offer. I say this because, with website design, you have to think on your feet because, obviously, there is more than one variation of a layout that could work successfully for a project.
So if you present something and the clients are like, actually, I was thinking of something else and I was wondering if you could try something else because this is not the vibe for me, then you have to be pretty resourceful and try something else.
But that’s also one of the great things about website design, where you are pretty much mocking up multiple versions of things. At least I do, especially with the homepage. We’ll make three different home pages before we decide what one to actually present to the client.
So if you’re very resourceful and you can think on your feet pretty quickly, then I think web design is a great option for you.
Then also, if you’re really patient because patience is something that’s needed a little bit more with website design than branding, at least in my opinion. After offering both, I find that with website design, there is a lot of educating, which I guess actually goes with pretty much any type of design you can offer.
You do have to know your main platform very well, and you have to be able to answer pretty much any question about it. If you don’t know the answer, then just make sure you have the resources to look up the answer so that you can help educate your client with any questions that they have.
Do you love finding solutions to problems?
You have to love finding solutions, which I feel absolutely, as designers, we kind of all love finding different solutions for problems. With web design in particular, again, if you like to find multiple solutions for problems, then it’s a really great service for you to offer.
There truly is just something really magical and fun about just being given a page of website copy and having to bring the entire thing to life. So that’s kind of what I mean, too, by you have to love finding solutions.
Are you detail-oriented?
Next, you have to really, really love details! So with website design, you have to be so detail-oriented.
You know, you have to go through and make sure everything is linked correctly. You really have to try to think above and beyond just making a good layout, too, because you really want to make it interactive and have really fun elements of surprise as people are scrolling.
Whether that’s a hover effect when someone hovers on an image, maybe it changes to a pattern with a button that says “learn more” or something.
I say this too because even small website projects are actually very big projects, and if you let the details kind of slip through, then clients are going to notice. You really have to be able to focus on paying attention to all the little details as you design.
Do you genuinely have an interest in offering it?
Last but not least, this one might seem a little obvious, but if you’re genuinely curious about offering website design as a service, that can also just be a good enough reason to try to offer it.
So I would say mine was probably like a combination of I had an interest in layouts, and I was just curious about learning more about it as a service. Once I started to learn more about it, I was like, oh my gosh, this is definitely the service for me.
So if you feel that inkling that it could end up being one of your passions, I definitely say go for it.
Well, there you have it! Hopefully, this helped answer your question of should I learn web design.
Read these next:
- Web Designer vs Web Developer: What’s the Difference?
- 9 Types of Web Design Services You Can Offer
- 5 Easy Ways to Enhance Customer Experience
- 16 Easy Web Design Mistakes to Avoid
- 15 Lessons & Tips for New Designers
- 23 Best Showit Websites That Will Knock Your Socks Off
KP’s design journey began in book publishing, but she fell in love with the truly limitless possibilities that web design presents. Since then, she’s been helping photographers and creatives become the no-brainer option for their dream clients before they even get on a call.
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10/11/22
Published On:
Krystianna Pietrzak
