cant stand how much there is to keep up with in web development, it's kind of ridiculous tbh

almost every person i know working in software development and/or product design spend 90% of a year learning and keeping up and the other 10% applying to a current build

it's so saturated but the progress we have made is phenomenal, web pages have evolved so much in the last 10 years alone

been working as a product designer at an agency (contract) for about 4 months now, designing for clients in the mortgage, finance, insurance space. this side of the industry wasn't my top choice but I graduated last year and I wasn't gonna be picky for a job. Now I'm getting some decent cash and work experience.

Will definitely apply for in-house product design roles next year, hopefully will have a solid amount of real-world projects in my portfolio. But as for rn the money is great and I'm happy to be able to experience the agency/freelance side of things before diving into corporate/big tech.

If anyone has any questions about the field i can try to answer them

yo loversmag is dope! thanks for the rec

how did you get a contract w/ em?
benefits / cons of doing contract work vs being a actual employee (not sure the term)

sign me up

applied through linkedin, one of the 200-300 applications I sent out last winter.

benefits: i own my own time, i don't have to ask to get time off, I just tell my boss. It's pretty chill and I can see how it can become super lucrative if you get 2-3 client contracts at the same time.

wfh is a godsend though, i basicaly sit in my backyard every day with my macbook and do work

cons: when the contract is over work can get slow... definitely not as stable as being a full-time employee. luckily my boss is working hard to get clients lined up for us to work with

so usually contract is something that's just advertised by the company at hand?

like what's about staffing companies? is that a thing which helps you get on contract employment?

For the typography nerds (still need to read this): practicaltypography.com

Yeah, Next.js is the move to make websites now

Frontend has gotten crazy mainly due to supporting various web browser standards and ECMAScript not being established early on and properly thinking of standards as things change.

RANT BELOW

Polyfills, transpilers like Babel, etc shouldn't really exist, but they're a necessary part of development due to committees not looking forward properly imo.

That's not to say that frontend and JavaScript as a whole aren't fun (it's gotten way better). Just there's a lot to digest and there's no proper roadmap for learning/getting better at stuff lol.
Truthfully, learn the basics of HTML, CSS, and actually learn JavaScript (prototype language, Promises, etc). Build a basic website with those.

Then move onto a basic library (go with React or Vue - React if you want a job soon, Vue if you want to start developing things quickly) and build projects from there. After that, learn and use the modules/libraries people have built on top of these libraries (styled-components for React, GatsbyJS, Next.js, Nuxt.js etc.) Also, toss in some TypeScript, since that's practically the standard at any company these days.

But people are kind thrown into web development the worst way possible with learning Angular at work or just some other framework. Then you kind of have to work backwards to understand everything.

Sorry for this rant and it wasn't directed to you. Just something I've noticed that's not really talked about in the community.

Have an interview for my first agency position don't know what to expect lmao

i know right
makes me want to redo my portfolio but im like
exhausted

for what position? andwho are you interviewing with?

been in the field for 3 years

whatcha do

product designer

nice!
how did you learn UI skills
my skills are pretty subpar

Realizing now that Figma completely slaughtered Miro with FigJam

Junior Web Designer

I could tell you all these books and resources, honestly just takes practice. In the beginning, try to replicate an existing app or website

dead ass just told me the position and company name be careful with the info you post on the internet

I meant like are you interviewing with the recruiter? Are you interviewing with designers? How far into the process are you

Anyone do like academic design / hci work?

Holy f*** I’m stupid lmao, I thought you literally asked for the company. I’ll provide details in a bit when I get home

Just updated my portfolio

anyone have a good resume template