I Dream A Dream

January 01, 2010

So, I’ve had this dream ever since I was about 15 years of age. Its kind of a stupid dream, and I’m possibly a little bit ashamed to admit it, especially considering it’s such a cliche these days, but I want to build websites.

I don’t want to do it for fun, or as a hobby, or even as a sideline thing. I want to make it my livelihood. I want to spend days and nights sitting in front of my computer using Photoshop, Fireworks, or whatever the best graphics software for the web is, and produce beautiful websites for amazing people, and then have that design be largely ignored by 95% of the population. Because to me, thats what design is.

p>Design is creating something that serves its purpose, and helps the user get what they want with as little hassle as possible. Users shouldn’t notice design, in fact, in my opinion, if anyone other than someone who has an interest, or a modicum of understanding of design notices your design, its either bad, or too flashy. Unless thats what the client wants of course.

But there are several problems with my dream.

Graphical Knowhow

I don’t know how to use any of these graphics packages in even the most basic way. I can open an image in Photoshop, crop it, rotate it, and maybe apply a filter or two, but thats it. These tools are essential to a graphical designer. If I can’t create a graphics, then all I have is colour and text.

Design Principles

I don’t really have any understanding of design principles. At most, I understand that whitespace aids readability, but thats about it. I know nothing of colour theory, typographical grids, grids in general, vertical rhythm. Without these, and other design principles in my work, they are a mess, and nobody wants to end up with a mess.

Technical Chops

Sure, I can create well structured, semantic, meaningful markup that describes the content¹, and I have a pretty good grasp on much of CSS, but there are elements of CSS that elude me, along with even the most basic understanding of Javascript.

With CSS, I don’t really “get” positioning, or z-index, and a couple of other properties, including much of the new properties in CSS3. When it comes to Javascript, any script that I can write is generally hacking away using one of the many libraries available, and using someone else’s code as a reference.

Learning Factor

I’m not some sixteen year old kid who can afford to spend every spare moment in front of my computer, just playing in photoshop, and reading blogs and articles on design, and picking things up as I go along. I have rent, and bills to pay, and groceries to buy, so I need a full-time job, which rules out full time study, not that I would be accepted into any design school anyway.

Neither of those really matter anyway, because they aren’t how I learn best. I learn best by working with a mentor. Someone who really knows their shit, and is willing to take the time to hangout with me, explain things, and show me things once or twice, then lets me have a crack, and tells me where I go wrong.

When it all comes down to it, its unlikely that I will ever achieve my dream, but I’ll keep dreaming, and keep on sitting at home, in front of my MacBook, doing what I do—build websites for myself that use next to no graphics, and wishing I could do it better.