Comments on: From Nothing to Something: Story of a Self-Taught Designer

By: Jafar

Jafar — Mon, 02 May 2011 13:42:54 +0000

I started by reading the Flash MX 2004 documentation…then I moved to Dreamweaver…someone should have told me to pick up an SQL book…

By: Irina Shishkina

Irina Shishkina — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 08:36:41 +0000

Inspiring article, thanks for sharing. Teaching and motivating yourself is of course much harder than being taught at a university. But once you start working it is important to carry on learning because ‘the truly educated never graduate’. If you are passionate about something you will use every day as an opportunity to learn more, to improve and evolve. It’s good to have a formal qualification especially if you are looking to work for a company; however, I believe that most employers look for passion and devotion. I think there is no reason why you can’t get a job if your work is good and you are passionate about what you do.

By: Christian Krammer

Christian Krammer — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 06:41:03 +0000

Nice read! Also reminds me of my “career”. It really is a good feeling to know that all of that you teach yourself and nobody helped you. Makes me proud a little bit. ;)

By: Gaurav Mishra

Gaurav Mishra — Tue, 05 Apr 2011 12:51:28 +0000

Completely Agreed! “A web page is like its own little organism. It never stops,”

I’m also a self taught design individual.

By: Todd

Todd — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 17:18:32 +0000

Yeah, this is definitely that type of field where you constantly have to keep up with the changes, the times, the styles, and continue improving your abilities. Thanks for posting this great story, I’m sure it will be inspiring for many out there.

By: vitmel

vitmel — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:10:58 +0000

Nice article. Sometimes I am worried about how much information we gonna need to fit in our heads to be able to keep up with technological progress. Every month something new comes out on the market and we have to use most of our free time on reading and learning what’s new going on in this area. That’s why aliens have such big heads :)

By: Claire

Claire — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 23:06:50 +0000

What a great story and very inspiring article!
If you really want it to happen, you can MAKE it happen, regardless of what others say, educated or not!

I’m 38, self-taught freelancing here and there next to ordinary jobs, all the way until a year ago, where I started on my education as a Graphic Designer (3 years left). Mainly because I wanted be able to focus on learning even more on what I love to do.
The first 20+ years of my life there was no mobile phones, no computers, no internet (that we could use anyway) or Photoshop for that matter.

I handcoded my first website (tag-soup) back in 1995, taught myself flash and did flashsites for years, until I just recently learned myself HTNL/CSS before going back to school.
And this year passed, they couldn’t really teach me anything on webdesign and I was the best in my class.

So, even when being faily “Old” compared to a lot of other webdesigners – EVERYTHING is possible as long as you have your mind set on it.

Mama Gená said:
“If you trust your dreams half as much as you doubt them, you will get everything you want.”

By: 9swords

9swords — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 19:11:12 +0000

I love being a “self taught” web designer, but the expression escapes me. Being that there are people (teachers) behind the documentation on the web that was written expressly for learning. (Online research skills are a must) I would say this. Absorb and test everything interesting you can find, Do your research, learn it, master it, and afterwards create your own thing.

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 16:40:39 +0000

@Dan, any teacher that would tell you to your face that you would turn out to be “nothing” deserves to be chased out of the school with a sharp stick. (As a teacher, I can say this…!) Your story is exactly why teachers and others should never, never give up on any child. Like Antonio, you have a terrific story that deserves telling. (And you should never describe yourself as “uneducated.” “Self-educated” is much more accurate, I’d say.)

By: Michael Tuck

Michael Tuck — Mon, 28 Mar 2011 23:26:26 +0000

@Antonio, yours is the making of a hell of a story. I notice there’s nothing about your life story on your site. You should consider telling it in some form or fashion.

@Jacob, it was only a year or so ago that a friend of mine was taking a “fundamentals of Web construction” course in college, and learning tables, frames, and all those things we thought had been consigned to the scrap heap. Table- and frame-driven design ten years ago, Web 2.0 three years ago, CMSes last year, mobile apps this year…the field is defined by its constant mutability.