[Masaccio]

hey guyz,
i know this a bit ahead of schedule but. im in year 8 and i was wondering did most of u quit school and get a job as an artist or go to art school or just get a job and art as a hobbie? i'm not sure if i quit school where to go next. get a general job and try and find a job to do with art or go to art school (tafe). any advice or bio would be great.
thankx
maz

[Plop]

Whatever you do, do not become a web designer.

[Freddio]

dont be a fool...

why would you leave school..
and you being in Sydney there wouldnt be hundreds of jobs out there based on Ullustation and design...

[rdgraffix]

well, I dunno what everyone else has done, but I went to TAFE following year12 (don't worry - you finally get taught something once you get there ). From there I got a job in the studio of an advertising agency, thanks mostly to the tafe lecturers contacts (most agency's don't advertise positions)

The competition to get into the course to start with was pretty tough, so I'm sure a decent grade helped me get a foot in the door.

I really wouldn't advise you to quit school before you finish, just to make sure you've got all the advantages you can - and a few skills to fall back on if your plans dont go smoothly.


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- rowan dodds
RD Graffix

[dr . bang]

Plop, why is becoming a webdesigner a bad thing?

[Chris]

yeah plop, y whould you say that, I love web designing.

[Plop]

Its a lot of fun, untill you have to pop out 2-3 sites every two weeks and have them look the best you've ever done because thats what your boss expects. After a couple doezen of those you start to vomit when you open photoshop. Its also very fun when a client changes their mind and you have to rework everything thats been built from ground up and meet the same deadline as originally agreed on. If you gonna go into web developemnt be a programmer, they get payed a lot more and have a lot less stress.

Definetly stay in school though.

[AliasMoze]

I'm sitting on my ass awaiting a conference call, so here's my long answer:

Masaccio, play it smart and learn the basics right now. That is, do the cubes exercises in Fred's thread. Then, go make some simple shapes (squares, triangles, circles) and practice drawing them (from various angles)until you know them by heart. Then move to cubes and cylinders. Don't get bored with these basic skills. I've known lots of incredible artists who did this and still do. Learn structure.

Study human anatomy and go out and draw gestures from life. This can be done at the mall, at the park, wherever there are people. If you're not good, you will be in time. From gestures, move on to longer figure drawings. In other worlds, practice and practice in drawing people.

In general, draw from life as much as possible. Never be without a sketchbook and pencil (or pen). Draw everything, and try to be as accurate as possible.

The reason I'm harping on these is that you are young and in the perfect position to hone these skills now. They are the backbone on which any good art career will be based. I'm serious that you should absolutely do these things. When I was in high school, I refused, thinking I was already good. I had the find out the hard way and much later how wrong I was. Don't fall into the trap.

You should always draw just for fun too. But practice the hell out of the basics. You'll be amazed at how much more solid an artist you'll be in just a few months of hardcore training. I promise a noticeable difference. Good luck!

[mantis]

HAHAHA!!!
PLOP, I FEEL YOUR PAIN!!!

Allrighty, here is the the secret that no one will ever tell you. Being a webdesigner SUCKS!!! Working for clients suck!!! Dealing with HORRIBLE graphic designers with no insight SUCKS!!!

Hell on earth for me is dealing with corparate clients who have no insight and want the most ridiculous functions on their website.

[This is the start of my rant!!!]
[WARNING : I may be right.]

I am an amateur but I have had experiences with clients. Mainly through my friend who I have helped design sites for.

I will list the pros and cons, but please do take my word, webdesign is BS. Atleast most of it is.

Pros of Webdesign
-----------------

Remember those days when you played quake 2 and your neet0-leet0 clan asked you to make them a website. Wow! Weren't they impressed by that lens-flare, and those amazing mouse-overs. Yep, it made you the coolest member of "Angels of Hell Q2 Killaz". Yea you know, lot of respect and praise went after you.

or

Think back and remember the memories of you starting your own wicked personal site, featuring your own art gallery or photo section or absolutly no content but a lot of graphics like those typographic site. Yea, back in high school, everyone wants you do websites. You pass your url to everyone you know. Everyone likes it, all your friends are amazed with your hidden skill.

Later you find out that you could actually make money doing this stuff. Webdesign - but I do that as a hobby, and now they tell me I could get paid for having fun?? Excellent!!!

Real Webdesign
--------------

So your friend says he is making 15 bucks an hour working at home on a clients site and he would like you to help him. Your eyes glow bright when you just think of the possibilities. . . . 15$ an hour, working as an amateur, at home!!! Imagine what I could do if I became a pro. You jump at the offer and say yes to helping him.

Next thing you know he starts printing out screenshots of the website and how they are SUPPOSED to look. Your job is to fix them. OK fine, no biggy just a little table editing here and there. But wait a minute, this website is ugly, are you sure the company wants it to look like this. Your friend's response 'dude, all I do is code HTML, all the gfx are provided byt he gfx designer'. Your response, 'well the gfx designer sucks, did you tell your boss that we could make a way better design?'. Your friend snaps, 'Listen BITCH, just do the fucking work allright, we have a fucking DEADLINE!!!'

Then it you finally understand, but before you can escape, you find yourself working all-nighters with your friend trying to make that background image 2 pixels to the right.
After spending 5 hours making the background 2 pixels to the right, you realize something. When it strikes you feel like bashing your monitor with a folded chair. WHAT THE FUCK! We could have made that in a few seconds if we just made our image! But, then your friend reminds you, 'the company hired a gfx designer and we must use her pics, now work! we only have 2 hours untill the site is due. Oh JESUS GIVE US THE POWER TO FINISH THIS WEBSITE. . .PLEASE GIVE US THE POWER TO . . . .'

As your friend continues praying, you start working on the mouseovers. As you test the page out your eye pops out of it's socket. WHAT THE FUCK, THE ROLLOVER IMAGE HAS A DIFFERENT BACKGROUND COLOR!!! You turn to your friend and find him rolling on the floor sucking his thumb. You quickly send an email but only get a response saying :

' I am sorry but we sent you the right pictures. If you are not able to make the page just tell us. It is OK if you can't, we understand. Others can do the things you can't.'

At last you go on an adrenalline rush and finish the page by your self, upload the site to the server, and send an email to satan, i mean boss.

A few days later your friend comes by with a check for 200$ for helping you with the design. You ask him how the site was coming along. He replies looking down on the ground that the site hasn't been launched yet, 'We were only working ont he DEMO version'. Your eyes began to singe with anger and you ask him very slowly, 'Then why did they need the site done so fast??'

He hesitates but finally answers. . .

'The gfx designer was going on vacation soon and she needed to make sure everything ran ok'

You shut the door and ponder about your dignity and creativity (or whatever is left of it)

---------
The following is a true story perhaps a bit exagerated but still it is true. Webdesigning for fun is great, you have full control for and can be as creative as you want, but as soon as you do it for a company they eat your soul. Seriosuly they feed off of it. Trust us souless webdesigners, the money is not worth it, unless you want to become a zombie.

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Arpan . B
[email protected]
www.liquid2k.com/koma
Highroller Studios

[Farwalker]

Sounds like things are really coming along nicely mantis

Funny story it is.



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www.gamingvault.com

[mantis]

Tell me about it. Atleast you read the story, I felt like an idiot venting all that out. hehe.



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Arpan . B
[email protected]
www.liquid2k.com/koma
Highroller Studios

[Rinaldo]

I compleated year 12 and then went to TAFE. I would go all the way and get through yr12. Just do some doezy subjects. draw a lot. chill, etc. My GF got some score that would have got her into medicine I think. then she went for a design course that was portfolio based BIG waste of time.
While you don't need proper art training to get employed. You are going to have to be absolutley shit hot to get work with a portfolio. really self motivated. Able to learn on your own. And more inportantly seek out what you have to learn.
If that sounds like no fun then I suggest you go to TAFE or something. If you have parents that can support you then possibly go part time and learn the things you think are going to be most usefull by yourself. It depends what you want to do (need to mention that if ya want better info).
Heh...I live in Adelaide which blows for just about everthing, so I had to take what was there in terms of courses, and teach myself a fair amount of stuff in my spare time (usuialy when I was supposed to be sleeping). In the eastern states they have a better range of more specilised courses so you can probably get what you want and avoid having to do serious homework.

[zapman]

mantis
what a story, Now you got me thinking why am I about to spend $15,000 going to art institute for mulitimedia and webdesign! @#$!

Just tell me it will be ok.

[ReXX]

Mantis,

That sure sucks. I'm on web design as a graphics artist and usability guy on a big company and don't necessarily share your points. I agree, you can't definetly spray the sites as you like since there's a whole lot of factors to be considered, but neither do I have a problem concerning changes
because I get my graphical layouts approved before I even do any HTML (if I have to, usually I just pass along the layouts and guide the coders if there's a problem).

zapman,

I'm not the world's greatest webdesigner, but I can tell it would be a waste to spend 15,000 bucks on some multimedia/web design courses unless they'd cover a huge load of different things. I learned the web stuff myself and got hired because of that. Although there might be some differences since I'm in Finland and you're in US so perhaps it's good to have the stuff you know on paper too :-o

[psi burn]

im getting into webdesign myself ever since my friend told me about he would make 1,000 bucks (or more) per website, so i figured since im way better than him i could do it myself...but..heh, i'll tell you, the hardest part is making YOUR actual site, offering services, etc. im great at coding, etc, but nowadays, thats not considered "high standard" enough, so ive moved to using flash for my site, but im having so much difficulty with it, and trying to make it look as good as possible, but it never looks right.....i mean, i could do way better with html/java/and my art, then incorporating my art into flash and hoping to god i can make a rollerover button do what i want....very stressing.

and of course, what really makes me frustrated, is when you have this absolutely brilliant idea for a layout in your mind, and you cant get it on your computer....no matter how much i try i cant get flash to do what im imagining my site will be like (which im sure its capable of)..so, huff...i get angry every day when i open it up and take another shot at working on the navigation....gnar!

i find it easier to actually design someone else's site because you know exactly what they want and stuff.....the only trouble is like what mantis said, when you've got some idiotic boss and tons of other deadlines and the whole world is collapsing around you and fire and brimstone are shooting out of your room and........blah.

:: loads flash ::