1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:03,840 The web today is a far cry from what was originally proposed in the late 80s. 2 00:00:03,840 --> 00:00:06,750 An original webpage consisted of only text, 3 00:00:06,750 --> 00:00:09,030 and there was essentially no design involved. 4 00:00:09,030 --> 00:00:12,990 But the web we know today has evolved into something much more. 5 00:00:12,990 --> 00:00:16,239 Websites now aren't just pages on a global network. 6 00:00:16,239 --> 00:00:19,830 They're complete experiences with rich and engaging content. 7 00:00:19,830 --> 00:00:21,690 It's a fair assumption to say 8 00:00:21,690 --> 00:00:24,160 that we're spending increasing amounts of time on the web, 9 00:00:24,160 --> 00:00:26,720 and this number can only go up in the future. 10 00:00:26,720 --> 00:00:31,190 Creating and maintaining the design of a great web experience 11 00:00:31,190 --> 00:00:33,330 is a task handled by a web designer. 12 00:00:33,330 --> 00:00:36,540 Web design is a vast topic that encompasses 13 00:00:36,540 --> 00:00:38,450 many different skills and disciplines 14 00:00:38,450 --> 00:00:41,710 in a fast-paced and constantly changing environment. 15 00:00:41,710 --> 00:00:44,950 As a web designer you need to have knowledge of topics 16 00:00:44,950 --> 00:00:49,850 ranging from color theory, typography, and user interaction on the design side 17 00:00:49,850 --> 00:00:53,950 as well as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript on the technology side. 18 00:00:53,950 --> 00:00:56,040 And that's just the tip of the iceberg. 19 00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:58,510 You will also have to keep up with methodologies 20 00:00:58,510 --> 00:01:00,000 that are a part of this trade— 21 00:01:00,000 --> 00:01:02,700 things like responsive web design. 22 00:01:02,700 --> 00:01:03,730 Now while this might seem daunting 23 00:01:03,730 --> 00:01:07,820 web design is a very engaging, interesting, and rewarding field. 24 00:01:07,820 --> 00:01:11,770 Now sometimes you might see this position listed as a front-end designer 25 00:01:11,770 --> 00:01:15,220 or even a user-experience or user-interaction designer. 26 00:01:15,220 --> 00:01:17,880 The tasks vary from position to position, 27 00:01:17,880 --> 00:01:20,430 but they all encompass the same set of skills. 28 00:01:20,430 --> 00:01:24,010 To get an idea of what it is like to start out in web design 29 00:01:24,010 --> 00:01:26,200 let's talk to some of our teachers in the field. 30 00:01:26,200 --> 00:01:29,890 [How did you get started in web design?] 31 00:01:29,890 --> 00:01:36,210 Well I got started in web design by just making a personal homepage. 32 00:01:36,210 --> 00:01:44,040 I was 11 years old, and I think I was using FrontPage at the time. 33 00:01:44,040 --> 00:01:49,750 And I just posted all sorts of things that I was interested in at the time— 34 00:01:49,750 --> 00:01:51,850 mostly video games. 35 00:01:51,850 --> 00:01:58,390 From there I progressed to actually hand coding HTML and CSS. 36 00:01:58,390 --> 00:02:01,650 I think I moved onto Dreamweaver at some point 37 00:02:01,650 --> 00:02:04,860 and eventually just started using a text editor. 38 00:02:04,860 --> 00:02:10,889 And then—at some point—I started learning back-end coding 39 00:02:10,889 --> 00:02:16,980 so I started learning PHP—I think around the time I was graduating high school 40 00:02:16,980 --> 00:02:18,980 or going into college. 41 00:02:18,980 --> 00:02:25,410 And I just taught myself out of books from the college library. 42 00:02:25,410 --> 00:02:29,600 Then I moved on to Ruby on Rails— 43 00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:33,320 got an internship and—kind of just— 44 00:02:33,320 --> 00:02:36,960 progressed from there in the professional world. 45 00:02:36,960 --> 00:02:41,400 Well the way I got started in web design was at an early age. 46 00:02:41,400 --> 00:02:44,890 My dad was a programmer, and my mom was a graphic designer. 47 00:02:44,890 --> 00:02:48,610 So I—kind of—just always had the programs and the software 48 00:02:48,610 --> 00:02:50,540 available to me to use. 49 00:02:50,540 --> 00:02:54,850 And they—kind of—introduced it to me at a young age. 50 00:02:54,850 --> 00:02:59,780 I didn't really start coding, though, until I was about 12 or 13 51 00:02:59,780 --> 00:03:04,580 when there was a big diary boom—like the online diaries. 52 00:03:04,580 --> 00:03:11,880 So like for Zenga and BloopDiary I would create custom layouts and stuff like that. 53 00:03:11,880 --> 00:03:16,140 Well I got started in the industry around high school. 54 00:03:16,140 --> 00:03:17,770 My parents came to me and they were like, 55 00:03:17,770 --> 00:03:20,070 "You know all this stuff that you're doing in your free time 56 00:03:20,070 --> 00:03:23,400 as a web designer—you know you can make a career out of that, right?" 57 00:03:23,400 --> 00:03:26,590 And I was kind of surprised, or I just didn't know that 58 00:03:26,590 --> 00:03:28,740 that was something that I could actually pursue as a career. 59 00:03:28,740 --> 00:03:32,360 So I enrolled at the Art Institute of Tampa 60 00:03:32,360 --> 00:03:35,250 and went to school for my Bachelor's degree, 61 00:03:35,250 --> 00:03:39,090 and I ended up meeting my professor my sophomore year, 62 00:03:39,090 --> 00:03:40,530 and he hired me. 63 00:03:40,530 --> 00:03:45,470 I don't really think I had a beginning point of when I got started in design. 64 00:03:45,470 --> 00:03:50,630 It was more of a transition. 65 00:03:50,630 --> 00:03:52,930 I've done fine arts pretty much my whole life— 66 00:03:52,930 --> 00:03:57,380 from painting, drawing, illustrating, creating stuff, sculptures. 67 00:03:57,380 --> 00:04:00,440 And then when I originally went to college, I went for athletic fitness 68 00:04:00,440 --> 00:04:03,380 because everybody thought it would be a good idea for me to go for art 69 00:04:03,380 --> 00:04:05,410 and I didn't listen to them. 70 00:04:05,410 --> 00:04:07,580 And then I did about 2 years of that, 71 00:04:07,580 --> 00:04:10,620 and anatomy and physiology just wasn't working out for me. 72 00:04:10,620 --> 00:04:15,000 So that's when I made the transition, and I got a degree in fine arts 73 00:04:15,000 --> 00:04:20,490 and then transitioned that into a degree in multimedia design. 74 00:04:20,490 --> 00:04:23,730 [What was your first experience like?] 75 00:04:23,730 --> 00:04:28,400 I think—it was definitely a big shock the first time I worked in the industry 76 00:04:28,400 --> 00:04:34,410 because unlike school where they give you a lot of perfect scenarios to work with 77 00:04:34,410 --> 00:04:37,620 the perfect client, the perfect—you know—set up, 78 00:04:37,620 --> 00:04:39,900 the perfect project—you get to do whatever you want— 79 00:04:39,900 --> 00:04:43,720 it was a big shock to work for an agency where 80 00:04:43,720 --> 00:04:50,000 you have clients and real-life work to do and on a timeline, 81 00:04:50,000 --> 00:04:51,680 and you have a brand to work with. 82 00:04:51,680 --> 00:04:57,890 So I think the shock of just having to track my time and 83 00:04:57,890 --> 00:05:03,310 design not just for myself but for other people was the biggest shock for me. 84 00:05:03,310 --> 00:05:09,080 My first professional experience actually programming websites 85 00:05:09,080 --> 00:05:14,280 was in an internship that I got through my university. 86 00:05:14,280 --> 00:05:18,890 It was actually Jim that convinced me that I should work at a company 87 00:05:18,890 --> 00:05:20,930 rather than just trying to freelance. 88 00:05:20,930 --> 00:05:22,630 At the time I was in college, 89 00:05:22,630 --> 00:05:27,940 and it was a time where lots of big websites were popping up 90 00:05:27,940 --> 00:05:33,400 like Facebook and YouTube, and I just naively thought 91 00:05:33,400 --> 00:05:35,770 I was going to just make a website just like that 92 00:05:35,770 --> 00:05:38,450 and retire a billionaire at age 30 93 00:05:38,450 --> 00:05:41,950 and not really have anything to worry about. 94 00:05:41,950 --> 00:05:45,970 Of course that didn't really pan out for me. 95 00:05:45,970 --> 00:05:50,420 I did get an internship at a healthcare consulting firm, 96 00:05:50,420 --> 00:05:54,680 and that turned out to be a really valuable experience for me. 97 00:05:54,680 --> 00:05:56,630 I was programming PHP. 98 00:05:56,630 --> 00:05:59,630 [What was your first work or project?] 99 00:05:59,630 --> 00:06:02,940 Basically what the company did was they sent out 100 00:06:02,940 --> 00:06:08,070 surveys to patients that were being discharged from hospitals 101 00:06:08,070 --> 00:06:11,550 and then the patients would send those back— 102 00:06:11,550 --> 00:06:12,850 this was all through the mail— 103 00:06:12,850 --> 00:06:18,210 and we would write software that would process all of that data 104 00:06:18,210 --> 00:06:21,010 and then deliver it back to the healthcare professionals 105 00:06:21,010 --> 00:06:26,350 in the form of all types of graphs and interesting reports. 106 00:06:26,350 --> 00:06:30,490 When I first started I was kind of an apprentice designer 107 00:06:30,490 --> 00:06:36,500 so I would do a lot of the little stuff that my professor—my boss— 108 00:06:36,500 --> 00:06:37,680 didn't have time to do 109 00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:42,060 So I would make buttons and little call to actions and stuff like that. 110 00:06:42,060 --> 00:06:45,550 A couple of the first clients I worked with was Outback 111 00:06:45,550 --> 00:06:50,810 and some financial companies—a lot of healthcare companies and stuff like that. 112 00:06:50,810 --> 00:06:55,980 And then the next step up was actually taking on entire projects on my own 113 00:06:55,980 --> 00:06:59,580 so I would be responsible for the whole design of the email campaign 114 00:06:59,580 --> 00:07:02,610 or the whole design of the website or whatever. 115 00:07:02,610 --> 00:07:06,660 My first experience with designing in the industry 116 00:07:06,660 --> 00:07:09,890 was with an agency called Infamous Graphics 117 00:07:09,890 --> 00:07:13,100 also the Level Agency in Albany, New York. 118 00:07:13,100 --> 00:07:16,500 At the time I was getting my Bachelor's degree, 119 00:07:16,500 --> 00:07:19,250 and I had my Associate's in fine arts 120 00:07:19,250 --> 00:07:25,530 and was basically helping out with print—large-format print and small-format print 121 00:07:25,530 --> 00:07:29,220 and some logo design work. 122 00:07:29,220 --> 00:07:32,470 [What skills do you need to work in the web design industry?] 123 00:07:32,470 --> 00:07:37,100 I think the skills I needed to break into the web industry were 124 00:07:37,100 --> 00:07:39,470 first the technical skills— 125 00:07:39,470 --> 00:07:43,380 so I definitely needed to know HTML and CSS, 126 00:07:43,380 --> 00:07:46,180 which I had a pretty firm grasp on at the time. 127 00:07:46,180 --> 00:07:49,970 And, for me and my particular case, 128 00:07:49,970 --> 00:07:53,650 it was really good to know a back-end language. 129 00:07:53,650 --> 00:07:57,610 This was before Ruby on Rails started getting popular, 130 00:07:57,610 --> 00:08:02,650 and PHP was the big back-end language at the time. 131 00:08:02,650 --> 00:08:10,320 So I knew PHP—I built my own website in PHP 132 00:08:10,320 --> 00:08:14,130 and it was actually a flyer board for my college. 133 00:08:14,130 --> 00:08:19,150 So I was looking around campus and saw all of these paper flyer boards, 134 00:08:19,150 --> 00:08:23,300 and I thought I could make a digital replacement for that. 135 00:08:23,300 --> 00:08:28,040 And about 8 weeks after I launched, Facebook Marketplace came out 136 00:08:28,040 --> 00:08:33,400 and basically crushed any hope of that idea succeeding. 137 00:08:33,400 --> 00:08:37,210 But the good news is it helped me get a job— 138 00:08:37,210 --> 00:08:41,090 I had something that I could actually show to an employer. 139 00:08:41,090 --> 00:08:46,800 So not only did I have the skills, but I also had something in my portfolio 140 00:08:46,800 --> 00:08:50,660 that I could use to actually demonstrate that I had those skills. 141 00:08:50,660 --> 00:08:55,270 And the last thing—I think—was just having good oral communication skills. 142 00:08:55,270 --> 00:08:59,470 When I worked in a group in high school or in college 143 00:08:59,470 --> 00:09:03,180 I was usually the person that would—kind of—lead the group, 144 00:09:03,180 --> 00:09:07,000 or pick up any slack, or take extra initiative, 145 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:12,120 or what have you, and that ended up being pretty valuable 146 00:09:12,120 --> 00:09:16,430 in a job interview situation. 147 00:09:16,430 --> 00:09:18,590 First and foremost you need to be a problem solver. 148 00:09:18,590 --> 00:09:22,500 So you need to be able to recognize a problem and then offer a solution. 149 00:09:22,500 --> 00:09:27,620 As far as technical skills go from a print standpoint, 150 00:09:27,620 --> 00:09:31,070 Photoshop and Illustrator, both Raster and Vector Images. 151 00:09:31,070 --> 00:09:34,310 And from a technical standpoint on web, 152 00:09:34,310 --> 00:09:40,350 your basic HTML, CSS, and anything further than that 153 00:09:40,350 --> 00:09:43,520 will definitely help you improve in the industry. 154 00:09:43,520 --> 00:09:48,640 Color theory—aesthetics, being able to recognize good design from bad design 155 00:09:48,640 --> 00:09:51,080 and appropriate design 156 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:56,620 are huge—are key to being a good designer. 157 00:09:56,620 --> 00:10:00,430 I think that the most important thing as a designer 158 00:10:00,430 --> 00:10:04,530 to break into the industry is good typography. 159 00:10:04,530 --> 00:10:09,000 I was actually just having lunch with my old boss—my professor— 160 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:12,910 and he mentioned that the one thing that made me stand out from the other people 161 00:10:12,910 --> 00:10:14,590 was my attention to typography. 162 00:10:14,590 --> 00:10:17,380 So I didn't necessarily know the coding languages 163 00:10:17,380 --> 00:10:20,190 or some of the other stuff could use a little bit of work, 164 00:10:20,190 --> 00:10:22,520 but he saw that the kerning and the letting 165 00:10:22,520 --> 00:10:24,900 and my treatment to type was good 166 00:10:24,900 --> 00:10:28,760 so any good designer—the foundation to me is typography 167 00:10:28,760 --> 00:10:30,630 and everything else can be taught. 168 00:10:30,630 --> 00:10:32,510 Some of those things—to keep on moving up 169 00:10:32,510 --> 00:10:34,600 you would need to learn some front-end languages 170 00:10:34,600 --> 00:10:36,180 like HTML and CSS. 171 00:10:36,180 --> 00:10:40,070 It really just depends on what kind of route you want to take— 172 00:10:40,070 --> 00:10:44,080 whether it's a front-end developer route or a user interface designer. 173 00:10:44,080 --> 00:10:47,480 But to me, typography is everything. 174 00:10:47,480 --> 00:10:50,630 As a front-end designer the most important skill set 175 00:10:50,630 --> 00:10:54,520 is probably just completely understanding typography 176 00:10:54,520 --> 00:10:56,760 and hierarchy and color theory 177 00:10:56,760 --> 00:11:01,340 and just being able to take content and break it up into a layout 178 00:11:01,340 --> 00:11:04,270 that delivers the content the best. 179 00:11:04,270 --> 00:11:07,860 And for a front-end developer it's so important to understand 180 00:11:07,860 --> 00:11:13,070 those things like hierarchy, but it's more about the technologies 181 00:11:13,070 --> 00:11:15,680 like HTML and CSS and the code and everything. 182 00:11:15,680 --> 00:11:22,430 Typically places don't have—don't have a position for a user-experience designer, 183 00:11:22,430 --> 00:11:27,640 but if they do that person would have to know how to create personas 184 00:11:27,640 --> 00:11:30,410 and how to do user testing. 185 00:11:30,410 --> 00:11:34,040 They would work closely with the designers and with the marketers 186 00:11:34,040 --> 00:11:36,320 and bridge that gap for the client. 187 00:11:36,320 --> 00:11:40,130 [How hard was it to learn these skills?] 188 00:11:40,130 --> 00:11:43,500 You know—it's actually shocking how easy it is. 189 00:11:43,500 --> 00:11:47,670 Web designers and developers are smart 190 00:11:47,670 --> 00:11:52,450 but we're certainly not curing cancer or smashing atoms. 191 00:11:52,450 --> 00:11:57,290 This is something that really anybody can learn how to do. 192 00:11:57,290 --> 00:12:03,900 I think it's very much a skill that can be picked up just by practicing 193 00:12:03,900 --> 00:12:09,390 just like art or music or any of the other applied arts. 194 00:12:09,390 --> 00:12:15,770 I view web design and development as not necessarily a science 195 00:12:15,770 --> 00:12:17,940 in terms of computer science. 196 00:12:17,940 --> 00:12:21,610 I think it's the application of those tools. 197 00:12:21,610 --> 00:12:24,630 So it's actually pretty easy 198 00:12:24,630 --> 00:12:28,960 if you're willing to put in the time and effort to learn the skill. 199 00:12:28,960 --> 00:12:34,850 Learning the technical skills of web design isn't as hard as you think it is. 200 00:12:34,850 --> 00:12:40,130 The HTML and CSS—once you understand the format 201 00:12:40,130 --> 00:12:42,800 and the layout of the languages 202 00:12:42,800 --> 00:12:44,740 the rest of it comes naturally. 203 00:12:44,740 --> 00:12:51,100 I personally feel that learning aesthetics and understanding good design 204 00:12:51,100 --> 00:12:53,770 is a little bit harder for some people. 205 00:12:53,770 --> 00:12:57,330 Personally I come from a design background so it wasn't that hard. 206 00:12:57,330 --> 00:13:01,990 It transpires across the plane pretty much for everything 207 00:13:01,990 --> 00:13:06,410 in the design world, but if you are coming from a DIV background 208 00:13:06,410 --> 00:13:10,040 or don't understand design that well, 209 00:13:10,040 --> 00:13:13,300 it might be a little bit harder for you to understand than it will— 210 00:13:13,300 --> 00:13:16,360 HTML and CSS programming language. 211 00:13:16,360 --> 00:13:22,740 Learning design skills I feel is more about 212 00:13:22,740 --> 00:13:26,420 opening yourself up to good design and knowing what is good design, 213 00:13:26,420 --> 00:13:32,850 understanding aesthetics—why things look good and why they are apprpriate 214 00:13:32,850 --> 00:13:36,120 in certain environments. 215 00:13:36,120 --> 00:13:39,590 Following designers in the industry that are successful 216 00:13:39,590 --> 00:13:43,990 allowing them to almost mentor you but not directly 217 00:13:43,990 --> 00:13:46,630 but show you good design. 218 00:13:46,630 --> 00:13:48,650 And then it just catches on. 219 00:13:48,650 --> 00:13:52,280 Like once you understand it and once you are able to critique work 220 00:13:52,280 --> 00:13:57,350 and critique it solidly, it comes very easily. 221 00:13:57,350 --> 00:14:02,330 What I feel is good design is a solid mixture 222 00:14:02,330 --> 00:14:07,220 of the art and the content merging together 223 00:14:07,220 --> 00:14:11,360 creating a seamless experience for the viewer. 224 00:14:11,360 --> 00:14:14,220 [How do you keep up with the pace of the industry?] 225 00:14:14,220 --> 00:14:19,250 I don't keep up with industry news in very traditional ways. 226 00:14:19,250 --> 00:14:23,670 So—for example—I don't really read a whole lot of blogs. 227 00:14:23,670 --> 00:14:26,330 I don't subscribe to RSS feeds. 228 00:14:26,330 --> 00:14:30,330 I don't listen to a ton of podcasts. 229 00:14:30,330 --> 00:14:34,700 Most of the news that I get is from social media. 230 00:14:34,700 --> 00:14:39,080 So people I follow on Twitter and people I'm friends with on Facebook 231 00:14:39,080 --> 00:14:44,270 will post articles, and I find that that's a really good way 232 00:14:44,270 --> 00:14:47,820 to get a very relevant filter on the world. 233 00:14:47,820 --> 00:14:51,860 Those people are people I trust, 234 00:14:51,860 --> 00:14:56,740 and they usually bring the best articles to the surface. 235 00:14:56,740 --> 00:15:02,330 So when somebody like Chris Coyier or Paul Irish 236 00:15:02,330 --> 00:15:06,820 tweets an article, I'll definitely go ahead and read that. 237 00:15:06,820 --> 00:15:11,940 Or if they say that, "You should really listen to this episode of this podcast." 238 00:15:11,940 --> 00:15:13,640 I'll go ahead and tune in. 239 00:15:13,640 --> 00:15:15,590 And even if I don't have time right then, 240 00:15:15,590 --> 00:15:20,950 I'll save the article for later whether it's just by emailing it to myself 241 00:15:20,950 --> 00:15:23,420 or using a tool like Instapaper, 242 00:15:23,420 --> 00:15:28,370 and then I'll go back later on and actually go through those articles. 243 00:15:28,370 --> 00:15:34,300 But I find that social media is actually a pretty good filter on the world. 244 00:15:34,300 --> 00:15:40,240 It tends to just get you the most relevant things the fastest 245 00:15:40,240 --> 00:15:44,620 rather than going through a popular blog or an RSS feed 246 00:15:44,620 --> 00:15:49,130 and having to look through and find the relevant information for yourself. 247 00:15:49,130 --> 00:15:52,890 It's very difficult to keep up with the pace of the industry 248 00:15:52,890 --> 00:15:54,320 because things are changing all the time. 249 00:15:54,320 --> 00:16:00,090 Luckily I—kind of—have a job where our job is to stay up on top of things 250 00:16:00,090 --> 00:16:04,070 and to research, but I remember working at an agency 251 00:16:04,070 --> 00:16:07,490 and just going to networking events all the time— 252 00:16:07,490 --> 00:16:10,200 sharing what you know with other people, 253 00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:14,220 following blogs and reading books, 254 00:16:14,220 --> 00:16:18,830 just dedicating time each week to stay on top of that kind of stuff 255 00:16:18,830 --> 00:16:21,710 because it will age you quickly if you don't. 256 00:16:21,710 --> 00:16:27,950 So keeping up with the pace of the industry is very important 257 00:16:27,950 --> 00:16:32,530 even nowadays because we have this while device-era going on 258 00:16:32,530 --> 00:16:34,950 and everything is constantly changing. 259 00:16:34,950 --> 00:16:39,730 So reading the latest blog posts of popular design blogs, 260 00:16:39,730 --> 00:16:44,570 following professional designers on Twitter 261 00:16:44,570 --> 00:16:48,290 and checking out their work and seeing what they're doing 262 00:16:48,290 --> 00:16:51,450 is really important. 263 00:16:51,450 --> 00:16:53,950 Hopefully those answers gave you a little insight 264 00:16:53,950 --> 00:16:56,550 into what it is like starting out as a web designer 265 00:16:56,550 --> 00:16:58,150 or thinking about starting out. 266 00:16:58,150 --> 00:17:01,460 But for all that work you put in what are the rewards? 267 00:17:01,460 --> 00:17:03,660 Well as a new entrant to this industry 268 00:17:03,660 --> 00:17:07,290 you're looking at starting salaries of around $30,000 to $40,000. 269 00:17:07,290 --> 00:17:11,760 On the high end with experience, a grasp of all the necessary technologies, 270 00:17:11,760 --> 00:17:13,700 and the ability to lead teams, 271 00:17:13,700 --> 00:17:16,079 you can earn upwards of $100,000. 272 00:17:16,079 --> 00:17:20,079 Web design is—as the name states—design-oriented. 273 00:17:20,079 --> 00:17:22,290 So if you have a background in art or design 274 00:17:22,290 --> 00:17:24,520 and want to break into the tech industry, 275 00:17:24,520 --> 00:17:26,550 this could be the career path for you. 276 00:17:26,550 --> 00:17:29,180 Now art school isn't a prerequisite, 277 00:17:29,180 --> 00:17:31,200 but the job is designing websites 278 00:17:31,200 --> 00:17:33,720 so to reiterate what our teachers said 279 00:17:33,720 --> 00:17:36,320 you should have a sound understanding of topics like 280 00:17:36,320 --> 00:17:40,700 color theory, typography, design patterns, and aesthetics. 281 00:17:40,700 --> 00:17:43,560 You should also know how to use software packages like 282 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:45,700 Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. 283 00:17:45,700 --> 00:17:48,910 If this is what you're looking to start out with then don't worry. 284 00:17:48,910 --> 00:17:52,610 We've got all the resources you need right here at Treehouse.