What exactly is web design, specifically freelance web design? When I first started learning how to code, I wanted to become a freelance web designer. What I didn’t realize is that web designers have a much different subset of skills than a strict coder. There is definitely cross over, but at a certain point, web design takes a completely different turn. Unbeknownst to me, I started heading down a coder’s career path while I continued striving to be a freelance web designer.
Eventually, I get a job as a web developer because the market was willing to pay for my skill set.
There are two key giveaways that freelance web design is worlds different than career web development or straight up coding.
Design
First (or second), we have the word “design.” We’ll look at the word freelance later. The word design be a dead giveaway that web design is completely different than web development, but for me it wasn’t.
You might not realize it, but websites require a lot of design work. Web design is similar to graphic design. It’s like creating an informational or promotional poster or pamphlet for a company. A web designer doesn’t just throw up some text end images on a web page and call it a day.
As a web designer, you need far more design skills than coding skills. You need to develop an eye for colors, spacing, fonts, design hierarchy (correctly organizing what’s most important on the page), and web-specific elements like buttons, menus, slideshows, footers, and headers.
That’s just the design side of freelance web design. Let’s look at the other tell-tale word.
Freelance
The other dead giveaway that freelance web design is a lot different then web development is the word freelance. As a freelancer, you’ll have to learn how to run a small business. You’ll wear many hats.
When you work for an employer, he gives you your work and your paycheck. When you freelance, it’s up to you to find both.
You have to remember what you offer, and that’s what the market will pay for. Now days, businesses have many alternatives to hiring a web designer. It seems like every SaaS website out there has a website builder. Thankfully, you are educated on your skills, and you know exactly what you offer. Even when using a web site builder, you need an eye for design. You can consider a website builder to be like Photoshop. Yes, a business owner could use Photoshop to create pamphlets, posters, and brochures for his business. He could also use a pre-built Photoshop template. He could definitely do it on his own, but he’s hiring you because he wants your design skills and your website skills. Once business owners have enough money, they usually outsource things they could do on their own, like building a website.
As a freelance web designer, don’t get too caught up in becoming a coder, unless you really enjoy it. Coding isn’t your skill set. If the client pays you enough, you can outsource the heavy coding and include a hefty price tag. There’s enough to do as a web designer.
The business owner is primarily hiring you to design a static website. Anything dynamic will have to be outsourced.
As a small business owner, you’ll have to learn how to market your skill: email, social media, ads, word of mouth, etc. You also need to be good at working with people, listening to their needs, and communicating what you offer.
You may also get to try your hand at copy writing. This could be another skill to sell if you are good at writing. It is, to be fair, a completely different skill set, and it could also be outsourced.
Ironically, you could even outsource certain graphic design, like logo creation.
Web
Finally, this is the part that causes the most confusion. The web. As a web designer, you’ll need a good understanding of the web, and you’ll also need some coding skills.
Some web designers prefer to code websites from scratch using HTML, CSS, and maybe JavaScript. That’s really the extent to your coding skills. You won’t even need all of the skills of a front end web developer.
Some web designers choose to bypass coding altogether and use website builders exclusively.
Web designers who code from scratch do have a slight SEO benefit. SEO is another good, non-code related skill web designers can learn, but it’s also something that can be outsourced.
For freelance web designers, when it all boils down, design skills and people skills are the most important to have. I had lots of coding skills, but they didn’t help me at all in starting a freelance web design business.
Knowing that all of these different options exist is important, but the most important is getting started. If you’re entrepreneurial and good with people, get started with freelance web development. If you’re artistic, pick UX design, web design, or marketing. If you very logical and analytical, pick front end or back end web development. If you just don’t know where to start, I recommend starting with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Even learning the basics opens up a good amount of opportunities.