andya
Sep 30, 2009
Writing Feedback / Process Essay (graphic designer) [4]
Could somebody go over my essay and make corrections to it please...and give me some advise on how i can improve my conclusion, and intro. Thanks ....ps: im new to the forums...my name is andy
Process Essay
Graphic designers have risen ever since the start of the Internet. They construct websites to look more professional, so they can draw people to it. As a graphic designer you must know a couple of coding languages, such as HTML and CSS, and using a photo editor, such as Adobe Photoshop or Gimp and how the business works.
First off all, in order to become a graphic designer you're going to want to know HTML, which you can learn it at w3schools.com/html. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and it's the basic foundation to a website. In order to get started with HTML you are going to have to know what program to use when coding HTML. Most people like me, use notepad, which it's free and its on Windows XP and other computers. If you don't' like notepad, well there's other ones to like notepad++, which is a better version of your basic notepad text editor. Always remember when saving HTML in notepad you have to save it as the_name_you_want.html and at the bottom where it says select save type, just check ALL FILES and that's it. While learning HTML, don't get to frustrated because you don't get it. Most people don't get it the first time, it takes practice. "The more you do it the more you get it, the more you get it the more you do it" its one quote my teacher use to tell us in class. On important tip to remember when learning HTML is to only remember the important things such as the <html>, <body>, <table>, <img src="">, <a href=""> tags because that's the ones most used. Another tip is always have your HTML properly nested and clean, so if you make a mistake you can easily go back and fix it. After learning HTML take the free HTML quiz. Look at you score, and if its a 95 and above, you passed and can move on to the next thing.
Next your going to need to learn CSS, also known as cascading style sheets, you can read learn it at w3schools.com/css. You probably wondering why you need to know CSS, well it's a browser side styling language that allows you to easily manage the style of your web designs. Instead of styling everything with HTML, which would just be messy, you do it with <div> tags and css. To declare your CSS in an HTML document you have to write <style type="text/css"> CSS coding here</style>. Always close your tags with a slash. Div tags are use to group elements that you want the <style> tags to affect and can be place anywhere in between the <body> tags. CSS unlike HTML takes more time and patience to learn. If you didn't get anything from HTML and you proceed into CSS, it's going to totally confuse you, so make sure you learn first HTML. CSS is the most common styling language use today. Its on almost all the website you visit. How can you tell if a website has CSS? Well you can tell if it looks outstanding, if it has columns or rows, and if it has lots of stuff that's properly organized. CSS can be inserted in a HTML document at the top of the page, between the head tags and body tags. I prefer inserting them in the head tags for it looks a lot better and not messy. Others prefer make an external style sheet, which is ideal when the style is applied to many pages. With an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire web site by changing one file. Each page must link to the style sheet using the <link> tag. The <link> tag always goes inside the <head> section or it will not work. After you know these two languages like the back of your hand, lets move to the next piece.
We are now entering the fun part, learning how to use a photo editor. The two major photo editors that people use and they are GIMP and Adobe Photoshop. First off GIMP is a free photo editor for Linux and Windows operating system that not too many people use, but is a very effective tool, which you can acquire at gimp.org. Second, Adobe Photoshop is a pricey tool that almost everyone in the business uses, which you can get at adobe.com. In order to be a graphic designer you have to get one of these tools. There are of course more tools online that you can use as photo editors, but you got to look for them. Now after getting your photo editor program, we need to find a fountain of information on these tools. Some major fountains of info are google.com and youtube.com, where all you got to do on these sites is search photoshop tutorials to be supplied with information on photo editors. A lot of designers get started on a forum or somewhere where they can post there work and get feedback from other designers to see how they can improve their skills. I can't teach you how to design because everyone has their own style all you got to do is just play around with the program. Play with the filters to see what kinds of different effects you like and remember the steps it took you to get there. Some of the basic tools you're going to have to know are the cutting, selecting, and pasting tools. One tip to keep in mind is to have lots of patients and don't give up. People are going to tell you that some of your designs suck and some might admire your work. Designing its all about inspiration and being creative. Becoming a graphic designer can be fun, but it also requires you to respect copyright material from other people. You can read more about copyright material at copyright.com/ccc/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n. Learning from tutorials can be cool, but you got to remember that's not your style, so you have to just play around and use all the knowledge you learn from many tutorials to come up with one unique design.
In the meantime, were going to need to post you up. As beginner your job is not to get money, but to work for free and learn how the business works. Now your probably thinking, "Hell no I'm not working for free", well hey welcome to reality, you currently have no audience, and no past clients, who the hell wants to hire you? The key to getting lots of clients is doing free work, not only will this push your name out there, but it will be great experience for you to figure out what people want from you. You might be wondering now, well how do I even get people to hire me? Well you are going to need to post your resume up about what you know, what you can do and some of your work. Some great places to post your resume are Guru.com, craigslist.org, and Myspace.com. After you have done some free work for a few months, your name should be out there, and now its time to move onto the next step.
Alright congratulations, your ready, you made some audiences and your ready to make your first dollar. Setting your prices can be a little tricky, for you have to start out small. Remember don't start out to big because you're barley a beginner and you can scare your clients away. One tip to remember is the smaller the prices are the more clients you're going to get, so starting out small it's a great idea. After a certain period of time you can make your prices higher. When doing the exchange ask the client their information, so you know they're serious because a lot of people are just going to make you work and then leave you off with your work and not pay you. If they are serious, make them pay a down payment and then show them the work you did with a bad watermark and ask them if they want any changes. Always tell them your limit to the changes you can do because they can take advantage of that, trust me it has happened to me many times. There's going to be a time your career where more and more people everyday are going to want you to work for them, causing you to get stressed, which leads to exhaustion, which leads to the work not getting done. This is a sign that you need to learn to say simple "no". One cool little tip is just tell them they can pay a small fee and you can get back at them as soon as you're done with your other clients. There's going to be more things you'll learn on your own
Finally, if you followed this steps it should of taken you less than a year to become a graphic designer. The cool thing about it is that you didn't even had to go to college to become one because this career is something anybody could do. You could go to college, but why waste the time when you can learn everything at home just by searching for tutorials and getting information that is use on many of the college's textbooks. If you do decide to go to college some of the advantages are going to be that you actually are going to have a paper that says you're an official graphic designer and that you graduate, which is good when your trying to get hire by a company.
Could somebody go over my essay and make corrections to it please...and give me some advise on how i can improve my conclusion, and intro. Thanks ....ps: im new to the forums...my name is andy
Process Essay
Graphic designers have risen ever since the start of the Internet. They construct websites to look more professional, so they can draw people to it. As a graphic designer you must know a couple of coding languages, such as HTML and CSS, and using a photo editor, such as Adobe Photoshop or Gimp and how the business works.
First off all, in order to become a graphic designer you're going to want to know HTML, which you can learn it at w3schools.com/html. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language and it's the basic foundation to a website. In order to get started with HTML you are going to have to know what program to use when coding HTML. Most people like me, use notepad, which it's free and its on Windows XP and other computers. If you don't' like notepad, well there's other ones to like notepad++, which is a better version of your basic notepad text editor. Always remember when saving HTML in notepad you have to save it as the_name_you_want.html and at the bottom where it says select save type, just check ALL FILES and that's it. While learning HTML, don't get to frustrated because you don't get it. Most people don't get it the first time, it takes practice. "The more you do it the more you get it, the more you get it the more you do it" its one quote my teacher use to tell us in class. On important tip to remember when learning HTML is to only remember the important things such as the <html>, <body>, <table>, <img src="">, <a href=""> tags because that's the ones most used. Another tip is always have your HTML properly nested and clean, so if you make a mistake you can easily go back and fix it. After learning HTML take the free HTML quiz. Look at you score, and if its a 95 and above, you passed and can move on to the next thing.
Next your going to need to learn CSS, also known as cascading style sheets, you can read learn it at w3schools.com/css. You probably wondering why you need to know CSS, well it's a browser side styling language that allows you to easily manage the style of your web designs. Instead of styling everything with HTML, which would just be messy, you do it with <div> tags and css. To declare your CSS in an HTML document you have to write <style type="text/css"> CSS coding here</style>. Always close your tags with a slash. Div tags are use to group elements that you want the <style> tags to affect and can be place anywhere in between the <body> tags. CSS unlike HTML takes more time and patience to learn. If you didn't get anything from HTML and you proceed into CSS, it's going to totally confuse you, so make sure you learn first HTML. CSS is the most common styling language use today. Its on almost all the website you visit. How can you tell if a website has CSS? Well you can tell if it looks outstanding, if it has columns or rows, and if it has lots of stuff that's properly organized. CSS can be inserted in a HTML document at the top of the page, between the head tags and body tags. I prefer inserting them in the head tags for it looks a lot better and not messy. Others prefer make an external style sheet, which is ideal when the style is applied to many pages. With an external style sheet, you can change the look of an entire web site by changing one file. Each page must link to the style sheet using the <link> tag. The <link> tag always goes inside the <head> section or it will not work. After you know these two languages like the back of your hand, lets move to the next piece.
We are now entering the fun part, learning how to use a photo editor. The two major photo editors that people use and they are GIMP and Adobe Photoshop. First off GIMP is a free photo editor for Linux and Windows operating system that not too many people use, but is a very effective tool, which you can acquire at gimp.org. Second, Adobe Photoshop is a pricey tool that almost everyone in the business uses, which you can get at adobe.com. In order to be a graphic designer you have to get one of these tools. There are of course more tools online that you can use as photo editors, but you got to look for them. Now after getting your photo editor program, we need to find a fountain of information on these tools. Some major fountains of info are google.com and youtube.com, where all you got to do on these sites is search photoshop tutorials to be supplied with information on photo editors. A lot of designers get started on a forum or somewhere where they can post there work and get feedback from other designers to see how they can improve their skills. I can't teach you how to design because everyone has their own style all you got to do is just play around with the program. Play with the filters to see what kinds of different effects you like and remember the steps it took you to get there. Some of the basic tools you're going to have to know are the cutting, selecting, and pasting tools. One tip to keep in mind is to have lots of patients and don't give up. People are going to tell you that some of your designs suck and some might admire your work. Designing its all about inspiration and being creative. Becoming a graphic designer can be fun, but it also requires you to respect copyright material from other people. You can read more about copyright material at copyright.com/ccc/viewPage.do?pageCode=cr10-n. Learning from tutorials can be cool, but you got to remember that's not your style, so you have to just play around and use all the knowledge you learn from many tutorials to come up with one unique design.
In the meantime, were going to need to post you up. As beginner your job is not to get money, but to work for free and learn how the business works. Now your probably thinking, "Hell no I'm not working for free", well hey welcome to reality, you currently have no audience, and no past clients, who the hell wants to hire you? The key to getting lots of clients is doing free work, not only will this push your name out there, but it will be great experience for you to figure out what people want from you. You might be wondering now, well how do I even get people to hire me? Well you are going to need to post your resume up about what you know, what you can do and some of your work. Some great places to post your resume are Guru.com, craigslist.org, and Myspace.com. After you have done some free work for a few months, your name should be out there, and now its time to move onto the next step.
Alright congratulations, your ready, you made some audiences and your ready to make your first dollar. Setting your prices can be a little tricky, for you have to start out small. Remember don't start out to big because you're barley a beginner and you can scare your clients away. One tip to remember is the smaller the prices are the more clients you're going to get, so starting out small it's a great idea. After a certain period of time you can make your prices higher. When doing the exchange ask the client their information, so you know they're serious because a lot of people are just going to make you work and then leave you off with your work and not pay you. If they are serious, make them pay a down payment and then show them the work you did with a bad watermark and ask them if they want any changes. Always tell them your limit to the changes you can do because they can take advantage of that, trust me it has happened to me many times. There's going to be a time your career where more and more people everyday are going to want you to work for them, causing you to get stressed, which leads to exhaustion, which leads to the work not getting done. This is a sign that you need to learn to say simple "no". One cool little tip is just tell them they can pay a small fee and you can get back at them as soon as you're done with your other clients. There's going to be more things you'll learn on your own
Finally, if you followed this steps it should of taken you less than a year to become a graphic designer. The cool thing about it is that you didn't even had to go to college to become one because this career is something anybody could do. You could go to college, but why waste the time when you can learn everything at home just by searching for tutorials and getting information that is use on many of the college's textbooks. If you do decide to go to college some of the advantages are going to be that you actually are going to have a paper that says you're an official graphic designer and that you graduate, which is good when your trying to get hire by a company.