Getting fed up with web design

Sorry folks, but I need to have a rant.
Im getting really fed up with web design really. Noone ever thanks me when I do them a great website for very little money, I just get messed around all the time. Truth is, noone really seems to care about whether their site is great or not. Maybe the answer is to do some work in my spare time, sadly it seems people expect me to travel around and pitch for work when I have a whole portfolio of work for them to see! If you buy a CD, you dont get it brought to you so you can listen and then decide you dont like it and the man from the record store takes it away having earned himself sweet nothing yet spent £20-30 travelling to see you!
Certainly I can't do that in my spare time when I have a full time job.
And that brings me to my full time job. Like all web design jobs it seems, it pays very badly despite requiring a lot of skills and experience. I get developers earning twice as much telling me how hard they find CSS, when I have to know it perfectly for my job.

After my bills are paid there isnt much money left for anything else which really impacts my life. I earn at least 5-10k less than all my mates and cant afford to take the nice holidays they take etc. This includes my mates who didnt work at school and people who sit on help desk doing nothing all day! Help desk is bl00dy easy compared to knowing CSS, HTML, Photoshop, SEO skills etc
Hell, in the news they say lorry drivers get paid 32k a year, thats a lot more than I get after 3 design jobs and 5+ years experience.
I wonder why I bother. I could have stayed in CAD (which was sooo easy in comparison) and I'd probably have less hassle and a higher salary. Teachers, Lorry Drivers and Fire men are always going on strike, maybe its time all designers did. I guess I'll be giving up on design soon, its a shame because I really enoy the work. But with a recession on the way I honestly dont think I'll be able to continue to be a designer, it just doesnt pay enough.
My brother is a web designer and he's on even less than me. He used to do CAD too and we're seriously considering jacking in web design to start a CAD type business. At the moment I honestly dont know how he is going to continue with rising fuel and food costs and his salary.
What do people think, anyone else getting really fed up with it?

It is increasingly getting more difficult for independents to earn the money they need, in light of the changing environment.

The main issue, as I see it, is that there is no recognized "degree" or "accreditation" that says "here's my stamp of approval, I'm great at my job, pay me loads of money". Therefore the pool of talent is being diluted by those who “find CSS a bit too hard to learn” as you put it.

You can have the greatest portfolio in the world, but who is to say that you actually did all the work yourself? Or just didn’t borrow most of it from others and cobble together something that looks very impressive.

With more and more people vying for the same jobs, meaning more supply than demand, and as a result this has pushed down the prices they are offering to designers and developers.

This is also having a knock on effect in the permanent market. As there is no longer any money in the contract world, everyone is trying to get a full time job, just so they can pay the bills. This means that companies can get more “bang for their buck”, have a wider choice and pay less for their services.

Any current staff therefore have to contend with the following “why would I want to pay you more when I can get someone to replace you for less money”

This makes people feel unsecure in their current positions, but unable to do anything about it, as they don’t want to be out of work.

My policy has always been to stand my ground and point out not only my design/development skills, but also the depth of knowledge and soft skills that I have attained along the way. Point out that I am a complete package (although still growing) and have more to offer, rather than just a coder off a shelf. i.e. stakeholder management, project management, etc.

If you have a good manager , then they should recognize this, and want to keep key employees who add value to the business.

Organise a 1-2-1 with them and talk about your issues – make sure that you are open and honest (use these words, as it shows that you trust them to take your points seriously) - point out the rising costs are effecting your ability to remain in this market, ensuring that it is worded in a way that emphasises your desire to stay with the company.

Have a look here: http://www.itjobswatch.co.uk/ to find out how much your local area is paying for your skill set, and go from there.


Good Luck.

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I have learned that very few people care enough about how their web site looks to pay a "designer" thousands of dollars for it. Instead of rationing their money into the way the web site looks, they ration it into the way it functions..... which is development. I think development will always be more profitable and more desired. It's harder to do and it's more useful. Not to put anyone down, but designing is kind of a natural ability. If you are creative/artistic, then you are a good designer. And CSS and HTML can be learned in less than a day. Many of my clients learned HTML just for the sake of maintaining their own web sites. You'll never see a guy learning Java just so he can make changes to the way his web app works though. I think there's always a better market for developers because not many people can do it.

This always happens, When the market drops people start to spend less and less on adverting ( websites, seo, adword, grapics) Its all over the place people have less money to spend.

For Example Starbucks are going down because people have less money. Stocks Down -0.21 (-1.35%) today. When people have less money the cut the extras out. That's why we all going down.

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Optimist ?? - Joke

There is no denying that the market is slowing down, but it also a time of opportunity.

Certain industires are really feeling the strain, mainly banking (where I happen to work), but others are seeing an increase in activity.

Just look at the travel industry. This is currently seeing a boom time. Due to the rising costs in this country, people are going away more, as their hard earned cash actually goes further when they are abroad. This has a knock on effect to the insurance industry (holiday insurance) and also the leisure industry (want to look good for that beach !!).

So there are opportunites, you just need to look for them.

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I agree, with businesses finding time tougher,
<cheese>
we are the angels out of the blue to set up a website and help them reap the rewards!
</cheese>

HTML yes, CSS no.
CSS requires practice, lots and lots of practice. Then you start to learn the differences between how the browsers render CSS etc.
Theres definately a hell of a lot of Dev jobs around compared to Design too which is good for the Dev guys.

I can see people going to the USA more, but are they going to Europe more too? The pound to euro exchange rate doesnt favour people from the UK going to Europe right now.

Personally, I was never one to blow money for the hell of it on coffee from Starbucks etc and with all the competition Im amazed they do as well as they do.

I thought the $ to £ is starting to go back to 1:1 because are economy is going down.

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From what i can tell, people are going where the pound is stronger (and will therefore stretch), so places like Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Morrocco, Cape Verde) and India / Goa, etc

The boom in low cost airlines is helping people go further for less. For instance, Cape Verde is only an hour's flight past the Canaries, but is the same price for flights/hotels, is closer to the equator, so has better sun per pound and has a better exchange rate. Plus, it's not over commercialised (yet).

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Well the US economy is going down same as yours.

And I agree, development is a lot more valued than design. Just because, like welsh said, so many designers are diluting the talent pool with their tabled, non-validating HTML layouts.

For example, I was interning for a web development company last year. A large Wisconsin organization paid them $100,000 to implement a custom-developed CMS on one part of there website. They were consider paying an additional $300,000 to do the same with the entire site. So theres quite a lot of money in development these days.

Of course, development or design, its still hard to make money as an independent.

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