Professional designers spend years upon years in the industry in attempt to perfect their craft and become better designers, and it seems a little frustrating that this DYI era, “anyone can be a designer.” You see WordPress sites going up everyday, and all of a sudden that person is a web designer. They figure out that Dreamweaver can do all of the work for them, so now they feel as though they can charge for their services. This bugs me a little.

Now before I continue, I can admit that I don’t have the formal training as a designer, however my degree became relevant and essential to where I am now. When I first learned about web design/development, I didn’t just settle in with the basics of how to make a website work. I studied countless hours (in my free time) about best practices, and different ways to approach projects. Aside from that, I also researched and learned about different design fundamentals. I knew I didn’t have that formal training so I went to get that knowledge myself.

Too often do I see people, even ones that I know, thinking that they are capable of designing and developing websites for others or companies with extreme ground level skills, and no desire to learn proper techniques. Essentially, these are the kinds of people that could take paying jobs away from people who spend big chunks of their life studying design. This does not seem healthy for a design industry. Aside from that, it doesn’t seem healthy for business owners’ own company to allow someone to handle their design work without the slightest idea of branding or design concepts.

Overall, it seems like the term customize has gotten confused with the term design. It seems like because of the fact that people know how to change a few colors inside of a downloaded Movable Type template, they label themselves designers. As much as I’d like to think that eventually people, both “customizers” and potential clients, will realize that it takes professionals for these kinds of jobs, I don’t think that will happen.

Seems that designers are shooting themselves in the foot by providing the thousands of free CMS templates that puts the control into the users hands, who then label themselves as designers. I don’t think the results of this are too extreme at this point, however, it certainly does not help the design industry. Is there a solution to this?

It’s no secret that the web is the best it’s ever been, and still growing. Everyone and every company wants to get something online so that you can always get information, whether you are at your home office, or on the go with your mobile phone. Now the change won’t be instant, but I wonder how the growing web will effect newspaper sales, and audience. Do you think we will see a dramatic shift to online readers who are putting down newspapers, and opening up a browser?

In my opinion, I think there will be a dramatic shift. No idea what kind of time frame this will be, but I already see it happening around myself with friends and family. I get links sent to me and referred to websites, and I can’t remember the last time someone even mentioned a newspaper.

And what will be more interesting to see, is the tension that could build between the ones controlling online news compared to the ones controlling the print newspapers. It seems as though the people working for a print newspaper could easily be stuck in their ways, and because it pays the bills, it’s natural that they don’t want to see their newspapers being shifted online.

On the other hand, there’s the online people who think it’s to everyone’s advantage that people be able to get this news when they need it, and not having to wait the next day for a paper, or even wait an hour for the 5 o’clock news. They want the “right now” news. I want the “right now” news.

No one likes to see companies downsize or go under, however, I just can’t see print newspapers being that successful in the long run. Could there be some kind of solution for them, in working with online news somehow? Who knows, but this will be something very interesting to keep in eye on over time. I know that I gave up on newspapers a long time ago. But that’s just me!

“I never really considered that employers would do something like that,” he said. “I thought they would just look at your résumé and grades.”

What I don’t understand, is that how naive people can really be sometimes with what is going on with the web. Now maybe I’m just biased because I spend the majority of my day (or life for that matter) on the web, so it’s easier for me to see. But come on, lets be real here, major employers have pull, and they will find out information if they want. Everyone knows that people, especially young people, put on this persona come interview time, so that they can win over the minds of the employer to think that they are strictly work oriented.

We obviously know that the employer will not be that naive to think that a freshly graduated college student didn’t have a life outside of classes. So they do their research, just like a person applying for a job would do their research on the company to find out the goods and bads. Now, is the employer wrong for doing research? That is hard to say, however, when you have sites like MySpace that don’t require a login to view profiles, that’s almost too easy to find out information about people. At the same time, what are they intentions of the employer, and how far will he actually go to gain information? That is the question that has to be answered in order to put a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ label on that.

Ok enough about the employer, lets get to the “mature” and newly graduated college student looking for a professional job. While you were in school, we understand that it was cool to register for all of these sites, and put up your most personal information in order to gain attention and have people say “wow, that’s really cool” or whatever. I know, I was there once, but it did not take me long at all to wise up. So why can’t other people? As much fun as it is uploading pictures of you smoking and drinking your weekends away, did you ever think that there could be downsides to that?

Do you realize that when you have profiles on sites like Facebook and MySpace, and when you add all those pictures and personal information about yourself, that you are allowing people to judge you before they really meet you? That profile is representing the person you are, and why would an employer want to hire some alcoholic person who so gladly posts pictures of him passed out at a party naked. Now it is easy for one to say they don’t care what other people think, but those people could be deciding how your near future will pan out. Aside from that, your parents could find that information too, and we don’t need to get into what parents would think.

When you start hearing such a buzz about all this Facebook and MySpace talk, it helps to think into things a little bit and not brush it off. As much as you think that your employer shouldn’t worry about your personal life, think again, because when you put out your personal life for everyone to see, it won’t just be your close friends looking at it, it’s available to the whole world.

My overall point is that in such an era dominated by the web/technology, you really can’t be naive to the fact that it is alot easier to find out information about people. I learned this the hard way after almost getting fired for a blog that I wrote, and how quickly I wised up. I’m not saying that young people shouldn’t use these sites, but know you are being judged based on what you add to your profile, and the sad part is, you are being judged with out even knowing or having a say-so to explain yourself. People need to wisen up a little bit. Don’t be as naive, because your future employer won’t be.