Interested in a Career in Web Design? Low to no-cost ideas on building your portfolio.
Never in a million years would I have believed I’d end up having a career as a web designer but when I got the bug, I was unstoppable. The truth is I gave away a lot of work while I was building my portfolio. It was a worthwhile investment but here are a few ideas that may be helpful if you are considering a career change or ready to make the leap to freelance.
Use free tools and resources. CMS tools like Wix and Weebly offer 100% free options so you can create an account, open a project and design sites that you can include in your portfolio. The free sites have wix.com or weebly.com but these at least give you the chance to test your design skills and be able to show a finished site to prospective clients.
Become a Squarespace Circle member. Squarespace offers a 14-day free trial but then you must subscribe and pay. If you want to explore a career in Squarespace design, you may want to consider designing three sites and paying for a monthly subscription on those sites. Once you have three sites in your Squarespace account, you can become a circle member which means your trial period is extended from 14-days to 6-months. Super helpful when dealing with client projects and best of all you are given insider access to updates, new tools and the forum.
Use free design tools. Not all designers design directly on the web. Maybe you are more interested in designing a mockup and have someone else create the actual site. Creating a PSD file in Adobe Photoshop is a great option and almost daily more tools are added such as Figma, MockFlow or Framer. Here is a recent article outlining some of the recommended mockup tools and comparisons. And, according to Upwork - a website for Freelancers - Sketch is the #1 most sought after design skill.
Of course if coding is your jam, go for it but the tools above are all free or low cost ways of testing your skillset and figuring out which CMS tool you enjoy working with and want to become proficient in.
Need an extra push? We got you!
Schedule a one-on-one training session. Sessions are available in Squarespace, Wix, Weebly and WordPress/Elementor.
