Date: Wed, 4 Feb 1998 10:56:40 -0800 (PST) From: Steev To: illegal art Subject: Re: status? On Wed, 4 Feb 1998, illegal art wrote: ->btw, i've been meaning to ask you some questions about web design. i ->talked recently to another artist who does web design and he says that as ->a freelancer he makes $60 an hour. as i'm not sure if i'm going to ->continue on in academia when i graduate this summer (it's really up in the ->air right now) this looks like an interesting way to make a living. now ->you work as a web designer... right? can you really make that much per ->hour? and is it difficult to find clients if you go the freelance route? ->i'm sure it's more complicated than i imagine as i'm not that fluent with ->what it takes to design web pages... but it seems that i could learn those ->skills quickly if i'm already familiar with programming, the internet, ->etc. etc. is that a bad assumption? anyway, i just thought it sounded ->like an interesting way to pay the rent since i still haven't figured out ->how to make a living as a sound artist. heh. indeed. that's my problem too. In fact that's probably the most important thing i learned at calarts, the fact that very few people make a living as real artists. Okay, i'll try to answer your questions as coherently as possible. I may sound a bit jaded or cynical at times because virtually everyone i know here in SF works in some connection with the web industry, and, well, things start to look pretty funny after awhile. 1. Yes, it CAN be an interesting way to make a living. It can also be excruciatingly boring and frustrating. 2. You need to ask your friend, and yourself, what is meant by the term "web designer". There are a lot of different professions or roles involved with creating web sites that might be referred to as "web designer". A lot of small time freelancers do everything all by themselves on a site. So they call themselves web designers or web developers. But usually the big clients and big projects don't hire people like that. There's lots of division of labor. A friend of mine is mostly an Interface Consultant. She gets paid lots of money (65 -100 an hour) mostly to come in and talk to people about the overall scheme of a site, how it should be navigated, what the buttons should look like, where the toolbar should be, etc. She was a consultant for Macromedia on the Dreamweaver project (their new web authoring tool) cuz they valued her opinion about interface and what web workers wanted in an authoring tool. Other roles: HTML coder - these are the bottom of the heap, usually get stuck doing really boring stuff, turning a designer's ideas into html, or making updates on old pages; Designers - people with actual degrees in Graphic Design, usually, who know about color and layout and how to arrange a page and a look for a whole site. Illustrators - artists who actually draw or digitally create graphics for a site. "Production" people - "pixel pushers" and other relatively unskilled types who turn the illustrators's stuff into web-ready files, or scan and touchup photos, or digitise sound, video, whatever. Preparers of all of what are called "assets", the stuff that goes on the site. Copy writers and copy editors - pretty much like their conterparts in print media. Backend Programmers - CGI or database types that build back-end software that runs on the server, to do stuff like dynamic page generation, data collection, online commerce, etc etc. This is 99% of what i do. Client-side programmers - programmers that use java or javascript or other technology that runs on the user's machine & does flashycool stuff. VRML, Flash, Shockwave falls into this category too. Producers - The people that make sure all the above are doing what they're supposed to and everything gets done on deadline and the client is happy. Webmaster & system administrators - keep the servers running and tweaked so people can see the site. These usually aren't freelancers, but as a consultant/freelancer you have to deal with these a lot, especially if you're a programmer. They usually think what you do is a security risk or at least a hassle... Okay, so now onto the questions like "can you do it" and "can you make that much", etc. First of all, Like a lot of jobs, it totally depends on a) who you know b) where you are c) what you know (or look like you know) With freelancing, the first 2 are especially important. You've got to have a lot of contacts in the biz, who know you know your shit, who will refer clients to you. The more of these you have, the less you will have to look, and, despite the fact that you could do the work from anywhere, theoretically (cuz its the internet, right?), it helps to be in a place where a lot of work is. So the more of that, the less you have to look, too. I've been lucky. I'll give you a brief history of how i shoehorned into this crazy biz in a moment. Let's talk money - There's a huge range in what people get paid. That's why i broke down all the jobs above. HTML production grunts make like $20-30 here, probably only $12 if they're in Montana or something. Programmers like myself make $60-$90 an hour. It depends on the client, too. As a freelancer you learn to listen to a client and figure out how much you think he can afford, and adjust your rate accordingly. If somebody from a vc-funded technology startup calls me up, I'll tell them a higher price than if a church asks me to do a few web pages. Some clients will pay whatever you ask, they just say "sure" to whatever and leave you wondering if you shouldn't have quoted them a higher price. Others don't understand the market and what's involved, they expect to pay $2000 for a $40,000 site, and you can see them gulp when you give them an estimate. Its really a crazy, nonstadardized world, but its getting less and less so every week. It used to be, 3 years ago, that anybody that knew a little bit of html could make a decent living. Not anymore, everyone knows html and has a homepage and everyone wants to be a "web designer". I know people that have NEVER had a job that didn't have to do with the Internet! EVER. Me, I STILL can't believe I make a living this way. Actually, i just barely do make living, but not because i can't but because i have a hard time motivating myself to work enough. That's one downside of being a freelancer, you have to force yourself to put in enough hours to survive. And i've never liked working, no matter what it is. Seems like if you have to do it to live, it eventually gets difficult to want to do it. For me, at least. Okay, so here's a brief rundown of how i stumbled into this: - prelude:b.s.e in electrical engineering from u of michigan (looks good on resume) - prelude2: a year of C & FORTRAN programming experience, plus a couple years of print graphic design and prepress work - did my first "homepage" in early 95 - went to calarts. spent a lot of time doing web stuff (mention of "MFA in New Media" also looks good on resume). - hired by calarts student affairs to build an interface to their job/scholarship database. I learned perl while doing this first job. Best way to learn anything is to have to use it right away. Made $10/hr. - redesigned and maintained calarts musicschool site. started freelancing for L.A. clients. made about $20/hr - moved to SF. Found out there's lots more work, and people get paid more, than in L.A. - hired by cyborganic. Cyborganic used to be just a bunch of friends, mostly ravers and geeks and potheads, then it was a company, now its just a bunch of friends again. But its a huge bunch. So, i had an instant network of contacts as soon as i fell in with them. started making $65 or more an hour. -Since then Cyborganic as a business has ceased to exist but i have yet to need to go looking for freelance gigs. They just keep getting sent to me. The community is very incestuous. People hop from job to job, know everyone, tell people about jobs they hear of. Its pretty cool, but i always wonder "How long will this last?" Recently i've started to get bored with what i've been doing. The kind of work i've been getting hasn't been that challenging any more, because my skill level has increased a lot over the past year but i'm still doign the same sort of stuff as a year ago. Also freelancing tends to wear on me, or has been. Even tho i haven't had to look for work, its still stressful, because you're always dealing with different people, different office politics, bueuracracies, etc. Also you never know where you next paycheck is coming from or when it will get to you. The bigger the company, the longer it takes. Some huge companies take 60 DAYS to pay invoices!! So, I've been starting to look at fulltime possibilities again. Still web stuff, but with the security of a salary and benefits and stuff. We'll see what happens. To sum up, it takes guts and luck and skill. The more of one of those you have, the less of the others you need. In the end, its about the same as any other job unless you can keep it fresh and exciting. wow, i didn't intend to go on and on like that but i guess it was sort of therapeutic for me. probably was more than you wanted to know. Well, hope it helps. l8r, steev Steev Hise, Would-be World-Wide Web Wizard (WWWWW) steevathise.org http://www.cyborganic.com/people/steev new recycled art site: http://www.detritus.net ----------------------------------------------------------------- If you really want to impress people with your computer literacy, add the words "dot com" to the end of everything you say, dot com. -----------------------------------------------------------------