Thu, 11 Mar 2010 12:11:21 +0000

Seeking

Founded in 2003, iContact is a venture-backed 170+ person company based in Durham, NC, that provides on-demand software that simplifies email marketing. The iContact product is the leading email marketing platform ussd by over 50,000 companies worldwide ranging from small businesses to blue chip clients.

iContact was named one of the Best Places to Work in the Triangle by the Triangle Business Journal in 2007, 2008, and 2009. This position will be based in the Durham/Research Triangle Park area of North Carolina.

If you are passionate about making a difference and working with a company that shares that goal, we’d like to hear from you! If you like working in a highly collaborative and creative environment then this is your next career move!

The ideal candidate will have experience in web development and design, excellent verbal and written communication skills, and a bachelor’s degree with at least five years of related experience. In addition, the candidate must possess an online design portfolio demonstrating related and relevant work with a description of the role they played in the development and design of the project.

Responsibilities

• Designing and building landing pages for marketing campaigns

• Designing and building HTML-based email templates/newsletters

• Maintaining and updating iContact web sites

• Designing web-based ads

Requirements

• 5+ years experience

• Online portfolio

• HTML 1.0 Compliant

• XHTML and CSS skills

• Javascript and Jquery

• Adobe Photoshop

• Adobe Flash and Actionscript 3.0

• Web optimization

• Strong design and layout skills

• Prioritization and analytical skills

• Strong communication skills

• A self-starter/highly motivated

• Being able to multi-task

• Meeting deadlines

Extra Credit

• HTML 5.0

• CSS 3

• Ajax

• Sense of humor

Salary/Benefits

Salary commensurate with experience. Excellent benefits are provided including health care coverage, a 401(k) plan, a Flexible Spending Account, an entrepreneurial and creative environment, and being part of a rock star team that acts like a family.

For More Information

If you are interested and/or would like more information, please send resume with cover letter to jobs@icontact.com. If we determine you to be a qualified candidate we may send a questionnaire or contact you to schedule either an in-person interview or teleconference interview. Additional information on the company and software can be found at www.icontact.com.

Recently, Smashing Magazine published an article titled, Group Interview: Expert Advice For Students and Young Web Developers. Various well-known web designers, including Chris Spooner, Chris Coyier, and Brian Hoff, shared some of their insights about what aspiring web designers can do to prepare for a successful career in web design.

Since starting this site, web design has rapidly grown as one of my biggest passions. It is one of those feelings you get when you pick up a book for the first time, and can’t seem to put back down. So when the Smashing Magazine article was published, I knew right away that I should seriously begin contemplating the possibility of following a career in design

So, what did I do next? I contacted several of my favorite web designers with questions concerning their professions and was able to get a response from four awesome dudes:

• Jad Limcaco (Design Informer)
• Jacob Gube (Six Revisions)
• Chris Spooner (Line25)
• Jon Phillips (SpyreStudios)

Jad Limcaco

Jad is a freelance website and graphic designer from Long Beach, California. As the owner of one of the fastest growing web design blog Design Informer, he writes comprehensive tutorials and guides that help you stay up-to-date on everything related to design. Completely self-taught, he makes many college-educated designers look awfully clumsy. If you follow him on Twitter, some of his designing skills may eventually rub off on you.

What do you like most/least about your job?

Well, as a full-time web designer and also a freelance designer and blogger, I love my job. What I like about it is I get to do what I love. I have a passion for design and I’m very fortunate that I get to do it every single day.

Worst thing… Hmm, I would have to say managing my time and dealing with all the administrative work. It’s not so bad if you just work for a company, but if you freelance and run a blog, then it definitely is time consuming, and you have to be very organized.

What educational background is necessary for this job?

Really, I didn’t even go to school for this. I started messing around with Photoshop and web design in high school and I really started to get serious with it about 4 years ago, reading everything and anything I could find about it. I’ve spent many sleepless nights designing and learning HTML/CSS. Although a formal education isn’t necessary, it’s definitely a plus.

I would suggest learning the design basics. Too many people who claim to be designers don’t even know these things. I’m talking about things like typography, grids, etc. Also, to be a web designer, a solid knowledge of HTML/CSS, and some knowledge of jQuery/Javascript would be ideal.

Sometimes, all you need is an opportunity. For months, I looked for a job and couldn’t find one in the field, so I freelanced. I did that for a year and had a tremendous time learning, working with clients and I had many ups and downs. Through that, I was able to build a portfolio, and then get a job.

What is a typical day like for you?

Well, I wake up, go to work from 9-6, then go home, exercise, then back on the computer for freelance work and blog work. That’s pretty much my normal weekday.

What are important skills needed for this job?

Well, I’ve already mentioned them, but design fundamentals, along with a great knowledge of Photoshop, and coding skills. (HTML/CSS/jQuery/Javascript.)

If you could do one thing over, what would it be and why?

I’ve actually been asked this a lot. I would have to say that I would have definitely started sooner. I think I delayed it too much and waited too long to get into it. My advice: jump in!

Jacob Gube

Jacob Gube is a web developer/designer and is the owner of the popular site Six Revisions, which launched in February 2008. On his site, he shares many useful tutorials and resources for the design community. One of my favorite articles on his site is titled Common Misconceptions about Web Designers. You can find him also on Twitter and contact him via email at his site’s contact page.

What do you like most/least about your job?

The best is being able to create something that many people will use. They can be the neighbor next door or a person up in the mountains, thousands of miles away, and they could be using the product that you’ve created. The worst part about the job is that it’s misunderstood a lot of times (though not so much anymore, and not if you explain your job role). The reason this is so stems from the field being relatively new. When I first started, people would come up to me to fix the printer, or troubleshoot a Microsoft Excel issue. Purely out of circumstance, I knew how to do those things, but it didn’t mean that it was part of my job as a web developer. So the best thing you can do in this situation is to explain to the person what it is that you do–the more people you educate about the profession, the better off we’ll be.

What educational background is necessary for this job?

Right now, many of the top web designers and web developers are self-taught (at least the ones that I look up to). That’s because the field is relatively new, so higher-level education is still a bit behind. Though if your college offers web development majors, you’re lucky–I hear in the UK they’re beginning to offer some truly amazing courses. If I was an employer hiring for a web development job, I’d pick an Informatics major over a Computer Science major if my only deciding factor was their college education. The best I’ve seen locally is an Informatics degree, which is closest to web development. Computer Science is an option if you want to be a programmer, but those courses don’t teach you how to make websites and web apps, they teach you how to make software. If I was an employer hiring for a web development job, I’d pick an Informatics major over a Computer Science major if my only deciding factor was their college education.

What are the steps necessary to break into this field?

A lot of hard work. Try to get some great projects going and focus on the quality. Pretty soon, you’ll have a solid list of companies that you can show off to prospective clients.

What is a typical day like for you?

I do the creative stuff in the morning, and the administrative stuff in the afternoons.

What are important skills needed for this job?

People skills. The most valuable skill that you can have is to be able to communicate your ideas to other people–your client, your team mates, your employees.

If you could do one thing over, what would it be and why?

If I could do one thing over, I would’ve skipped learning Perl. Learning Perl, however, did introduce me to PHP, which is the language I use now. But I could’ve jumped right through Perl and directly to PHP, but at the time, it was due to a necessity; we’d taken on this LMS that was written in Perl and we were trying to hack it to our needs.

Chris Spooner

Chris Spooner is a web designer who owns two popular design blogs called Blog.SpoonGraphics and Line25. He has written numerous articles and tutorials on his sites as well as other well-known web design blogs including Smashing Magazine. One of my favorite tutorials is called How to Create an Author Section in WordPress. You can also follow Chris on Twitter.

What do like like most/least about your job?

Clients. Clients are definitely the best and worst thing about web design. On one hand they provide the work and the challenges that help you grow as a designer, but they sometimes also bring the face-palm moments all designers dread.

What educational background is necessary for this job?

No official education is necessary, but it could help get your foot in the door and learn the basics. Many designers find that self-teaching has been their best form of education, especially when you consider how fast the industry moves. Many courses are at least a year or two out of date.

What are the steps necessary to break into this field?

Create a core portfolio of work, begin networking locally and online and keep learning!

What is a typical day like for you?

I actually gave a good insight of my typical day in this post.

What important skills are needed for this job?

A passion for the industry and drive to keep learning are the most crucial in my opinion.

If you could do one thing over, what would it be and why?

I’m happy with everything so far. Any mistakes have led to an increased knowledge or a lesson learned, so I wouldn’t change anything.

Jon Phillips

Jon Phillips is a web designer who founded Spyre Studios, which is located in Montreal, Canada. His also has a popular design blog called SpyreStudios, where he shares his abundant design knowledge to aspiring designers. One of my favorite posts from his site is called 48 Excellent Examples of Blog Post Footer Designs. You can contact Jon via his contact page and follow him on Twitter.

What do you like most/least about your job?

What I like best is the creative process, coming up with ideas and concepts for a particular project, whether it be a personal one or for a client. I do enjoy writing CSS, HTML and PHP, but what I like the best is the whole creative process and designing user interfaces. As for the worst part, I guess that would be accounting. I find it’s simply a boring task and it’s time spent that I could put to better use working on designs. But that’s just me haha.

What educational background is necessary for this job?

I know many designers/developers have studied art or programming, but in my case, I am self-taught and it’s worked out great for me. Of course I spend a ton of time reading tutorials and articles about design, and from what I know, a lot of this stuff they don’t teach you in school. Many web-designer friends of mine who have studied design, art or programming are often struggling to find clients and are not aware of some of the latest techniques and trends, they don’t read blogs and online articles. They should though.

What are the necessary steps to break into this field?

I think you need to network with other designers, read blogs (also write a blog if you can/want) and get out there and find clients. There’s tons of sites like Behance, Coroflot, Carbonmade and DeviantArt via which you can showcase your work. Of course at first you may not have a lot of client work to show, but working on personal projects usually fill that void, and it will help get actual paying clients. I think that once you have a solid portfolio and online presence, it’s only a matter of branding and finding the right clients for you (of course you need to go through some bad projects and clients – it’s part of the process and you can learn a lot from those) One of the things you absolutely need to do in my opinion, is use social networks. Twitter has been great for me, and many of my best clients I’ve found through there, they sent me a message and we then exchanged emails, etc… There’s no ‘definitive guide’ to making it in the design field, what works for me may not work for you, but it’s just a matter of trial and errors I guess.

What is a typical day like?

I usually wake up pretty early, make coffee, check emails, Twitter, Facebook and other social networks. Then I check my to-do list (which I wrote down before going to bed the day before) and see if I need to make any changes on there. Then I reply to emails, messages and blog comments if needed. I’m usually done with all this around noon. Then I start working on actual projects, website designs, WordPress integration, my own projects, my blog, etc… Then I usually take a break for dinner, and work some more in the evening. At the end of the day I’ll take about half an hour to see what I’ve accomplished during the day and write my to-do list for the next day.

What are important skills needed for this job?

Of course you need to be proficient with tools like Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks, and I believe you also should be able to write CSS and HTML markup, and if you can, some PHP and Javascript (jQuery, MooTools, etc…) but I think the most important skill is communication. It doesn’t matter if you can build a web application in 4 hours if you have no communication skills. Every client is unique and every designer/developer you work with will also be unique, so you need to be able to wear many hats and be good at communicating with people, asking questions and ‘getting things right’. Photoshop and CSS skills come second I think.

If you could do one thing over, what would it be and why?

If I could turn back time, I think I would’ve started a blog earlier. Ever since I started blogging and networking with other designers and people in the design community, so many doors have opened. I wouldn’t be where I am right now if I had not started a blog. Now I can only imagine where I would be if I had started a blog say, 5 years earlier

Conclusion:

I would like to thank Jad, Jacob, Chris, and Jon for taking the time out of their busy schedule to answer my questions about the design career. In addition, I hope that this interview shed some light into my readers who are considering pursuing a design career.

Image via Pop!Tech

Do you have any questions or comments  you would like to be heard? Then leave your questions or comments below!

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