studiomaqs

Notes from: “How to become A Web Design Expert” article

Just read an article at smashingmagazine.com. The subject is:  ”How to become A Web Design Expert”

What I’ve learned from this article is:

• All the experts are not very well known
• Being an expert is more then about getting people to listen
• Being perceived as an expert can be helpful when working with clients, and it does create the potential to attract better-quality work.
• To become an expert, you need time and experience
• Proficient at overcoming problems
• Without passion, you have no desire to learn new things or push boundaries.
  
• I believe that an almost obsessive passion for Web design is required to be a true expert.
• Experimenting and making mistakes are crucial if experts are to establish their credibility.
• I have to make mistakes, not hundreds or thousands. Billions of them.
• Success is going from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm. - Winston Churchill
• The definition of an expert is someone who knows what not to do. - Charles Willson
• We need to learn to face our failures
• stop insisting that you are an expert
• Not that context is everything. It’s also about what you say and how you say it.
  
• Have your own books, presentations, blogs and podcast about your experties
• If you want to be perceived as an expert, know yourself, be relaxed and present with confidence.
• present evidence/reference to support your positions
• Your expertise should always be about serving others
• You become an expert so that you can do a better job for your clients, provide more value to your organization and help others establish best practice in your industry
  

Reading: June 2010

• HTML5 Canvas – The Future of Graphics on the Web
• Who Dominates Your Design?
• What are web standards?

Reading: May 2010

• A Brief History of Markup
• Top 10 Free Online CSS Editors For Web Designers
• 10 Golden Lessons From Steve Jobs
• The Mighty Pixel is Not Sacred
• Simple, Practical Color Theory
• Life After My Day Job… How I Monetized My Passion
• 15 in-Depth Examples of Addictive User Experience
• High Converting Web Design With Offshoring
• The State of Web Development 2010
• Website Maintenance Tips for Front-End Developers
• 50 Totally Free Lessons in Graphic Design Theory
• My advice to anyone planning to become a web developer
• How to Become a Self-Employed, Freelance Web Developer

Reading: April 2010

• Thoughts on Flash
• Seven JavaScript Things I Wish I Knew Much Earlier In My Career
• HTML5: Worth the Hype?
• Front End Web Designers, Developers and Engineers
• What makes a good front end engineer?
• Interviewing the front-end engineer
• input placeholders
• Coding A HTML 5 Layout From Scratch
• The Anatomy of Web Design
• Innovate: Sketch out your ideas
• A Basic Look at Typography in Web Design
• Contrast and Meaning
• Don’t be a Tooler
• The Dying Art Of Design
• Basics of business card design
• Process Toolbox, part one: Backbone
• Contrast is King
• Accentuate Your Learning Curve with Spaced Repetition

Reading: March 2010

• To Sketch or Not To Sketch?
• Ten Tips to Improve your Freelance Portfolio
• What Makes A Great Cover Letter, According To Companies?
• “HTML5″ versus Flash: Animation Benchmarking
• 7 Extremely Useful Chrome Extensions for Web Developers
• User Interface Style Guide
• Mainstream design blogging: The age of crap
• The Brads – Alignment in Design
• How To Build Your Reputation And Authority As A Designer
• 25 Inspirational Offices
• Are you Wasting 50% of your Time?
• What Designers Can Learn from Other Professions
• What Every Designer Should Do Right Now
• 17 Logo Design Case Studies
• 7 Tips For Marketing Your Freelance Business Offline
• jQuery Tutorials for Designers
• Setting rather than Resetting Default Styling
• The Secret Behind Great Designs: A Young Web Designer’s View
• Helpful Photography Cheat Sheets to Make Your Life Easier 
• Find Your Favorite Design Communities on Facebook

Reading: July 2008

• Recipe for a Creative Workspace
• Cheat Sheets for Front-end Web Developers
• 18 of the Best Photoshop Videos Online
• 10 Ways to Take Stunning Portraits
• 50 Things to Do Before You Die
• How to Develop a Social Media Plan for Your Business in 5 Steps
• Vector Illustration: 60+ Illustrator Tutorials, Tips and Best Practices
• 10 of the Best Color Resources and Tools
• 70 Beauty-Retouching Photoshop Tutorials
• Create a Business Plan by Answering 4 Simple Questions
• How to Take Portraits – 19 Portrait Photography Tutorials
• Learn PHP from Scratch: A Training Regimen
• 21 cool webmaster resources

Reading: June 2008

Articles

• Why we skip Photoshop
• Kevin Fox of Gmail & FriendFeed on User Experience Design
• SEO Guide for Designers
• The Big Question: ‘Why Should I Hire You?’
• Clean and pure CSS FORM design
• 10 SEO Rules for Designers
• Applying Divine Proportion To Your Web Designs
• CSS Style Switcher
• It doesn’t have to be all or nothing with a startup
• Aaron Cannon’s Web Accessibility Checklist
• Want to know how to design? Learn The Basics.
• Using CSS to Fix Anything: 20+ Common Bugs and Fixe
• How to get Cross Browser Compatibility Every Time
• An Introduction to Using Patterns in Web Design
• Handy Designer’s Tools “On The Fly”
• The Best Developer Cheat Sheets Around
• Google User Experience
• How to Get a Lot Done – 7 Tips to Achieve More

Tools

• Phiculator
  Phiculator is a simple tool which, given any number, will calculate the corresponding number according to the golden ratio. The free tool is available for both Win and Mac.

Reading: May 2008

• 10 Ways Generation Y Will Change the Workplace
• How to answer 23 of the most common interview questions
• Create a Spectacular Grass Text Effect in Photoshop
• 30 Websites to follow if you’re into Web Development
• 57 Habits of Highly Effective Gmail Users