Would like to get back into web & multimedia design.

[spacescape]

Back in 1993-1998 I was getting pretty good at designing websites and some small multimedia projects (director, flash, etc.). Since then other than occasionally building a small site for myself, a friend or my father I don't really do many more than 3-5 pages. I would really like to get back into it as well as multimedia design. I'm just wondering where I should start? I'm working on a new Music Project w/ a friend of mine and I'm thinking of using dreamweaver and flash to come up w/ a very nice site that would have streaming music, blogs and e-commerce. The problem is, where do I start to freshen up my skills?

Should I take a couple classes in the fall? Training books w/ tutorials?

Anyone have any good suggestions for which direction I should go? I'm 32 and I'm seeing print design as not a good longterm direction and need to get myself re-motivated and retrained ASAP.

Thanks!
Bill

[macnut]

My roomie is a pro. He writes code in HTML, CSS, PHP and Java, and uses Flash. He says that Flash is the app to learn.

[weapon]

Start taking classes. The web has changed a lot since '98.

While flash is cool DHTML is where the future lies.

Personally I get books from the library and go for it.

Lynda.com is a good resource for video instructionals.

Good luck.

BTW - There will always be a need for printed materials, don't let the "paperless office" fanatics tell you otherwise.

[M A V I C]

Totally depends on what you want to do. In that time, the level of skill required for the different aspects you describe, has increased dramatically. It used to be people could get away with a lot of bad design, development... but anymore the only clients that will accept such work are not clients you (well, at least I) would want to have.

Find a niche.

I'll tell you a little about my background just so you get an idea of how I found solutions to problems you're about to have. I went to design school, studied mostly print design but back then the web was getting more popular so I played a bit with that. Ended up getting a full time gig doing web design & dev. My design wasn't where I wanted it to be (top 5%) so I switched to development for a while at that job.

The next job I got was pretty much dev only. I did help out the designers create stuff that could be built, but that was about it. I did some design side projects, and even a few all encompassing projects.

In those years I'd done just about everything from DB and DNS management, to using Illustrator to prep images for the web and working with a photography studio to learn color correction for the web.

I started my own business, doing what came in. Sometimes I'd design a PSD and ship it out as a sub contractor, sometimes I'd get a PSD from someone and build the back end.

During that time, I found some people that were way better designers and developers than I. So now I pretty much just manage people except for a few high-level things. I find good clients and solve their problems. Sure I can do everything from admin a streaming server (for which I build a chunk of the admin) to authoring in Final Cut Pro, but anymore I'm much better at the bigger picture than the pieces.

Do you want to do design? Development? Marketing...?

[Mike V]

Down here print designers are in high demand, whilst web designers are a dime a dozen.

Everyone got out of print in the big slump in the early 90s and few know how to do it now.