Working as a web designer?

You can work as freelancer web designer for flexible hours.

Never worked at a company as a web designer, decided to freelance instead.

If you work at a company for web design, you're not going to have flexible hours. Would probably be 9-5 unless you go part-time and the salary is not high at all. If you're entry-level you might do $10-$15 per hour, if you have some experience maybe $20 an hour. Have to be a project leader or manager to really make a decent wage. However, this will depend on where you live. This is what I see around here in the Milwaukee area.

You can try with fixed prices.What do you need? Coder , designer or both..?

If you're looking for flexibility and a high hourly rate, I would suggest you freelance as well so you can set your own rate and work for yourself and get all the benefits of your work. The harder you work the more money you earn. The older I get the harder I find it is to work for someone else, when I reached by 30's I literally couldn't handle working as an employee anymore and craved my own flexibility and worklife balance. Be aware that you get out what you put in, and sometimes you might be up to all hours getting work done. If you're not afraid of hard work, and you've got the talent this could be a good avenue for you.

It depends on the company you're working for. Before you apply to a company, take a look at the reviews for that company.

We own stgeorgewebdesign.com and we do web design all the time. I personally love designing sites with Wordpress.

Hello Devis, working hours and your salary both are depending upon your skills and the company norms. If you want to work according to your norms then go for freelancer.

If I'm really good at what I do, I would rather do it by own for myself as a freelancer. Working for others sucks.. as they use your skills and talent to get profit then why don't you use it for yourself.

I currently work for a web design and marketing firm as a project manager. I have also worked full time as a freelancer. I still freelance occasionally, but I just don't feel like doing it much after putting in a 40 hr. week for an employer. I have my own stuff I sell on the net and that keeps me busy enough in my spare time.

My employer pays well for the area I live in. If I were to relocate I could get even more pay. I would say that web design and development is a good career choice if it can maintain your interest and enthusiasm. If it does not get your interest, you won't ever excel at it and probably won't get hired. Truthfully, you need to be to be enthused with it so you will be motivated to create websites for a portfolio. Portfolio is more important than education in this field. This field is a continual learning field. So learning new stuff needs to be appealing to you too.

If you go this route, learn all you can about html, html5 and CSS. Learn on page SEO too. You will also benefit to learn cPanel and WHM. Those are the most popular web control platforms and there are way more Linux servers than windows. As far as my job goes, there is a lot more to it than just design and development. The more you know, the more marketable you will be.

My 2 cents

I share with you my personal experience:

- Always being paid with cents.
- Not allowing you to be creative (do this even if it's bad, do this).
- No flexibility.

At least from my experience, I think you can get paid well if you find a better position like art director or something more than just a designer, otherwise, you will do what other people want, like a slave with no opinion.

Depending on the job, you can find flexibility, something like few days working at home.

Lots of extra hours, mostly not paid.
Most people don't give a **** about your talent, if you don't like something they will hire someone else right away.

I have been in 4 different agencies, all the same.

What I recommend to you is freelancing, you have full control and you can create your own magic, show your talent and ideas!