Never Give Up

Story of not giving up if you want to become a designer. Also don’t mind the cheesy title It’s Sunday and I am too lazy to come up with something else.

When I was in 8th grade of elementary school I got introduced to blogging. I blogged about my everyday life and high school problems, but the most awesome thing that got me hooked to blogging was creating blog designs. I discovered a couple of blogs that created designs for other bloggers. I was curious and wanted to learn how to do it so I can customize my own blog. I watched a couple of tutorials and there it was — my first blog design.

I remember HTML to be very confusing and big and I had to change only three or four lines of code to make the design work. I used some random Photoshop-like third-party tools to create images and apply filters to photos. After that, I uploaded them to ImageShack and I pasted “embed” code to the HTML. I just had to adjust paddings and block sizes. I really liked it, and I remember making my second blog where I just uploaded designs and made new ones for people who asked me to. It was fun doing it.

After that nice period of time I mostly just drew in photoshop and applied filters to the photos which I later uploaded to DeviantArt. I have even done it for other people. I had dozens of images.

I got a bit down because I didn’t know what to do with myself in which direction should I go but I got introduced to HTML once more in the second year of college. I liked it. A LOT.

I remember the first project I created was bad. Really bad. Later on, I made a website for my dad. I improved a little, but it was still bad. Everything was bad, I didn’t know how to start so I enrolled into Web design course. I haven’t learned a thing because I was learning basic stuff which I already knew. I paid and I got a certificate which now collects dust on my shelf, right next to my college diploma. But I didn’t give up quite yet. Since I didn’t even know that web design is a subcategory of UX/UI design I thought I could do everything so I made some bad business decisions while I was freelancing which were really just depleting my energy while the money was below average.

After some time, while working at jobs unrelated to IT because I had no experience whatsoever, and no one would hire me, plus bad freelancing, I became slightly depressed and thought I will never find a job like a web designer. I knew I had a lot to learn but there was nobody to guide me through that process. I am the kind of person that needs good motivation to start doing something and a patient leader with pretty good nerves. At that period of time, I had little to no motivation to start doing anything and I was unproductive. I had sent over twenty job proposal e-mails and none of them were successful.

The main problem was I didn’t know how to properly start and I was thinking of giving up and I’ve come to terms with the fact that I will never work in IT.

After a while…

…luckily I got hired. I sent a desperate email to one company of which I heard and was hiring students. I actually got invited to an interview. I was overwhelmed! I had an utterly bad portfolio, no concrete experience, and no idea what to expect. Initially, I thought I was gonna work with HTML and CSS but at the interview, my assumptions turned false. The designer was mentioning UX and UI — something I didn’t have any experience with and I had no idea what do I have to do.

Now I’m there for almost a year, I’m learning every day and constantly trying to improve. There are ups and downs, but I try my best not to let things get in my way. I’m still in the process of becoming the very best (Pokemon ❤) and I won't let things get me down.

And after all, I can conclude I’m glad I didn’t give up.

Don’t give up.

Ever.