How to become a Layout Designer

From Marketer to Layout Designer: My Story

In 2022, when the situation on the labor market was not the most favorable, I decided to radically change my career and become a layout designer. Even though it is now 2024, many aspects of my path remain relevant and can help those who want to enter IT.

Previous experience

In 2022, I was a team leader in the media buying department. Working with landing pages gave me basic knowledge of HTML and the Sublime Text editor. Even then, I was interested in programming and had educational projects on GitHub for Python, Django, Ruby, and Ruby on Rails.

Attempts to find work in these areas were unsuccessful. After several unsuccessful interviews and hundreds of responses, I realized that it was time to change my strategy. In July 2022, I decided to quit and devote myself entirely to entering IT.

How I searched for and selected courses

I started with free courses that I found in thematic chats and forums. I watched the first, random and final videos from playlists to understand how suitable the material and the author's presentation were for me. An important criterion was the presence of homework.

Video course training

Followed playlists, repeated after the author and did homework. Sometimes tried to change something to better understand the material. Gradually got used to watching YouTube videos at x2 speed, which significantly accelerated the learning. Saved each lesson on GitHub as a separate commit.

Continuous learning

I constantly felt that I didn't know enough and looked for new courses. Each author offered his own view on things, which helped me better absorb the basic concepts. The courses brought new approaches, practices, and tools.

How long did it take to learn?

From August to December 2022, I studied 6-8 hours six days a week. Studying became my full-time job, and it paid off.

Cost of education

I didn't spend a single ruble on training. All courses were free, which proves that you can enter IT without spending any money.

Job search

Having reworked my resume for Junior Frontend Developer, I started responding to vacancies. After 300-400 responses, I received 20-30 test tasks, 5 screenings and 2 technical interviews. After one of the technical interviews, I received my first offer. Which I accepted.

It was a huge step forward and I was happy to get my first offer. The salary was three times less than the previous one, but I was happy because I started earning money from my knowledge.

Well, now to the courses themselves!

Course One: HTML Academy

Many recommended starting with HTML AcademyThe training format and game elements made the process interesting and exciting.

Course 2: Website Layout from Scratch with Figma

Website layout from scratch using Figma. He introduced me to Figma and new plugins for VSCode. I also got an understanding of how to implement mockups from scratch using code.

Course 3: RS School

In September I joined RS School. This was the biggest boost in knowledge, thanks to mentoring and evaluating other people's code.

I never finished my studies at RS School. Life threw me some unpleasant circumstances: although I had a financial cushion for 10+ months, I couldn't afford to sit without work for so long. And studying at RS for almost another half a year and entertaining myself with the hope of getting an interview, not to mention an offer from EPAM, became a luxury.

Course four: Aroken.ru

Rate from Aroken.ru was difficult, but very useful. It taught me how to search and google information. Plus it helped me consolidate the knowledge I had already acquired.

Course Five: Gulp, Webpack, SASS

Learning these technologies was the next step. They were often listed in job postings.

I found a course for this HTML, GULP, SASS website layout | Personal blog #1 where the necessary technologies are involved.

I also studied the textbook in parallel JavaScript and solved problems on Codewars. Which helped deepen my knowledge of JS.

Learning the framework

I chose React because it is the most popular and has the most training material.

Completed courses on freeCodeCamp. An excellent site for basic familiarization with different directions in development.

Then I found a course ReactJS – The Way of the Samuraiwhich gave me in-depth knowledge.

Huge respect to Dimych for the presentation, format, explanations, examples. For me, this is one of the best courses on React.

Conclusion

With hard work, motivation and discipline, anything is possible.

And remember: you either do it or you don't!