Whether you’re a traditional graphic designer taking your first wobbly steps toward Internet design or a sure-footed and web-savvy veteran, you face the same challenge--how to continuously build your skills and keep on top of technological advances. It seems that no sooner is a scripting language, software upgrade, or design tool introduced than it becomes a required bullet-point on the resume of everyone in the Internet design field. The task can seem overwhelming: how do you build your skills while keeping on top your regular job and then maybe have a life on the side? Starting a personal training regimen is the easiest way to ensure that your skills remain sharp and continue to grow. By following the steps below, you can put yourself on a program that will pump up your web design skills and make you one of the more attractive prospects in the job market.

If this seems obvious, let this simply serve as a kick in the pants. Keeping your web browsers upgraded and loaded with all of the latest plug-ins takes a little bit of time, but it will allow you to use and abuse new technologies soon after they are introduced. If you are serious about web design, you should always have the most current versions of both Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer installed on all systems you use. Even if you won’t be using the latest advances on your current projects, you’ll always have a glimpse of what’s to come, so you won’t be surprised when it lands in your lap.

This also applies to authoring tools and upgrades to all of you graphics and web development applications. Keep all of your tools as current as possible. If you’re not using Adobe Photoshop 5.5, you’re missing out on some great web-friendly features and time savers. If you’re working on DHTML or Javascript skills, you can get by with Notepad or a shareware HTML editor, but if you’re doing advanced graphics, keeping your software current is essential. For those folks who don’t have an unlimited budget, there are some inexpensive and even free shareware applications available all over the Internet.

If there isn’t an inexpensive application available, and you don’t want to pony up the cash for an application from a major software developer, you can always try talking your employer into buying it. If you’re a graphic designer preparing web graphics, and you’re department doesn’t own a copy of Macromedia Flash, write a business case explaining all of the great services your firm will be able to offer once you acquire it. Gather together some websites that use Flash animation, then corral your supervisors around your monitor and give them an impromptu sales pitch. If you’re lucky, you’ll come back from lunch some afternoon to find a shiny, new, shrink-wrapped software package on your desk. If you’re not lucky, you just might have to buy it yourself--after all, investing a few hundred bucks in an application like Flash could pay dividends down the road when you land a premium web design job, or you become the only freelancer in your area to offer fully-animated websites.

New technologies, skills and applications take a while to filter down to your local community college, and professional-level courses cost so much that even large employers won’t foot the bill. So your only option is learn on your own through experimentation, reading manuals (sic!), studying books and guides, browsing magazine articles, and just plain examining the source code of web pages you admire. Whatever your preferred method, you’ll need to gather your sources first. Checking your local magazine stand or library once a month can help you gather a wealth of how-to articles on almost any subject from Perl programming to tips and tricks for Macromedia Director and Adobe Photoshop. Start to gather an archive of these articles. There are also dozens of books available on a new technology or application almost as soon as it arrives. Peachpit Press has a comprehensive, up-to-date selection of ‘how-to’ titles. Adobe offers the "Classroom in a Book" series for all of its titles. Check the reviews at amazon.com to see what other designers think of a particular book.

And don’t forget the Internet as a resource. There are dozens of websites like this one that offer resources for designers and developers, covering every technology you can imagine, and you can also use your learning time to dissect those sites that blow you away. Once you’ve gathered your resources together, you’re ready to move onto the next step.

Now that you’ve got your browsers up-to-date, acquired the software you need and gathered your learning materials, you can start to flesh out your training program. Find some time you can set aside every day for working on the technology you want to learn, or the skills you want to sharpen. It doesn’t have to be very long—twenty or thirty minutes will be plenty. Any more than that and your brain will rebel. If you’re an average person, you can sustain intense focus for about fifteen minutes; everything beyond that won’t be retained. With a little practice, you can work your way up to thirty minutes of focusing time. If you want to spend more time, say an hour, then work in fifteen-minute spurts with a five-minute break in between. But keep it short, and you will be fine. Fifteen minutes a day doesn’t seem like a lot, but you’ll be surprised at how much you’ve learned after a few weeks.

What is more important than the length you spend studying new material is that you develop a routine that you will be able to stick to for months on end; make it an essential part of your day so that it will be missed when you are forced to skip it. I like to work at eight in the morning when my brain is refreshed. While everyone else in the office is checking their email and voice messages, or reading the sport pages, I’m hitting the books. The work starts to roll in at about eight thirty, and I put the books aside. Some folks use time out of their lunch break. Others like to study late at night after their kids are in bed. Whatever the case, make sure it is at a point that won’t interfere with your current duties, and it’s a schedule you can stick to.

When you are finished with your study session for the day, jot down an entry in a some sort of notebook or journal. This will be your training log. Remember taking notes in college? Well, it’s time to pick up that old habit again. It’s true that your brain has an unlimited capacity to store information, but the ability to recall is sometimes flawed; it can be improved by reviewing what you’ve learned. Reread your training log thirty minutes after you’re finished studying for the day, then review it again before you start your next session. Constant refreshing of the new material will improve your ability to retain it.

You’ll also be able to keep track of any ideas that come to mind when you’re in the midst of your studying. You might run into something that makes you say, "hey, I’ll try that on my web page," only to forget it later on. Your log will be a record of these ideas.

Keeping a training log is an exercise in discipline. It will help reinforce your commitment to improving your skills. As you add pages and entries, you’ll be able to look back and see how far you’ve come. The lines of javascript you struggled with in the first week will become second nature by the third.

This one also sounds obvious, but it is not always so cut and dried. If you’re a traditional graphic designer who wants to move into the Internet arena, you may not be able to use your new knowledge at your current job. Conversely, of you’re a programmer working on sharpening you Photoshop skills, the ‘professional designers’ working on the front end might scoff at your attempts to design an interface. What you need is a training ground…a place where you can learn through trial and error.

One training ground is your online portfolio. Every web designer should have a website that highlights their skills. If you’re adept at javascript and gif animation, your site should reflect these skills. If your strength is in building server-side applications, then your sight should demonstrate this. If you’re thinking about looking for a new position down the road, an online portfolio is essential; you’ll someday be able to throw that old printed portfolio away for good. I’ve had one interviewer waltz into the conference room, plug his laptop into a LAN connection and say, "Okay man, let’s look at your stuff…give me some of your URLs" without giving my trusty leather portfolio a second glance.

After you’ve got your design portfolio online and current, start working on some other sites. If nothing job-related is available, use a few hours out of your weekends and volunteer to design a website for your bridge club, swim team, church, synagogue, community center, public library, or your local chapter of the Sierra Club. The more committed you are to the organization the better, because you will be more inclined to produce and maintain a quality product. Use the website as a testing ground for the new skills you are learning. The great thing about this approach is that you’ll have an audience of average endusers to give you feedback. If the Sierra Clubbers are checking your site for meeting times and the dates for the annual backpacking trip, you’ll hear if it’s working or not, or if people are having trouble navigating or finding their way. They’ll also let you know when they think it’s cool, and anything that inflates your ego will reaffirm your commitment to sharpening your skills. After a few extra-curricular projects like this, you will the have experience and samples to round out your resume and portfolio.

Keeping abreast of technology is a huge task, but you should treat it as a challenge, not an obstacle. By sticking to a training program, you can be assured that you are always keeping yourself valuable in an ever-changing marketplace. Learning technical skills gradually is also a lot less painful than cramming to learn some new programming language because you want to apply for a new position has been opened in your company. You’re brain’s capacity to store information is limitless; you should take advantage of any opportunity to start filling it up.

More BrainDump Articles
More By Dave Baker

developerWorks - FREE Tools!

IBM – Taking Web 2.0 to Work You'll get answers to many questions and more from David Barnes, Lead Evangelist for IBM Emerging Internet Technologies. David will discuss aspects of Web 2.0 that bring value to corporations, academia, and government. He'll also discuss IBM's vision around Web 2.0, including the importance of remixability and consumability. The discussion will culminate with examples of various IBM Software Group solutions you can use to get ahead of the Web 2.0 adoption curve. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Best Practices: The Integrated Project and Portfolio Management Platform. Hear how IBM Rational Project and Portfolio Management integrated solutions help teams put the right tools and processes in place to maximize the effectiveness and efficiency of project teams and ensure that the business vision is being executed correctly. Learn how to automate and integrate requirements prioritization, top-down project planning, communications and controls, and methodology deployment to keep your scope, costs, and schedules under control. Tackle with an end-to-end approach the management of scope and scope changes, usage of methodology to control and empower project teams, and optimization of resources to align activity costs with the overall project plan. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Download DB2 Express-C 9.5 Visit IBM developerWorks to download IBM DB2 Express-C 9.5, a no-charge version of DB2 Express 9 database server. DB2 Express-C offers the same core data server base features as other DB2 Express editions and provides a solid base to build and deploy applications developed using C/C++, Java, .NET, PHP, and other programming languages. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Getting started with JavaServer Faces 1.2, Part 1: Building basic applications JavaServer Faces (JSF) technology, a server-side framework that offers a component-based approach to Web user-interface development, has come a long way. JSF 1.2 (incorporated into Java Enterprise Edition 5) has fixed some JSF pain points and added some nice features. This tutorial series covers how to get started with JSF 1.2. It's heavy on examples and light on theory -- just what you need to get started quickly. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! IBM Rational Systems Development e-Kit As systems increase in complexity, communication between systems and software teams becomes more and more difficult. Now, there’s a way to improve product quality and communication.<br />Read the “Model Driven Systems Development” white paper to see how. Also included in this kit are more educational white papers, customer examples, tutorials, informative Webcasts, and best practices for designing, building and managing systems.<br /> FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Implement new security capabilities in DB2 9.5, Part 2: Understanding trusted contexts IBM DB2 9.5 provides new options for tighter security, and allows for more granularity and flexibility in administration of the database. This tutorial is the second of two tutorials that cover roles and trusted contexts. Follow the exercises in this tutorial, and learn how to take advantage of the new DB2 feature trusted contexts in combination with other essential e-business technologies such as Web services, Web application server, and DB2 database server. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Improve your build process with IBM Rational Build Forge, Part 2: Automate builds for a real-world Tomcat project Learn how Rational Build Forge can extend a simple compile and package build process by adding customization and deployment capability. Go from a manual method to automating: checking for code changes; getting the latest source; compiling and packaging; customizing; copying to and restarting a deployment server; and sending e-mail notification that a new version is available. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Krugle, developerWorks, and code search Ken Krugler, co-founder of code search company Krugle, and Laura Merling, vice president of Marketing and Business Development for Krugle, join to talk about the ins and outs of code search and what it means as a new feature for developerWorks users. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Rational Asset Manager eKit Learn how to do more with your reusable assets with the free Rational Asset Manager eKit. The eKit includes demos on how Rational Asset Manager tracks and audits your assets in order to utilize them for reuse. Plus you’ll find white papers and a Webcast that discuss the challenges of a Service Oriented Architecture and how Rational Asset Manager can provide quick and effective solutions. FREE! Go There Now!

NEW! Webcast: Quickly provide customized, integrated user interfaces with Lotus Notes 8 IBM Lotus Notes 8 provides a wide range of developers the ability to provide customized, integrated user interfaces via composite applications and via custom sidebar and toolbar plug-ins. This webcast provides you with tips and techniques to use with out-of-the-box capabilities of Lotus Notes 8, and survey how you can share useful components within your own company and within a larger community. FREE! Go There Now!

All FREE IBM® developerWorks Tools!