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Age matter?

R

RobertD63

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Feb 17, 2008
403
42
A place
I'm just wondering, is there a reason why not many teens like me don't try to design sites? What I'm asking, being younger does it bar you from have important design aspects? For example maybe as a senior I'd end up taking some type of typography class etc. Are there things that you just learn from life that you apply to design? Any insight is super helpful :)
 
You can have raw talent, but sometimes it takes years to hone your craft. I dunno why you couldn't but it's all seat time and experience related.
 
I have my own side business doing web application design. I have worked on projects all through High School. I make professional sites. So no, age does not matter, and yes it is more of a motivational issue.
 
I'm 16 and used to run a site that provides cheats and hacks for a Disney game. Made me some good money.
 
I didn't have the internet when I was in high school so such things never occurred to me, though I did really like computers. I was mostly into hanging with friends, playing sports, and playing video games as a teen. The only productive things I did other than work was doing drawings. Everyone is into their own thing. Teens aren't generally known for their entrepreneur skills.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/532.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0.5 Mobile/8B5097d Safari/6531.22.7)

Thanks for the replies! It's fun for me to code sites up. I tried iPhone developemt but I just lost interest.
(I'm 16 too)
 
When I was in design school, I had a lot of students approach me to ask where I got all of my "good" ideas. I told them through research... and life experience. Because I was about 20-25 years older than the average student, I had a bigger library of life experiences to draw from. However, some of the students had a fresher look than my designs because they weren't bogged down by preconceptions.

Then there are those who excel at any age simply because they have raw talent and a bit of luck. I was just reading about a kid who made his first million selling bundled software at age 16. Now he's started another company and has hired his mom. On the other side, there is my photographer friend who is in his 50's and just filed for his SECOND bankruptcy. I was hanging at his office awhile ago and noticed that he is very busy doing nothing important.

The bottom line, it takes a mixture of everything... but passion, persistence, and an exceptional work ethic are the most important. Having fun now and then helps too! Especially when you are young.
 
THX1139 said:
When I was in design school, I had a lot of students approach me to ask where I got all of my "good" ideas. I told them through research... and life experience. Because I was about 20-25 years older than the average student, I had a bigger library of life experiences to draw from. However, some of the students had a fresher look than my designs because they weren't bogged down by preconceptions.

Then there are those who excel at any age simply because they have raw talent and a bit of luck. I was just reading about a kid who made his first million selling bundled software at age 16. Now he's started another company and has hired his mom. On the other side, there is my photographer friend who is in his 50's and just filed for his SECOND bankruptcy. I was hanging at his office awhile ago and noticed that he is very busy doing nothing important.

The bottom line, it takes a mixture of everything... but passion, persistence, and an exceptional work ethic are the most important. Having fun now and then helps too! Especially when you are young.
Click to expand...

Wise words :), sometimes the young are greatly more intelligent than their elders / superiors at work and I often find youngsters at work (in our construction game) are crushed by being told by dim old horses :p what to do and the youngs are often far more intelligent than their elder superiors. These young horses need to break free and find something better suited for their brains as they're too clever to be doing work like that and their spirit will be crushed :(.
 
I knew a kid who had his own web design company when he was 12. And this was like 1997, too, when the web was still relatively new -- all the big guys had websites, but the small businesses and charities still scrambled to find someone who could make them one. He had a little suit that he'd wear to client meetings, he'd do all the design work and code, put it on a resller hosting plan that he purchased, and made a fair bit of money doing it.

I tried a different approach, back in 1995-96 (when I was in grade 11), I wanted to write an HTML how-to book, unfortunately I was so busy with school that I got delayed trying to finish the manuscript and missed the bandwagon. By the time I had something to show someone, there was already a glut of HTML books in the stores.
 
RobertD63 said:
I'm just wondering, is there a reason why not many teens like me don't try to design sites? What I'm asking, being younger does it bar you from have important design aspects? For example maybe as a senior I'd end up taking some type of typography class etc. Are there things that you just learn from life that you apply to design? Any insight is super helpful :)
Click to expand...

Absolutely. Great ideas rarely come out of the blue. Life experiences, traveling, things that you hear can all contribute to an idea. I wouldn't say there's an age restriction.. if you do outstanding work and you can prove to clients that you did in fact do it and you have the communication skills to deal with them, why not?

I started to learn HTML when I was about 10 by playing around with Geocities and Angelfire :D I'd always build from scratch though.

I'll tell you this from personal experience, I got a job as a creative when I was 15. Worked as the only guy in-house and I definitely learned a lot just from working. By the time I was about 19, I figured I knew enough and decided to try freelance because an ex-coworker referred a client to me.

I did the CSS/HTML and all for the site, I got paid, we were both happy. It felt so great I thought I could do it over and over again. My only problem was I didn't know what I was really worth and if I was even doing anything properly which is when I decided to go through school.

Probably the BEST decision I've ever made. Turns out I was doing it all wrong, from the way I was dealing with the client, paperwork, coding, everything. I'm actually ashamed that I did that website and that was only 1 year ago. I'm 20 now and come November when I graduate, I can guarantee you that I'm going to come out of school as a 125% better designer armed with the know-how on dealing with clients and doing work properly.

That's not to discourage you from actually going out there and trying it out but I'm just warning you of all the intricacies of the business side of doing freelance work.

It's very tough to get a job in the industry without any prior experience as well. Again, life plays a factor here, who do you know and how good is your work? You can have mediocre work but if you know how to pump your own tires and make yourself look awesome to potential clients, you'll get a job ahead of the guy who's got more skills than you but doesn't know how to market himself more often than not.
 
This 16 year old is a millionaire now from his web business :D



I learned HTML, Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and other things in the '90s when I was in high school. There's nothing to stop somebody from learning this stuff in their youth beyond having access to the tools and the motivation.

That being said—they probably won't be very good at it. Development and programming take time and mentorship. Design needs experience (both practical and life). But getting a head start is never a bad thing. ;)
 
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