Sydney is a unique destination. One of the famous and perfect places to work and live, a country with high salaries and a fantastic lifestyle. So, below you will find all the information and on how to get a job as a web designer in Sydney, Australia. It is essential to keep in mind the following topics in your resume or portfolio to have a better opportunity when getting a job as a web designer.
Originality
The first and one of the most important, especially in Australia. Please, do not make your portfolio using Wix or any other Free tools. Although it is a tool with which any mortal can build a website, you can differ from the pile and create your original portfolio. If you know of HTML or jquery help yourself with these tools that are more standard, accessible and will give you better SEO positioning
Buy your Domain
If you want to be a web designer, you should at least have an URL of your own, an internet address to which you can visit. That can cost you 12 dollars, a value that you can cover with your first salary. Invest in a hosting account to host your files; you will project a much more professional image if your design is not surrounded by a pattern that hinders people who want to see your work.
Show your Professional Side
As a designer, you might like zombies, orcs, elves, elves, fairies, werewolves, vampires, death metal, the dead and related themes, but please do not include this one type of work if you want to work on corporate sites. It is not very feasible that you can include this kind of topics in your daily work. It would be very opportune to add these jobs if you are an illustrator and you are working in Australia because, in the end, they will hire you, but for web design of transactional or corporate sites, it is not relevant.
Avoid using templates
The idea is that you design your portfolio from scratch: first making sketches on paper, then wireframes, then mockups in Photoshop or Fireworks, and then coding the site in html5. Creating a portfolio is at the end of solving a design problem.
If you use templates, they usually have a structure and information that you will have to adapt to, because you design something that fits your content and needs and not vice versa. In addition to being a designer, you should be original and creative when choosing a template you may be, but it is not proven. There are excellent html5 and WordPress frameworks like Thematic, Boilerplate, Bootstrap, Foundation to quickly develop your site, have a better position in search engines and be much more semantic.
Be honest
Please do not attribute authorship of illustrations, websites or in general graphic pieces that belong to famous illustrators. Doing a small search on the internet or using the Google images functionality you can search for a site or author just by uploading the image. Telling lies is not good, besides the worst thing that can happen to you is that they believe you and then demand you to do jobs that you are not able to perform.
Do not waste your time
If you are looking for a short-term job and you are a business administrator, accountant, industrial engineer, lawyer, please do not apply for a web designer job. There may be exceptions, and you may work, but until now the rate of success at being “temporary designer” is meagre.
Do exercises with recognised brands
If you apply for a web designer job, and you have no experience, create some web interfaces even with simulated trademarks or recognised names. Just make it clear that it is an experiment, in this way you will be honest and you will be able to demonstrate what you can do on a website.
Colour abuse
It is a stereotype that if you are a graphic designer, you are the craziest of your group, you probably have a crazy hairstyle and things like that. This misconception happens because people tend to associate design with an excess of colour, with slanted texts (which make things difficult or impossible to read) and using more than five different types of typography. It is possible that your physical appearance is colourful, but your designs must communicate something and be understandable because abuse of colour and design do not necessarily correlate.
The resume
As for the format of the resume, the ideal would be a pdf where you do not abuse the weight (size in bytes), with a sober design and with links to sites designed by you. Resumes in Prezi, depending on the content, can be a good option, please be concise and do not extend more than necessary.
Identify the needs of the position.
It is understandable that you like video games, but if you apply for web design, it is not very feasible that you need experience developing characters, modelling or 3D animation. Now, having a good portfolio of these subjects is not easy, there are people specialised in each item. Usually, one person models, another is a specialist in textures, another in lighting and other in animation.
Background Music on your Site
Avoid to the maximum adding background music because it is annoying for the visitor. If it has galleries of images that can stop, advance or rewind, remember that one of the fundamental principles of the usability is that the user has control over the interface, not the other way around.
Specialize
There are resumes of people who have just graduated and claim they know: 3d, modelling, web design, ActionScript and flash, banner design, usability, interface design, photography, illustration, and programming. It is possible that someone knows all these subjects but as a comrade says – they are a sea of knowledge, with a centimetre of depth. It is better to choose one of this specialties and offer your services directly aimed towards that goal.
