Become a Remote Designer: Plan your self-taught career
I'm here to give you the most practical plan to become a designer that works online. It's the plan I wish someone had given me when I started.
I plan to give you this guide, step by step, because information is useless if it isn't shared with others.
👉 Important: This isn't your typical guide on how to get a job quickly. This is a guide on how to build a career online and be able to work remotely. It's a guide to understanding the internet. If you decide to do it, you'll embark on an experience that will last for months, full of challenges. But it's 100% worth it.
To be able to find work, you will need:
🖥️ A computer with an internet connection.
⏰ Time to dedicate to it (if you already have a job, it will take you longer, but you can 100% achieve it)
🧠 A strong desire to learn how the internet and design work
📚 Willingness to research on your own
💡Curiosity
Curiosity, I would say, is one of the most important because if you don't have enough curiosity to navigate the internet, and click here and there, you won't end up in the right places to help you move forward.
This example is specifically focused on design because that’s what I specialized in (I first learned programming), but if you understand the mechanics of this guide, you can apply it to anything you want to do online. That said, let's get started.
1. To organize your career plan, first you need to choose which type of design you want to learn. There are many, but I will give you two that are the most in demand in the job market:
UX/UI design: this is currently the best paid and one of the most in-demand careers in technology.
Graphic design: I don't need to explain much here, traditional graphic design but applied to the virtual world. It’s also very much in demand.
There's also Brand Design (I specialize in this with a mix of UX/UI), but generally, these careers require more specialization and are not fields where many juniors are requested, i mean not like in the previous ones. However, it’s completely possible to enter the job market as a trainee or junior in UX/UI or graphic design. Then you can start specializing and pivoting wherever you see fit.
How to know which one is for me?
👉 If you like design, the visual part, but you're more inclined to think about how to build user experiences, prototypes, app or website flows to make them as intuitive and efficient as possible, then you'd be better off learning UX/UI.
👉 On the other hand, if you're 100% into the visual aspect, enjoying designing a poster more than an app, for example, then you will enjoy graphic design more.
Now, the reason why people without experience are not hired is because… they don't have experience. Obviously. And breaking that cycle is very difficult.
2. Since we can't rely on work experience to get a job, we will rely on personal projects. One advantage design has over other careers is that it’s visually driven, and that's what you're going to exploit.
Your plan will consist of, as you learn, you will translate that knowledge into personal projects. You won't wait until you have one or two years of study; no, you will start creating as you learn.
The point is to be able to show your future employer: “look, I've never had a formal job in this field, but I can solve this problem, and I can prove it.” That's what a portfolio is for 💼
And what will be in your portfolio?
If you do UX/UI, you need to upload projects where you show you can create interfaces. This is demonstrated through case studies. And what is a case study? Don't let the words scare you; it's just a presentation where you simply explain what the problem is, what you are going to do to solve that problem, and why. This presentation shouldn't have a lot of text; on the contrary, it should be shown in such a way that anyone can see and understand it without needing to be an expert on the subject since it will mainly be seen by recruiters who are not designers and only have like 3 seconds to view your profile ⏳ This is important.
What could be a problem? It could be something simple, some examples:
A finance app you always use that bothers you because it's not intuitive, and then you decide to redesign it.
You create an app or website with a service you always wished existed exactly as you imagine it, applying user psychology knowledge.
Or even a nice, minimalist web design. Don't overcomplicate it; it's not as hard as it seems, really.
If you do graphic design, ideally you will show your creations in beautiful presentations in the niches where you want to work. For example, if you like music and books, upload projects where you create posters of your favorite artists or redesign book covers, like I did some time ago.
You can check out my Behance for inspiration with works I've done in UX/UI and branding; some are from real clients and others are conceptual. This way, you'll see it's not that hard.
But I do recommend that you truly don't copy anyone on the internet for 3 reasons:
Although the internet is really big, there are not that many designers, and the original creator or someone who knows the creator can see what you did and publicly report you. Believe me, I've seen it.
If you manage to get hired because of it, you actually haven't learned to do anything, and your boss will realize it sooner or later. It’s very hard to recover a career if you were fired for lying or not knowing enough, your future boss will call your previous boss. There’s no way around it.
It's simply wrong to steal someone else's credit, don't do it.
3. In this part of the portfolio, it will require a lot of initiative; so be proactive 💡 No one is going to come and give you a job, so you have to be innovative and try to differentiate yourself from other designers.
Spend hours and hours looking at what others are doing on Pinterest, Behance, Dribbble, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, forums, everywhere. The only way to have the necessary imagination to stand out is by nourishing yourself with what others are doing.
If you don't know what to do, work on projects in trending niches. A while ago, it was web3 and cryptos, and now it's AI. You can do things related to that and you can even help friends and family with work they need for free, to show that you have experience.
You're probably wondering, how am I going to do a project if I don't know where to learn?
Well, it's true that to be a semi-senior or senior in something, you need to know a lot about it, both technically and practically. But to be a junior, you don't need to spend 6 years studying at a university. You can do it, and it would be great, but it's not mandatory.
Start immersing yourself in information, use every free moment of your day to research the topic you like on Google, and on every social media you have.
You see how social media show you the topics you like? Well, we're going to consciously retrain our social media and the internet to eventually show us everything about the career we want to study.
👉 This way, you will always be learning small things that will compound over time, keeping you updated with the latest news.
Staying updated is one of the most important things if you want to work in technology
4. Another key point if you want to create your own career self-taught is to learn to research, to Google, to use ChatGPT.
The internet has everything, and 99% of it is free, and what you need is somewhere hidden, waiting for you to find it.
Sit down every time you have time and dive into the internet, immerse yourself, start entering sites, and within those sites, other sites, click on things, open a thousand tabs, read forums and youtube comments, Googling has to become something that doesn't make you uncomfortable since you'll be doing it forever if you choose to work online.
Start simple, write “how to be a graphic designer” “how to be a UX/UI designer.” and immerse yourself in the search for hours. Read PDF books, internet articles, watch YouTube videos, ask people on Twitter, ask in forums, you have to do the homework.
‼️ Here’s a super tip that will always help you to know what to learn first:
Suppose you want to be a UX/UI designer, look for junior positions in this field on sites like “remote.com” “workingnomads.com” and so on, the usual ones.
When you find these positions, choose the best ones, and you'll see that the company has written in detail what you will do day to day, what skills you need to have, and what software you will use.
Take it as a guide 💡 More than a job position, they are giving you a step-by-step guide of the minimum and basic things you need to learn and demonstrate in your case studies to be competent for the job.
Write it down and start researching each of those things, and voila, you have your own roadmap! ✨
Combine that with what YouTubers/other designers tell you is necessary to learn, and you'll have a very solid base to start. As I said, you have to be very proactive.
Suppose you have already done and learned what you need. You already have your first version of the portfolio finished, now what?
5. Now you have to contact those companies. There are several options, and I recommend you apply them all together, every day, for the necessary months until you get your first job.
To make it more scalable, you need to have ready to upload:
a website and/or a Behance profile with your projects
a resume with your projects in PDF format
a portfolio in PDF format
and the basic texts you need to fill out for all job searches (your description, why do you want to work here, etc).
And now, these are the methods:
Method 1: Job board sites + LinkedIn/social media/email
You will look for the job you need on all the job board sites you find, like these👇, but there are millions more. Every time you find a job you like, you will fill out the details and send them.
And THEN, you will look for the company on LinkedIn, click on “People,” and look for people with important positions or talent recruiters. You will write them a message saying you saw their job posting, that you are interested for X reason, that you think you would be a good match for the job for X reasons, and you send them a link to your portfolio, your designer social media, and your email.
Don't expect a response, almost never is there one, but sometimes there is, and that can make you advance a lot among all the dozens of people who sent an application.
💡 If LinkedIn is complicated, try contacting these people on Twitter, Instagram, or email.
Method 2: Create designer profiles on social media like X/Twitter and ask for work there.
You should do this from the first day you start learning, show your progress, show your designs, like a private diary. Connect with people and empathize, provide value, and when you're ready to work, you can comment on Twitter that you are available for jobs, commissions, and open to opportunities.
💡 It can be difficult, but the sooner you start on Twitter, the better. It's incredible how much information moves there, and it’s often, an excellent place to land freelance work.
Method 3: Look for companies you like and redesign or improve their designs
And send them to the most important people in the company through their social media without asking for anything in return. Nothing is more annoying than someone asking for a job without giving anything in return.
So just add value, and if something more happens from that, even better. You can even share that conceptual work on your social media and tag them so people start to see what you do.
Final tips that will help you speed up the process:
Send dozens of job applications per week, don't give up. Remember that your goal is to get your first job that unlocks access to the virtual job market. And then everything will be uphill.
Learn AI: ChatGPT, MidJourney, Photoshop AI, Claude, Runway, Krea, and other tools. AI is now your best friend; it’s your Google. You need to make it part of your creative process. If you don't, you will find yourself at a disadvantage with the rest who are using it.
Pay a lot of attention to your personal brand. This is a huge plus; if you want to be remembered and chosen over others, not only do your designs have to stand out, but so do you.
Be honest with your portfolio and with yourself; ask yourself if, being someone else, you would like what you did. If you're not sure, don't be afraid to change what needs to be changed or delete it and start over. If you don't like it, no one else will.
And remember, less is more.
I wrote a lot in this post and maybe I scared you, made you believe it's impossible. It's not impossible.
Does what I say require a lot of effort? Yes, obviously, but if it were easy, everyone would have it, and if it were easy, they wouldn’t pay anything for the job. It's this difficulty that makes the opportunity valuable 💸
What I say is 100% possible, and I can prove it because I've achieved it this way and many other people I know have too (I spent 8 months learning for free on the internet until I found my first job). Just remember that luck does exist, but when that stroke of luck comes, you have to be prepared to receive it and know what to do with it; otherwise, it will pass by and be useless. Don’t get discouraged; I believe in you :)
I hope this post has helped, subscribe for more content like this and don't hesitate to leave me a comment if you have any questions or need more information 💌