How to get started as a designer?

Question

Design

Good afternoon! I want to start my career as a web designer. I looked through several courses, I read books, but the campaign raises many questions. Is it possible to find a mentor? Not so much to sit straight and discuss everything, but to guide in some issues, suggest where to look, what to learn. Ready to do some work for free, but with consultations. If you have any other suggestion, please write.

Answer 1

Books are good, but specifics are needed.
To get started, you need to move on to work on specific tasks - even if the customers are fictitious or those who did not ask you about it. This is a completely different job than sitting and drawing abstract buttons without sewing on a mare's tail.
Relatively speaking, projects like:
- I am a dissatisfied Wikipedia user and decided to redraw it in a way that would be better.
- Today I was in Sberbank, I couldn’t figure out for half an hour how money is put on the phone there - and I decided to redraw the interface of their terminal.
- I bought kefir in Auchan, and let me draw a logo for this kefir.
- Went to Gismeteo, got sick of the sight, decided to redesign them.
- I read the Interfax website, damn it, how dull everything is. But what if the art director sets the task: to draw a website for a serious news agency with the obligatory use of pink?
Etc. This structures the brains, and something may go into the portfolio later.

Answer 2

To be a web designer, you need to be able to create a complete picture (page image) first in your head, and then visualize it in a graphic editor with a distinction between information zones (header, menu, blocks, etc.).
The main condition is that it should be convenient for site visitors to use (UI / UX).

Answer 3

Find a mentor - no. It 's more expensive to monitor and fix your jambs for free
Find a job - yes
Find critics - yes. There are a lot of sites where they will poke you in your joints

Answer 4

rub until complete satisfaction

Answer 5

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCJGeZHgm6o&t=2s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wuCEHnw2N4g&t=169s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izKlGmEZHAM&t= 14s