Skills are the gems of your freelance career. If you don't have a very good or solid skill, or very rare skill, you cannot earn at all. Okay? So let's discuss what does that mean level of skill. Okay, so this is the first factor that is going to set you apart from other freelancers or the freelancing crowd. Okay.
Now, the first advice I always give to new be freelancers and new freelancers is that skill is the main important part of your freelancing career. Now, first thing is that they don't know which skill they need to pursue. So sometimes they say, Okay, I am going to learn 3d max. Okay, now, he's the I saw my friend. He's learning a lot on 3d Max, I should learn 3d max. Okay, now, after some time, they are going to say okay, I have seen a lot of jobs on mobile app development.
I should learn Android Development and something like this. So this is really strange you should not do something like this. Try to choose your skill or the hill you are trying to climb first decide which path you are going to go okay? Then you need to learn the latest tools, techniques and methods you need to come, come climb that hill. Okay, this is going to really set you apart from the crowd, okay, go to the top of that hill. Go to the top of that scale, okay, then try to expand that scale into different skill sets.
Okay, a lot of things which newbie freelancers the Miss is they they don't get much grip on the basics. Okay, now if you have learned HTML and CSS, they might have learned from different tutorials, piece by piece from different sources on internet or maybe watching different beauty videos. The problem here is that you should always learn CSS in depth and learn The basics of it. I used to learn like that. And then I saw a very good CSS video series on treehouse. Okay?
Team Treehouse is a very good online learning resource. And when I saw their CSS videos, I thought that I don't know most of the basics of that CSS. Okay, so Cascading Style Sheets, it's related to front end development and HTML. So this is the basic always try to grip on your basics first, don't skip them. Now the key takeaways are find the field of your interest where you want to go Okay, then get good grip on your basics. And third thing is don't try to become a jack of all trades.
And third thing is that you should not become a jack of all trades, okay? Okay, the second advice I'm going to give you on skills is Keep on improving your skills. The world is moving very fast technology is moving very fast. A lot of new tools, new methods, new technologies, they are emerging with a lot of speed you should always keep improving yourself never stop learning. allocate daily time for learning. Second thing is that if there is a very new technology, don't try to switch too fast.
Okay. Try to be first learn it with some good extent then switch towards it. Like Photoshop and sketch a lot of UI designers they know that sketch is a new UI design tool. But I have seen a lot of senior designers that haven't switched tell yet because they are still learning sketch okay. So first try to learn that tool new tool and then go to the switch. Okay, now also mind the learning curve, okay, so if you are learning a new thing, It will take time and learning curve will be difficult in the end it will be very slow.
So don't switch too early. Now the key takeaways here are, keep improving yourself, never stop learning. And keep in mind that if you are going to learn a new thing or you are going to leave the old tool, then it will take some time to get used to it. Okay. Now, the other thing I tell a lot of newbies or freelancers is that try to combine your skills to create a relevant skill set. Now don't try to make skills that are not relevant like you are mixing 3d Max and HTML they have no relation correlation with each other learn skills that are related to your major skill Okay, so it is like just growing a tree.
If you have a tree try to see whether you can plant more leaves on it, or maybe you can have a fruit, red fruit on it. So this is the brighty, green leaves, your trunk is brown or maybe blackish brown and your fruit is orange or something like that. Okay, so if you are mainly in a branding like you used to design logos, or brochures, so you can also get into web design because you are already familiar with those tools like Photoshop illustrator, okay, so you can easily get into web design field. And you can also learn app app designs and application designs or mobile app designs. Now the second example is that if you have learned HTML and CSS, you can mix JavaScript or maybe Ajax. So these are all front end technologies, maybe you can go ahead and learn AngularJS and few more other advanced techniques or languages.
Now one other combination could be that you have a web design skills and Then you can have HTML, CSS and WordPress. Okay, so these are all front end, you can mix front end with front end design, front end coding and design. But don't go too broad, like I can design websites, I can code them and I can also do coding in PHP and I can also code at the back end or I can also do server side languages c++ C, okay, so if you try to become a jack of all trades, then you will not be a master in any of these skills. Okay. Now the key takeaways are that you need a new skill added to your skill set after one year or maybe two years. Don't stick to one skill.
Try to broaden your skill set okay. And the second tip is that don't go too broad. Okay, so limit your skill set into one portion or maybe one or two fields don't go too broad okay. It will be difficult to For you to get Kumasi, everything. Now here are some tips on how to remain up to date and how to get in touch with the latest technologies. Try to subscribe to blog site code drops or web designer news they are really good at keeping you up to date.
Or try to watch on some of the repositories on JT hub. Like if you like some plugin or extension or JavaScript or jQuery plugin, you should try to watch it okay. Second thing is that try to learn new courses like on Udemy Team Treehouse or Skillshare, whatever site you like, Okay, try to learn courses in your own field or skill set. Don't try to learn everything. Third thing is that find a mentor. If someone is good at mentoring you or he's a good mentor, you can get attached to it you all you know that he lives around my area or maybe in my city.
Try to get go with him try to if he's doing a project and get attached with him, okay, help him around that I will not get any payment just keep me with yourself. Okay, so I just want one to see while you are designing or while you're coding, or if you have any tips for me or for my carrier, let me know. Okay, so at the experienced person, they can really guide you in a lot of things or mistakes you make in a linear carrier, okay? Now the key takeaways are always try to read news and articles. Get some experience working with your mentor or maybe working with a team of NGOs or maybe nonprofit organizations. Okay.
So, let me show you some of the blogs I showed you over here called drops or web designer news. Okay, here are the few blogs I follow. And I think they are the best of them. Code drops and they show something like this collective number 17 or they have Different HTML or CSS or JavaScript plugins, and also a lot of new articles about design, web design, and front end development. Okay, so you can see using SVG clipart, editing table responsive everything so sometimes I like few things a lot. And I read one or two articles from these.
Second is this web designer news. You can find it over here. And you can see over here they have this category most shared most wanted most click, you can subscribe your email and they will send you email weekly or daily. And they have a lot of different categories. You can see web design, web development, typographic tech UX, usability, infographics, pony design business apps. Okay, so I think for designers and developers, this is the best site and these are the best articles over here.
I will also share a few more links in the resources file, so make sure you try to read them Okay, so this is all about getting updated on your skills and how to remain update. So let's move on to the next lesson.