I attended a design workshop on Saturday at the Art Institute of Portland. The workshop gave an overview of the school and showcased student work. I came home satisfied and bearing an interesting inquisition about the web development market.

The main lecture was interesting. One of the topics that came up was the migration to new software. For example, several years ago the Institute was still using 3D Studio Max for their 3D animation programs. Recently they switched their entire program over to Maya, a program more widely used in the present animation industry. The result was that a lot of recent graduates were having trouble adapting. It was difficult for them to find proper work, and when they did their technique was a mash of what they had learned on 3D Studio Max and what they thought the market wanted them to be doing.

It seems the same situation is occurring in the web design market. The mainstream market is primarily controlled by older, more reputable names even though they are not as educated on modern web design. And by mainstream I mean eBay, Yahoo!, Google, and Amazon. The majority of people that “get it” are either younger or are smart enough to keep an eye on younger designers.

My proposal isn’t that younger designers are better than older ones, but simply that the market is controlled by older web developers. Not designers, developers. Web developers that learned during the abundance of HTML and information exchange, not CSS or the liking.

That’s the way business works, but it’s interesting to notice this cycle on the internet for the first time. Obviously the Institute is eager for adults to attend their advanced learning programs. A good designer never masters anything.