A Sneak-Peak into the Realm of Web Designing with Mudit Jain

Mudit Jain is a thriving entrepreneur and the CEO and founder of Talkers Code, a website replete with an extensive library of free tutorials on web design and programming, touting well over a whopping 100,000 monthly visitors. He is well-loved in the design field since he offers his readers pools of valuable tutorials which help them solve design related issues and problems. In just over 2 years, Mudit has scored 170k monthly page views. He has accomplished that with a smart content marketing strategy, using a combination of sponsored reviews and invaluable content regarding the latest platforms, updates, and tools.

Branex: How did you come to specialize in web design? What inspired you to walk this path?

Mudit: I had just started learning advanced java in the December of 2013, and it was there that I came across a topic of creating your own website with the help of JSP (Java Server Pages). Once I started exploring deep into the field of web designing, I really got fascinated with the idea of how building and shaping your own creativity, thoughts, and inspiration, which are accessible to the whole world, is just a click away.It was truly an incredible thing, at least for me. And then, I decided to leave the software world behind and started learning complete web designing, including HTML, CSS, jQuery, JavaScript, and PHP for myself. I believe in self-learning since no matter how much you learn from others, the things that you learn from yourself are the things which stay with you the longest.

Branex: Can you tell us a little about your work history? What was your first real design job and how much work have you done to get to where you are today?

Mudit: As I mentioned above, I started learning Advanced Java in the December of 2013, and in January 2014, I got introduced to web designing, and suddenly it dawned on me that this was what I had always wanted to do for as long as I can remember, because it’s indeed fun to delve in web designing and creating stellar online presences.

I created my first website for a family business, even though I had very little experience in web designing at that time, just over 2 months to be exact. And yet, I created that website of around 20 pages in a mere 3 days. Even though, my favorite Indian festival“Holi”, the festival of colors, was falling in between, so excited was I with the prospect of creating my first ever website, that I actually sat it out at home and worked on my project instead.  After I had successfully finished on the project and was about to buy a hosting domain for it, the client, one of my uncles, dropped the bomb that the website only ran on Asp or PHP, not JSP!

Even though all my high hopes had gone down the drain, I came back home and focused all my energy on building it up from scratch again, this time choosing PHP from my arsenal. It Was after I had breathed a sigh of relief after hosting the website that I started working on bigger projects for myself, such as a classified website, an online shopping website, and a personal social network just for the kick of it. After gaining a steadier ground after 7-8 website, I hit upon the idea of launching my own blog where I could write about designing and offer my readers my valuable insights and how-to tutorials, involving the solutions of common problems that designers had to face in web designing and web programming. This is when I started with TalkersCode.

From the word go, I always worked with a clear vision: I wanted to work for myself instead of laboring away at a 9-5 for someone else. I always believed in why one should work for someone else and take orders from others when you have the resources and the skills to fulfill your dreams.I started to build TalkersCode rather aggressively in my passion and started filling up my blog with 5-7 articles every day just to complete the basic learning section as soon as possible, and start on the web-tricks section, where I could show my clients solutions of many problems with the help of coding. I enjoyed creating tutorials so much that I created 3-4 tutorials every day. Even though each one took 3-4 hours, I was having such a blast that I lost track of time. Today we have more than 200 tutorials to our name, with most being working demos.

Related: 7 E-commerce Web Design Trends for 2018 You Should be Aware of

Branex: Where should a designer put a stopper to specialization, in your opinion? Is it better for a Designer to attempt to become the jack of all trades or focus on one area (calligraphy, web, print) at a time?

Mudit: No one, not just Designers, should ever put a full stop to learning and strive to specialize in new fields. Your quest for learning should be a perpetual one. Once you have aced a field, move on and learn something new. For instance, even though I had focused on web designing and programming for around 4 years, and still loving it, I also want to learn proper blogging, online marketing etc. I can’t just restrict myself to web designing when I aspire to expand my horizon to other fields. I believe that constant learning attracts opportunities your way. Like, if I hadn’t gotten my feet wet in PHP and had stuck to JSP instead, my codes would have been much more time-consuming, complex, and redundant, not to mention, I would never have gotten the chance to write tutorials for my PHP audience. So yeah, learning does open a lot of doors, and if you want to learn something, just go ahead and do it. You will never regret the time you used to learn that thing.

Branex: What are a few of your favorite web development frameworks and why?

Mudit: To be honest, I had not used any frameworks to date, as I started building websites in rather traditional ways. Not to mention, I didn’t feel any pull towards a particular framework, so haven’t had a chance to experiment yet. However, I will be sure to learn about one when the need arises.

Branex: In your eyes, what makes a good designer?

Mudit: In my opinion, a good designer should know about things other than what he had used for designing, since I know a lot of designers who are only aware of HTML and CSS, with no background knowledge of PHP and jQuery. The secret of being a good designer is to have a familiarity with everything connected to your field.

Branex: How do you stay abreast of the most up-to-the-minute design trends? How important do you think it is to keep up with the Joneses?

Mudit: It’s indispensable to stay abreast of the most up-to-the-date trends in designing since the realm of web designing keeps evolving by the day. If you don’t stay updated, you can never be your ultimate creative self. New things, new concepts, and new creatives keep coming up, so you have to take inspiration from those to boost up your own creativity.

Branex: People are jumping on the responsive web design bandwagon, but the number of different sizes and types of device continue to grow. How are designers poised to deal with this?

Mudit: This is not a big deal.All you need is to do some extra work to deal with such problems for responsive web design.I personally recommend designers to leverage CSS media queries in their designs, since they are easy to learn and implement.

Branex: What’s a day in your life like? What do you do to fuel your creativity? What is your morning routine before you start designing?

Mudit: I wake up around 7 am.Every day. While I am not a morning person, I check my Emails and the performance of my website as soon as I open my eyes. After dragging through the regular morning rituals, I start working on my projects with a fresh perspective. I sometimes work 12-13 hours every day on the projects that I want to keep running successfully. I read a lot in my free time about the things which are related to my work and this inspires me a lot to do more and more.

Branex: What is going to change in the next ten years on the web?

Mudit: I think not much, but these days artificial intelligence plays a major role in other industries, so I am excited to see the implementation of A.I in the web designing, programming and blogging industry as well.

Related Read: Stellar Website Design Trends that are Going to Surface in 2018

Branex: Can you share any nuggets of wisdom for young design students just stepping into their careers?

Mudit: For all the new designers out there, I think that unless you are solely dedicated to this field and are passionate about it, you are in the wrong industry, since this area of web entails creativity which does not come easily to all. Also, try to keep yourself updated, so that as soon as an opportunity comes your way, you can grab it. You have to be multi-talented to stay in this field and stay on top of your game. Instead of thinking that you are a know-it-all, you would do well to excel in one facet before moving on to the next area, instead of stopping to seek after a while.

Branex: Branex is one of those agencies which are facilitating brands over the world with its digital solutions. Do you have any nuggets of wisdom for us?

Mudit: I just browsed through your company website, and I must say that you are really doing a good job delivering high-quality services to your clients, and keeping your users up-to-date with your blog. Keep up this level and the work portfolio you are delivering right now.