As of early last week, I had sent out about twenty resumés to various openings in DC, of which only three had garnered positive responses: one was for a Webmaster/IT Manager position at a DC-based network of U.S. academic computing departments (which entailed web development and tech support, which I turned down because the target interview date was too far off), another was for a temp-to-perm “Web Assistant” position for a powerful federation of labor unions (take a guess which one), and the last one — and the most promising to me — was a Web Designer position with a design studio in downtown DC.

The labor union federation had gotten back to me first — actually a recruiter for them who had made a posting to CareerBuilder which I found via SimplyHired. My acceptance to the job was all but assured, and I was ready to jump for it — when the design studio called me for an interview. They offered me a two week “tryout” period as a freelance web designer before deciding whether to take me on full time. So, should I jump for the certain full time temp job doing repetitive CMS tasks? Or take a two week risk for higher pay doing something much more in line with my goals and qualifications?

I guess you can tell, from my phrasing, what choice I made: I took the risk. As of now I am a web designer for this company, and I’m about halfway through my trial. It’s a bit odd being a designer again rather than a developer; there’s no more XHTML or CSS or PHP in my work life. Everything’s Photoshop, and I’m back in the thick of typography and palettes and grids and the golden ratio, throwing things together in layers and pixels and vectors — and leaving the worries over code and stylesheets and Internet Explorer to the dev crew. I’m actually liking it. This is why I got my M.A. in Digital Art, after all. Maybe my calling really is to graphic design.

Thanks to all who gave prayers and wishes for well-being in my time of trial. I will soon have thoughts on my experiences as an independent freelance web developer.