Web design is something that's super technical but can be super tedious if you have to deal with asshole clients.

If you try in whatever ways you can to brighten someone's day, to be fair and respectful to everyone, and to grow your network without being "networky", you will be a rockstar. Have a plan, but be willing to deviate from it if awesome opportunities arise. While it's important to think about your future and what you want to be doing in 5 years, don't let that plan be so concrete that you ignore opportunities around you.

The reason why many clients don't value design is because haven't had a designer prove to them the value of it. You need to prove it to clients who've hired a bunch of shitty designers and their business has not been that successful. When they hire a good designer, they see the difference.

I always love design but the more I designed for clients, the less I liked the process of designing for them. I do lettering and illustration for money, which clients don't mess with too much and web design for fun.

To be a good artist / letterer / designer / guitar player it takes practice. A lot of it. More than you can even fathom when you're starting out.

The awesome thing about lettering - which is different from many forms of art - is that you can actually see your mistakes. There are sophomore mistakes that people do at the beginning that you spot everywhere. For example, a lot of people make 'W's by turning 'M's upside down.

When I have to critique someone else's web design, rather than write up a giant email or take a screengrab and move stuff around in Photoshop, I put together a really quick CSS doc making my changes.