Meet your student support gurus!

Let’s be frank. Learning web design and coding is incredibly rewarding and a lot easier than most people would have you believe – but there are bound to be some bumps along the way.

And while we’ve always offered our Jetsetter students a super-useful “Rescue Center”, designed to point you in the right direction any time you run into a roadblock with the stuff you’re learning, I’ve always known I wanted to give you more.

That’s why I’m SO excited to announce an awesome a new addition to the Jetsetter version of The Girl’s Guide to Web Design: personalized help from our team of expert student support gurus!

Here’s the scoop: When you sign up for Jetsetter, you’ll get access to our private Jetsetter Facebook group, where you can ask questions and get answers for anything you’re stuck on as you work through the course.

Whether you need help wrapping your head around how to lay out a cool-looking homepage, figuring out why a CSS style rule isn’t working, or deciding what shade of yellow would look best in your header, our student support gurus are ready with answers and a dose of encouragement!

All three of these ladies were star students in past sessions of the course, and now, they run their own web design businesses! You can count on them to be your “real person” support network as you embark on the magical adventure of learning to design stunning sites and blogs. Check ‘em out below!

Student support guru #1: Stephanie Cleary
Hi! I’m Stephanie, and I’m very excited to be part of the Girl’s Guide to Web Design family. I came to web design through a rather circuitous route – umm, I have a writing degree and did financial planning for a living – where did web design come from? Well, I stumbled on it by blogging: I realized I was having just as much fun changing the look of my blog as I did actually writing it, if not more! I knew I had found my “thing”. I’ve always been a bit of a geeky girl – in a good way though, I hope! – and web design lets me geek out over some very cool stuff. It lets my left brain (hello coding!) and right brain (yay colors!) play together in ways that not much else does. And since I’m pretty much split down the middle between being a numbers/math/logic girl and a color/paint/glitter girl, web design just…fits me! So, when Amanda asked me to be part of the Girl’s Guide support team, I jumped at the chance. If I can help and encourage the ladies (and men!) of GG2WD a fraction of how much Amanda has helped and encouraged me, I’ll consider
it a more than fair trade.

Connect with Stephanie:
Stephanie’s site: Pink Peacock Studio
Follow Stephanie on Twitter: @@PinkPeacockDS

 
Student support guru #2: Stephanie Steyer
Stephanie Steyer is an independent graphic designer working in the beautiful foothills of Northern California. Stephanie graduated with her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Graphic Design from the California College of the Arts. She worked as a designer for Michael Vanderbyl, Kit Hinrichs at Jonson, Pedersen, Hinrichs, and Shakery, and Michael Manwaring. After her time at these notable firms, she co-founded the San Francisco-based design firm Patrick Coyne/Stephanie Steyer Design Office. In 1986, Stephanie moved with her partner Patrick to Palo Alto, CA, to work at Communication Arts magazine. After fourteen years at the magazine, she felt it was time for something new and ventured back out onto her own. Stephanie designs everything from corporate identities, logos, and brochures to books, websites and powerpoint presentations. She also does interior design work and loves to take photographs.

The very first website that Stephanie designed was for Communication Arts in 1995. The internet looked very different in those days! Learning HTML was very useful for her career, but it wasn’t until the very first class of “The Girl’s Guide to Web Design” that she finally grasped CSS and WordPress. “I love the finesse and control that I can achieve with CSS. It makes web design fun instead of frustrating, plus I really like coding my own designs!” Stephanie is a member of the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA), and the proud mom of two amazing kids, who are now in college!

Connect with Stephanie:
Stephanie’s site: SJS Design Studio
Follow Stephanie on Twitter: @DesignSteph

Student support guru #3: Katy Martin
A love of art catapulted Katy towards an Honors Degree in Design in Visual Communications, with a photography major, at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. While at Uni, Katy swapped the Aussie summers for US winters, working (a.k.a ski bumming) in the Colorado ski resort town of Steamboat Springs. She ultimately opted out of the big city bright lights for marketing in the ski industry. She worked her way up the corporate ladder for 8 years at ResortQuest Vacation Rentals, managing the Colorado websites’ content, search engine optimization strategies, revenue management, direct mail (and email), and so much more.

In 2011 she jumped from the corporate ship to team up with a friend, and dive into their own small business, Colomark Marketing. During the transition from work-life to happy-happy-joy-joy balanced-life, Katy discovered Amanda and the GG2WD. The course filled the coding gaps Katy was missing and empowered her to take on the web design world again! In turn, she strives to empower small business owners to take charge of their online marketing, laying the foundation for them with beautifully designed websites that both search engines and customers love! She is brimming with creative ways you can use your website and social media to seduce your customers and make money. And she now dreams in code.

Connect with Katy:
Katy’s site: http://colomark.com
Follow Katie on Twitter: @seolsearchkaty