I hope this doesn't sound pedantic but we aren't talking about a basic competency lesson here; the article seems to purport that one can become a professional this way.

I hope this doesn't sound snarky - it isn't intended to - but the site in question looks worse than a WordPress template, design-school-freshman-quality stuff. I don't mean to be mean-spirited - this is just simply my impression of the design level.

She didn't design the Wordpress template. Look at "projects" instead.. the car graph near the bottom is hilarious IMHO :D

But let's assume you totally dislike all of that, too - yeah, and? She got hired as a designer and didn't get fired since, which makes me believe her employer is happy with hiring her. It also does make her a professional in the sense of the word, like it or not.

I don't like the Wordpress theme either, but you act like she said she's a great designer because of it. Come on.

Well, she DID get a job (and advocates continued education as well as being open to criticism)

I didn't mean this as an ad hominem and I am delighted that she is open to criticism. My comment is strictly about the level of design represented here, which I believe is not professional quality.

It is professional quality, as "professional" is not by definition a qualitative word up for debate, one is either paid for their work or not. And I'd like to see your work that you consider "more" professional. This is hacker news, a site that celebrates people making what they can with what they have.

Since I was asked for my credentials, I believe this should suffice: http://imgur.com/GPYmt3T

Just for the record, I work for startups, not large companies; it just happened that the startup I was at doing design work for was acquired by Oracle.

EDIT: Clarification.

Exec isn't the best designed website I've ever seen, but it's functional and presentable. There are plenty of startups / small companies that can't afford the money required for a senior level designer but would be happy to hire someone who could do even "design-school-freshman-quality stuff" for a reasonable price if it allowed them to present their idea / business in a way they couldn't on their own.

So if the measure of being a "professional designer" is someone who is paid to do design work, I think this is fine advice. A designer gets better with practice and real world work. This seems like a good starting point.

A lot of what you see online, even in professional agency portfolios, isn't particularly interesting. I see a ton of basic anatomical mistakes and it seems that color is used improperly more than half the time. It used to drive me crazy, because it felt to me that it wasn't professional work.

Partly as a result of that, I'm thinking about moving into the design field. But for me that's with a somewhat formal background in color and fine art; not as difficult a transition I think.