For many young professionals in the field of web design, there exists a dual-work focus.

A dual-work focus? What is that?

Allow me to explain…

Many people with web skills often are called on by friends and family to help them with web projects. Some help maintain small business sites doing small tasks like image optimization to larger content updates, even to complete site designs. Others help maintain their loved ones blogs from back-end work to template customization. This work, usually free, is done as an aside from our daily 9-5 web job and gets done whenever we have the time, energy, or feel like lending a helping hand to the code-illiterate.

However, for many of us, our dual-work focus is more serious. Some of us are such gluttons for code/design/work that we not only earn our money from 9-5, but work freelance in our spare time and pursue second income outside of normal business hours.

Often times, this work is starkly different from the work we do at our “real” job. Often times, we take on projects that we wouldn’t normally have the opportunity to work on in our corporate setting. Perhaps not unlike a factory worker working a double-shift, these web designers clock more hours, code more lines, and advance their skills even further.

So why do we do it? Why choose to work more than you have to?

For some, it is purely economical: the 9-5 job isn’t paying the bills. For others, it’s for more creative freedom: they can pick what projects to work on and how to build them. And still for others, they are looking to establish themselves and perhaps move to a point where they can one day work for themselves and their friends like the blueflavors and 37signals‘ of this world.

Of course, not everyone does this. Not everyone has the energy, drive, and commitment to pursue two jobs with equal enthusiasm. But to those who do, we at Tridea salute you and hope your work is fun, rewarding, and helping you grow…as ours surely is!