I would advise any aspiring software developer to get their hands dirty with design as early as possible in their career. Hardcore programmers might deny it but

I would advise any aspiring software developer to get their hands dirty with design as early as possible in their career. Hardcore programmers might deny it but interface design is as important to most software as the database structure, code architecture and algorithms. You can hardly call yourself a software developer if you are unable to develop a key part of software. I am a programmer first and foremost (well, strictly speaking, a journalist first and foremost, but I won't go into that) and used to be terrible at design. But I worked at it, completing tutorials at sites like psdtuts.com and trying to keep up with the latest design trends at showcase sites such as webcreme.com. It was a couple of years before I could create anything I was happy with, but now I design all my software, and I have to say that it is so much more fun turning your own interface ideas into code, than doing it for someone else's ideas.