Am I to old to be starting a webdesign carer

The answer is that you're never too old to do anything if you want to.

I'm also 42. Through undergrad, I worked in retail. In my 20's I worked in Social Services. By the time I got to 30, I was horribly burnt out & so opted to go back to school. I ended up with both a Master of Arts (MA) and a Master of Fine Arts in- of all things- Studio Art in Jewelry/Metalsmithing. Much as I love metalsmithing, it's not the most marketable degree (particularly since universities have been cutting their programs, so professor jobs are getting harder & harder to come by). I did take some Graphic Design classes & did Pre-Press work as a volunteer, though. So, at age 42, I'm learning to do web design & development because I need a day job to support my art habit & web stuff is far more interesting than working in a coffee shop-- not to mention pays better, so I can actually pay off my student loans.

As another example, when I was in undergrad, one of my classmates was a gentleman in his 60's who'd retired after years running a very successful business. His one regret in life was that he'd never been to college & earned a degree, so he decided to go and get one. After he graduated, he ended up working for the university for at least 15 years before he passed away.

As for designing a site from the ground up like your WordPress site in code, you'll have to learn a number of different programing languages, & you'll still need to deal with images (although you may not have to create them, it can be helpful to be able to edit them if you need to). You might be better off working in WordPress for the time being. An amazing number of businesses use it for their websites & Treehouse has tracks that deal with not only using WP as a designer & admin but also in becoming a Developer, which businesses are certainly looking for. You can keep learning code while you're working, too, which never hurts. :-D

I stopped reading right after "Hello i am 42 years old" !

No, you are not too old.

Just so you know-- here in the Forum, it's a good idea to upvote the answers you like (those little arrows in the upper right hand corner of each comment). We get credit for each upvote & more credit if we get marked by the original poster as the Best Answer. In some cases it's no big deal, but some of us are in job training programs where those points can make a major difference in our standing within the program. (I say this because I only just realized that those points are counted in the program I'm enrolled in, despite having been in this program since July. Whoops!)

You are never too old for anything. I've seen a success story here of a girl who recently started working for Apple after she learned iOS development here. The only thing you need is time and dedication!

Of course I'm going to say you're never too old for anything and rock on! But here is some science to back that up:

"Using a longitudinal study over a period of several decades, Schaie (1994) noted that scores on primary mental abilities improved gradually until about age forty at which time the abilities tend to stabilize until approximately age sixty. The decreases are small until the mid seventies at which time scores are usually measurably lower than they were in the mid twenties" (http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/lifelonglearning/higher-education/implications/}

Your brain does change over time and younger people tend to be better at rote memorization but if memorizing facts was all there was to applying knowledge, computers would have overtaken us long ago. The key is to keep yourself motivated while the key to that is to get addicted to the joy of solving problems. Good luck!

Im 40. despite doing my degree in Multimedia at 27 and having a good design background, I only dabbled with web until last year. then with a young family and not wanted to teach (Im a qualified teacher), i knew web development was a good way forward, but being someone who wants to know the ins and outs and create things properly, its been a learning curve from the ground up. Im currently teaching my friend too and he's 47 - we have the same background though.

the biggest curve for me has been realising that there are far too many topics to know, so pick something and specialise in it. WordPress is proudly powering around 25% of new sites out there now, so its a good place to be, with a good community too. . Im learning constantly with WordPress, and building themes out from scratch. - love it.

Thanks for your views

No :)