The term 'Web Designer' is perhaps one of the most over used and misinterpreted labels within the I.T. industry. Web Design incorporates numerous different aspects, and an understanding of these facets may help anyone wanting to get in the industry. Effectively, there are 2 key sides to web design; the 'creative' element and the technical side. The average laptop or computer user believes web-designers are responsible for how a website 'looks' & 'feels'. To put it differently, they see web-site designers as 'artists' in the main. The truth is the present day web-designer's job is an 'inter-related' blend of technical understanding & design creativity - & the two things are becoming quite hard to separate. We can illustrate this with more clarity if we break web-design up into its different parts.

Graphic artists should come first - they design & build the icons and images for a web page. They're not strictly web-site designers per-se, & by and large are multi-media artists employing graphic layout and 'animation' software, (for instance Adobe Photoshop & Adobe 'Flash'.) Frequently, they'll have an artistic background, & might have studied at university level. Above all else, this job calls for a sound creative talent.

Web-designers are next - these people use design-software like Adobe Dreamweaver to plan and design the look and 'feel' of the site. By using graphics from the graphic artist, they'll develop the 'navigational' composition of the site, working with the client to ensure that the feel meets their needs. A novice web designer tends to start with the form of a web-site, instead of the function. Yet, to genuinely create a valuable web-site, you need to start with a clear understanding of the things you need the site to really do. Is it predominantly an e-commerce website, that would need to be able to take payments safely and securely, or is it an on-line product brochure listing? It's possible you need to accentuate products by way of video & a largely 'graphical' interface, or maybe its predominantly an informational web site where the necessity is easy access to key text information (like this web-site.) Whatever the customer wants from a website, the essential necessity is that it actually fulfils the basic specification. Such a lot of web sites look fantastic but are a headache to get around and find where you need - & so visitors move on & never return. The purpose of any professional web-designer is to first & foremost build an event that visitors enjoy & feel comfortable with - so they come back again & again.

Several of these functions can and do cross-over obviously, we work with several freelance web-designers who each cover a lot of the previously mentioned jobs. Then again that level of knowledge will take a little while to master. You should be taught several things on a commercially viable web-design training course: First, an introductory tutorial to basic web-design, followed on by teaching in Adobe Dreamweaver & a summary of the principal aspects of Adobe Flash. This should then lead on to a comprehension of HTML & 'CSS', with some coaching within the field of e-commerce. 'PHP' should be learned so 'dynamic' websites can be created (ASP.Net is much more involved, & 'PHP' is very simple to get into initially,) & a simple understanding of databases and SEO should be achieved. The reason why you'll need these elements is so that you have the technical wherewithal to operate on a range of web-site builds. Similar to when you were taking driving lessons, you have to first learn the physical skill-sets, before you can essentially move past them and achieve a degree of 'finesse'. The majority of trainees can get through a manageable course such as this inside a yr - assuming part time study and practice of around 400 to 500 hrs. Detailed preparation to get the correct training program for your needs is a good investment of your time - skilled career experts will help you sort the best way forward before you decide to get started.

The key thing to emphasise is that the training itself will not make you a web-designer; it will simply educate you on the techniques. All through your training & study, it's essential to spend time constructing & developing as many sites as you possibly can, to prepare & assemble your portfolio. Create websites about your favourite hobby, your pet, a favourite music group or TV show. You could even create inter-active sites & get 'traffic' on them. 'Adobe' accreditations are of help, but showing how you can use what you've learned says a lot more about you as a web-designer!

The key tools employed by web designers are the design environments, with 'Adobe Creative Suite' (currently in Version 4 as of '09/10) staying the most commercially popular. Whilst 'Adobe Flash' gives access to interactive and animated 'graphical' content material, 'Dreamweaver' is the software program that builds web sites. In many ways we might see Dreamweaver as a glorified Word Processor. In accordance with specific rules & parameters, it enables you to display graphics and text, & then via a procedure known as page linking you can produce basic inter-activity throughout the site. 'Dreamweaver' (or any other web design environment) creates HTML (HyperText Markup Language) program code in the background. This is the language of web-browsers, and is a script that essentially draws & controls the page you're seeing. Matched with 'HTML' are the layout 'tag' 'languages' like CSS and XML. Because these 'tag' languages are 'standardised', the smoother & rather more efficient outcomes work effectively on many different platforms. So whichever internet browser someone uses, ('Internet Explorer', Firefox, 'Opera' etc.) the page will (hopefully) look the same. As a result the graphic-blocks you're placing & the text you're putting in is being converted into code in the background by Dreamweaver. Its extremely important to gain an in depth knowledge of these types of 'languages' in order to be a web designer at the commercial standard.

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