Probably just about one of the most misinterpreted & over-worked titles in the I.T. market nowadays has to be the words Web Designer? In fact, web design does include several distinctive areas, and so it may well help to explain things a little when we break it down. There are essentially 2 sides to web design - the 'technical' side & the creative design part. The average computer user considers web-designers determine how a website looks and 'feels'. Basically, they look at web-designers because artists on the whole. But in actuality, in modern-day web design its becoming more and more difficult to split up the 'technical' part from the 'creative' aspect, as both of them are so intertwined. We'll demonstrate this with greater clarity when we break web design down into its different parts.

The people who design and assemble the images and graphic icons that go on a web-page are generally known as graphic-artists. They most often bring this about by making use of graphic lay-out & animation software (like Adobe Flash & 'Photoshop'), & are not actually web designers as such. The majority attended higher education, typically with a degree level art qualification. This part is a lot more about a creative artistic ability than anything else.

Web designers are second - they work with design software like Adobe Dreamweaver to create & design the appearance & 'feel' of the web-site. Bu utilising graphics from the graphic artist, they will develop the navigational structure of the site, keeping in touch with their client to ensure the feel meets their needs. Many novice web designers put emphasis to start with on the format of the website, instead of its 'function'. In order to build an effective internet site however, it is vital that you first of all look at what you really want the website to accomplish. It could be that it is in effect a web-based brochure, or an e-commerce site where products and services are offered there and then. Or perhaps it'll have a lot of video and heavy graphics. Then again it may be principally an informational site, where it's necessary to supply straightforward entry to appropriate web pages of textual content. Whatever the client wants from a website, the fundamental necessity is that it actually fulfils the basic needs. So many web sites look amazing but they are a pain to 'navigate' & find what you need - and so visitors move on & never come back. The purpose of any professional web designer is to first and foremost create an experience that people enjoy & feel comfortable with - so that they will come back again & again.

The one thing it's essential to understand is absolutely no training-course can in fact make a web designer out of you. The actual course will only cover all the techniques and skills. Throughout your training and study, you must spend time building & developing as many web-sites as possible, to practice and build your portfolio. Your own sites should be about anything - the local music-scene, horses, a writer you enjoy or even motor bikes. Create an inter-active site, and start generating traffic towards it. Adobe accreditations are helpful, but showing how you can use the training says much more about you as a web designer!

The 'Adobe Creative Suite' is the most commercially-popular design-environment employed by web designers these days. These vital programs are currently (2010) on Version 4. Whilst 'Adobe Flash' offers access to animated and interactive graphical content material, Dreamweaver is the software that builds sites. Dreamweaver might be looked at as a glorified Word-Processor in many ways. It helps you to place graphics & text in accordance with specific rules and parameters, & then produce basic interactivity through page-linking. 'Dreamweaver' (or any other web design environment) produces 'HTML' (Hyper-Text-Markup-Language) program-code in the background. Essentially, this language of web-browsers is actually a script which 'draws' and controls the web page being watched. Alongside HTML are the lay-out 'tag' 'languages' - like CSS & XML. These tag languages enable more stream-lined 'HTML' code & more effective lay-out methods, that will work on multiple platforms (because they are standardised). So regardless of what internet browser somebody uses, (Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, Opera etc.) the web-page will (hopefully) look the same. Consequently the graphic-blocks you are placing & the text you are including is being converted into 'code' in the background by 'Dreamweaver'. A thorough understanding of these languages is very important if you are to become a commercially-viable web-designer.

Lots of independent web designers can carry out several of these jobs themselves; indeed we liaise with a number who are able to quite frequently. But, you will need time to acquire that amount of expertise. You have to be taught several things on a commercially viable web design training course: A basic introduction to web design, followed by how to use Adobe Dreamweaver and gain a fundamental understanding of Adobe 'Flash'. This should then lead on to a comprehension of 'HTML' & CSS, with vital insights into the area of E-commerce. PHP should be learned so that dynamic sites can be built (ASP.NET is much more involved, and PHP is easier to get into at first,) & a simple understanding of databases & 'SEO' should be achieved. The main reason you require these aspects is they will give you the technical ability to work on an array of web site builds. Much like taking driving lessons, you have to first learn the physical competencies, before you in essence progress past them & accomplish a certain amount of 'finesse'. An intensive program like this would possibly require approximately four to five hundred hours of part time practice and study & therefore can be successfully accomplished part-time over 12 months. As there are plenty of points to consider, its well worth making the effort to look carefully at any training-programs that interest you. Talk to a person with knowledge of the industry to help you put things together.