The definition of Web-Designer is perhaps one of the most over used & mis-interpreted titles in the I.T. industry. If you're wanting to get in the industry, an explanation of the distinctive aspects might help to clarify things. Effectively, there are 2 key areas to web-design; the creative side and the technical process. Many people think a 'web designer' is someone who designs the visible areas of the web-site. A lot of people will consider a 'web-designer' a type of artist. However, a modern 'web-designer' will realistically be as occupied with the technical element of things as much as the 'creative' side. We'll illustrate this with more clarity if we separate web-design up in to its different parts.

Graphic-artists are 1st - these people design and create the symbols & images for a web page. They most frequently do this by using graphic lay-out and 'animation' software (like Adobe Flash and 'Photoshop'), and aren't actually web-designers as such. Most graphic-artists went to university, with a qualification in art and design. Above all else, this specific role calls for sound artistic ability.

Then we have the web designers, who produce the lay-out & overall feel of a web-site using a design-environment like Dreamweaver. They use the visuals done by the artist, & along with their clients develop an emerging look and navigational composition for the brand-new web site. An amateur web-designer often starts with the form of a web site, instead of the function. In order to build a good web-site though, its important to first of all look at what you actually want the website to accomplish. Is it for the most part an e-commerce website, that really needs to be able to receive payments securely, or is it an online product or service catalogue listing? Or maybe it'll include lots of video & graphics. On the other hand it may be largely an information web site, where its necessary to offer simple entry to relevant web pages of text. Whatever the purchaser needs from a website, the essential prerequisite is that it actually meets the basic specification. Visitors will give up on a website & not come back if it's too difficult to 'navigate' - however great it appears on the surface. A professional web-designer must essentially produce a web based experience that is both gratifying and user-friendly for the people coming to the website - that way they will visit again and again.

The Adobe Creative Suite is regarded as the most commercially popular design environment employed by web designers these days. These essential tools are now (2010) on Version 4. 'Dreamweaver' is the software that builds web-sites, with 'Flash' delivering access to animated & interactive graphical content. 'Dreamweaver' might be looked at as a glorified Word Processor in a great many ways. In accordance with particular rules & parameters, it helps you place graphics & text, & then via a process called 'page linking' you can generate basic inter-activity throughout the web site. HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) program code is created behind the scenes with Dreamweaver, just as with any other web design-environment. 'HTML' is a script which basically draws & controls the web-page on your monitor. It's the 'language' of browsers. Alongside 'HTML' are the lay-out 'tag' languages - for instance CSS & XML. As they are standardised, these tag languages can work on multiple platforms to allow more stream-lined HTML coding & more effective layout techniques. The concept is that the page will look exactly the same on any browser, whether it is Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, 'Safari', Opera or anything else. Consequently the graphic-blocks you're laying & the text you're including is being turned into 'code' behind the scenes by Dreamweaver. It is important to achieve an in depth comprehension of these various languages to be able to be a web designer at a commercial level.

The one thing you need to realise is that no training course can actually make a web-designer out of you. The actual training course will only teach all the techniques & skills. As you work on your training course, take some time to put together & develop a good selection of your own websites to create a profile of your work. Build web sites about your special interest, your family, your favourite band or even TV programme. You could even set up inter-active web sites & get 'traffic' on them. 'Adobe' qualifications are helpful, but how you can apply the knowledge says a lot more about you as a web designer!

Several of these functions can and certainly do cross over needless to say, we are involved with several independent web designers who all can handle the majority of the previously mentioned jobs. But that level of understanding will take quite some time to master. A web-design program then that will equip you to get into the work-place must encompass the following disciplines - A basic introduction to web design, and then how to utilise Adobe 'Dreamweaver' & gain a basic knowledge of Adobe Flash. This should then move onto a comprehension of 'HTML' & CSS, and then some training within the field of e-commerce. 'PHP' has to be mastered in order that 'dynamic' web sites can be designed (ASP.Net is much more involved, & 'PHP' is easier to get into initially,) and a simple idea of Databases and SEO should be achieved. The reason you need each of these aspects is so that you have the technical grounding to work on a variety of web-site builds. Similar to when you were learning to drive, you have to first learn the actual physical abilities, before you ultimately progress beyond them and achieve a certain amount of 'finesse'. A comprehensive program like this would probably take approximately 400 to 500 hours of part-time practice and study and therefore can be successfully carried out part time over 12 months. Careful preparation to obtain the appropriate training program for your needs is a worthwhile investment of your time - knowledgeable career experts will help you sort the best way forward before you decide to begin.

Web developers are essentially the most technically-trained of all. Not only will web-developers understand the languages above, they will also have mastered other languages, such as C#, 'VB', PHP, Java, 'ASP.Net' and so on. And as most modern internet sites of any kind of size 'store' their information using 'SQL' Database technology, they're likely to have a firm grip on this too. In reality, it is un-likely that a large E-commerce web site has been created in layout format by a bunch of web-designers. More usually, following the construction of a place holder template, the contents will be extracted from a Database & dynamically inserted. This process not only makes the construction, management & upgrades massively more straighforward, it equally creates a more consistent website.

Some other skills which are highly relevant to web-designers in the commercial market are an in-depth understanding of E-commerce and project-management. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is another discipline that tackles how the web site is indexed with Search Engines - so that it can be more easily found (this is almost an entire job by itself.) And whilst they technically originate from a network administration background, we should remember the incredibly valuable role of the web-server administrators & installers, who keep everything working in the background.

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