Probably just about one of the most misinterpreted & over-worked expressions in the I.T. market today must be the words 'Web Designer'? Web Design includes many distinct facets, and a good understanding of these facets can help anybody thinking of getting in the industry. Basically, there are two principal areas to web-design; the creative element and the 'technical' side. The typical PC user considers web designers determine how a site looks and 'feels'. In other words, they look at web designers as 'artists' in the main. But in reality, in modern-day web design it is turning out to be increasingly difficult to split up the 'technical' part from the 'creative' aspect, because both of them are so intertwined. When you break down web design into its component functions, then it becomes much more apparent how everything sits together.

Graphic artists are first - they design & build the symbols & pictures for a web site. Most often they do this by utilising graphic lay-out and 'animation' software (such as Adobe Flash & 'Photoshop'), and are not actually site designers per-se. Usually, they will have come from an art background, & may have undertaken studies at university level. More than anything else, this kind of role demands sound artistic skill.

Then we have the web-designers, who generate the layout & overall 'feel' of a web-site by utilising a design environment such as Adobe Dreamweaver. They use the graphics which are provided by the graphic-artist, & talk with the clients to start to develop the 'feel' & 'navigational' framework of the site. A large number of novice site designers place emphasis to start with on the format of the web-site, rather than its function. Although, to truly create a successful web-site, you must start with a clear understanding of the things you require the web site to really do. Is it largely an e-commerce web-site, which requires to be ready to receive payments safely and securely, or is it an online product or service brochure listing? It's possible you want to highlight goods via video and a heavily graphical inter-face, or perhaps it is mostly an informational web site where the necessity is easy access to essential text information (like this web site.) Whatever you want from a site, it must - at its most elementary level - carry out the 'function' for which it's designed. Consumers will abandon a web-site and not return if its too hard to get around - however pretty it appears at first glance. The goal of any professional web-designer is first and foremost to build an experience that visitors enjoy and are happy with - so they will come back again & again.

Web developers are the most technically-trained of all. These people won't just understand 'HTML', CSS and 'XML', but will have trained in 'proper' programming languages such as 'PHP', 'ASP.Net', 'VB', C#, Java etc. They will also generally have got a strong understanding of 'SQL' database-technology, as this is one way most modern large sites store their data. Most e-commerce sites are not the result of a big bunch of web-designers who have constructed countless web pages in a lay-out form. What usually happens is a place holder 'template' is developed, and the details are dynamically fed from the Database to the web site. This process not only makes the building, management and updates massively more straighforward, it also produces a more consistent website.

Its important to realise that even the best web design courses can only teach you the techniques and processes - none of them will be able to convert you in to a bona fide web designer. During your study & training, you have to spend time building & creating as many web sites as you possibly can, to prepare & assemble your own portfolio. A craft or interest is an effective place to start, or simply your favourite dog or cat, or a holiday-resort you particularly liked. Start interactive web-sites and create 'traffic' to them. Anything you do will enhance your CV, & present much more to a recruiter than an Adobe accreditation.

Of course there are cross-overs with many of these jobs - we ourselves have interactions with several web-site designers who're competent in a lot of them. Nevertheless, you will need time to develop that much skill. You should be trained in a number of things on a professionally viable web design training program: A synopsis of the basics of web-design first, then directly into using 'Dreamweaver' to a professional level and the primary nuances of Flash too. Next you must learn the coding languages 'HTML' and CSS, & then be trained in an overview of just how e-commerce operates. To construct dynamic web sites it's important to gain knowledge of 'PHP', which is an easier programming language to get into than ASP.NET. You also need a rudimentary understanding of databases and 'SEO'. Learning these skills will provide you with the ability to begin working on a very good cross-section of web-sites. Much like anything else, we have to learn how to do the physical skills initially, and then develop greater finesse via experience & practice. A comprehensive training program of this sort could take approximately 400 to 500 hours of part-time practice and study & can therefore be reasonably carried out part time over a year. As there's a lot of facts to consider, its worth making the effort to look closely at any training programs that interest you. Speak to a person with knowledge of the industry to help you put things together.

The Adobe Creative Suite is the most commercially-popular design-environment employed by web site designers today. These key programs are currently ('10) on Version 4. Dreamweaver is the software that builds web sites, with Flash delivering access to interactive and animated graphical content material. In some ways we may view 'Dreamweaver' as a rather fancy Word Processor. Text and graphics can be placed (according to known parameters) & then a basic interactivity can be established by page-linking. Dreamweaver (as with any web-design environment) creates 'HTML' ('Hyper Text Markup Language') program-code in the background. 'HTML' is a script which in essence 'draws' and controls the page displayed on your screen. It's the language of web browsers. Layout tag languages like CSS and XML are matched up with HTML. These tag languages enable more streamlined 'HTML' code and more effective layout methods, that will work on multiple-platforms (because they're 'standardised'). What this means is the web-page looks exactly the same on Microsoft Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, 'Opera', 'Safari' etc. (at least, that's the plan!) Consequently though you're placing graphic blocks and text, behind the scenes, 'Dreamweaver' is converting what you're doing in to code. If you are going to be a commercially viable web-designer, you'll have to have an in-depth knowledge of these languages.

Additional skillsets which are very useful to professional web designers are a knowledge of project-management & E-commerce. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is another discipline which handles how the website is listed with search engines - so it may be found more easily (this is almost an entire job by itself.) And in the background but very crucially we have the web-server administrators & installers who ensure that the whole thing works as it should. Strictly speaking these people are network administrator specialists though.

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