The term 'Web-Designer' is perhaps one of the most over-used & mis-interpreted titles in the IT marketplace. In truth, web design does contain a lot of different fields, & so it might help to simplify things if we go through each one. Web-Design incorporates the technical components of a successful site and also the creative elements. The typical PC user believes web-designers are responsible for how a web-site 'looks' and 'feels'. Which means a web designer is essentially an 'artist' who has had some 'technical' instruction. The truth is every web designer's career is an 'inter-related' mix of 'technical' know-how and design creativity - and the two things are becoming quite difficult to split up. When you break web-design down into it's component roles, then it becomes more obvious how each thing sits together.

Graphic artists come 1st - these people design & construct the icons and pictures for a web page. These are not exactly web designers as such, and more often than not are multi-media artists making use of graphic layout and animation software, (for example Adobe 'Photoshop' and Adobe Flash.) Usually, they'll have come from an artistic background, and may possibly have undertaken studies at university or college level. This element is more about a creative artistic expertise than any other function.

Web-designers are second - these people use design-software such as Adobe Dreamweaver to plan & design the appearance & feel of the site. Using artwork from the graphic artist, they will put together the navigational framework of the site, working with the client to ensure the 'feel' is correct. A web-designer with fairly limited understanding may well focus on the 'form' rather than the function of a website. In order to develop an effective internet site though, it is crucial that you first look at what you actually need the website to accomplish. It may be a web based catalogue of products and services, or possibly it is an e-commerce website that really needs to have the ability to sell directly from the web page. Quite possibly somewhat like this website the key purpose is simple access to relevant details, or it could be it'll be a show-case for products and solutions by way of video & a heavily graphical inter-face. No matter what you need from a site, it must - at its most elementary level - fulfil the function for which it's designed. There's little value in making a visually impressive website that's extremely hard for anyone to find their way around! A professional web-designer must basically develop an online experience that is both interesting and user-friendly for the people visiting the web-site - that way they will come back more than once.

Web 'developers' are essentially the most technically-trained of all. Together with a sound grasp of 'HTML', 'XML' and CSS, web-developers will understand other highly regarded programming languages like 'VB', PHP, 'Java', C# & ASP.net etc. And because most contemporary web-sites of any size store their information using 'SQL' database technology, they are likely to have got a strong grip on this too. In reality, it is un-likely that a big e-commerce web-site has been created in layout format by a team of web-site designers. Instead, a place-holder template will have been created, and the details will be dynamically inserted from a Database. So in addition to much larger efficiencies with the website construct, this method also allows for a more uniform look and 'feel' as well.

The design-environments employed by web-designers are their key tools. 'Adobe Creative Suite' 4 is really the most commercially popular in the market today (as of '10). 'Dreamweaver' is the software program that builds websites, with Flash providing access to animated & interactive 'graphical' content. You might state that 'Dreamweaver' is the Word-Processor of the Adobe Creative Suite series. Within specific rules and parameters, it helps you display text and graphics, and then via a process called 'page linking' you can produce basic inter-activity throughout the web-site. 'Dreamweaver' (as with any web-design environment) produces 'HTML' (Hyper-Text-Markup-Language) program-code in the background. In essence, this language of web-browsers is actually a script that draws & controls the page being looked at. Alongside 'HTML' are the layout tag 'languages' - for instance CSS & XML. Because they are 'standardised', these will work on multiple platforms to facilitate more stream-lined HTML code and more efficient lay-out techniques. The idea being that the page will appear identical on any web browser, whether it is Mozilla Firefox, 'Internet Explorer', 'Safari', Opera or whatever. Subsequently the graphic-blocks you are placing and the text you are including is being converted into code in the background by 'Dreamweaver'. A thorough understanding of these types of 'languages' is vital if you are to become a commercially viable website designer.

Its essential to realise that even the most effective web-design courses can only provide you with the techniques and procedures - not one can convert you in to a professional web designer. Build as many web-sites as you can as you go through your training course - the exercise will be invaluable and you will have something to show what you can do. Your web sites can be about anything you like - your local music-scene, horses, a writer you admire or cars. Start to build interactive web sites & create 'traffic' to them. Adobe certifications are of help, but how you can apply what you've learned says a lot more about you as a web-designer!

Several of these functions can and do cross-over obviously, we work with a number of free-lance web designers who all cover almost all of the previously mentioned functions. It takes time though to develop such a range of professional skillsets. A web-design course then that will prepare you to get into the workplace should consist of the following disciplines - A basic introduction to web-design, and then how to utilise Adobe Dreamweaver & gain a basic understanding of Adobe Flash. The languages of HTML & CSS need to be covered next, with a level of e-commerce instruction incorporated here. To construct 'dynamic' websites it's important to have a grasp of PHP, which is a simpler programming language to start off in than ASP.Net. You additionally need a basic knowledge of databases & 'SEO'. All of this is basically to reach a standard of competence technically where you are able to work on a broad enough variety of sites. Much like anything else, we have to learn how to really do the physical skill-sets first, and then establish greater 'finesse' by experience & practice. A thorough program of this sort would probably take approximately 400-500 hours of part-time study and practice and therefore can be successfully concluded part time over 12 months. As there are numerous points to consider, it's worth taking the time to look carefully at any training-programs you're interested in. Speak to somebody with knowledge of the industry who can help you sort things out.

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