Without doubt one of the most mis-understood and over-worked titles within the IT sector today has to be the words Web Designer? Web-Design takes on board a number of distinct facets, & a good understanding of these can help anyone seeking to get in to the industry. Fundamentally, there are two main areas to web design; the 'creative' side & the 'technical' process. The average computer user believes web designers determine how a site 'looks' and 'feels'. Meaning a web designer is basically an 'artist' who has had some technical instruction. But in fact, in modern web-design its getting more and more difficult to separate the technical side from the creative element, because both of them are so inter-twined. If you break down web design in to it's various tasks, then it becomes more evident how each thing fits together.

Individuals that design & assemble the images and graphic icons which go on a web-site are referred to as graphic artists. They're not strictly web designers as such, and most of the time are multimedia artists using graphic layout and animation software, (for example Adobe 'Photoshop' & Adobe 'Flash'.) Most graphic-artists attended university or college, with a qualification in artistic drawing. Most importantly, this role requires sound creative skill.

Next come the web-designers, who develop the lay-out & overall 'feel' of a web-site by utilising a design-environment such as Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. They take on the graphics created by the artist, & in conjunction with their clients create an initial look and 'navigational' structure for the brand new webpage. A large number of inexperienced web-designers concentrate to begin with on the 'format' of the website, as opposed to its 'function'. However, to genuinely develop a useful web-site, you have to begin with a clear understanding of what you need the website to actually do. Maybe its basically a web based brochure, or an E-commerce site where goods can be bought there and then. It's possible you'll want to show products and services via video & a largely 'graphical' inter-face, or maybe it's mainly an informational site where the requirement is straightforward access to key text data (like this particular web site.) Quite simply the site must have the capacity to meet it's required needs - whatever those requirements are. There's no point designing a visually exciting web site that's too hard for anyone to get what they want from it! The overriding goal of all professional web-site designers is for people to check out their web-site regularly - therefore it needs to be a comfortable and enjoyable experience.

Web developers are members of the group, and the most technically apt. These people won't simply know HTML, CSS & 'XML', but will have learned 'proper' programming-languages like 'PHP', 'ASP.Net', VB, 'C#', 'Java' and the like. They'll also generally have a solid understanding of SQL database-technology, because this is one way most contemporary substantial websites store their information. In reality, it's unlikely that a large E-commerce web site has been built in layout format by a bunch of web-site designers. More usually, following the creation of a place holder 'template', the material will be extracted from a database & 'dynamically' inserted. So apart from far better efficiency with the website build, this method also allows for a more consistent look and feel as well.

Many of these roles can and certainly do crossover obviously, we work with several free-lance website designers who each cover most of the above tasks. It takes time however to acquire such an array of commercial skills. A web-design program then that will equip you to enter the work-place should consist of the following - First, an introduction to basic web design, followed by teaching in Adobe Dreamweaver & an understanding of the main elements of Adobe Flash. Next you need to get to grips with the coding languages 'HTML' & 'CSS', and then be taught an overview of just how E-commerce works. 'PHP' has to be mastered so that 'dynamic' web-sites can be constructed (ASP.Net is actually far more involved, and PHP is very simple to get into at first,) & a basic understanding of Databases and 'SEO' should be achieved. All this is simply to get to a standard of technical ability where you are able to work with a broad enough variety of sites. Similar to when you were learning to drive, you must first acquire the physical skill-sets, before you essentially push past them and gain a certain amount of 'finesse'. You would have to allow roughly 400 - 500 hours to study and properly master a broad-ranging program of this nature - so if your aim is to get this done along-side employment it could be completed within twelve months. Careful planning to obtain the right training package for you is a good investment in your future - knowledgeable training advisors will help you sort the best route for you before you decide to begin.

The most important thing to stress is that the training program itself won't make you a web designer; it will simply coach you on the methods. Put together as many web-sites as possible whilst you work through your training course - the process will be invaluable & you will have something to show just what you can do. Build web-sites about a hobby, your dog, a favourite band or even Television show. You might even build inter-active sites & get traffic on them. Every little thing you do will add to your Curriculum Vitae, & illustrate more to a recruiter than an 'Adobe' certificate.

Professional web-site designers may also improve their offering if they choose to branch-out into areas like project-management and E-commerce for instance. Another field - that is not to be under-estimated - is 'SEO' ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This is focused on how to optimise web-site indexation on Search Engines like 'Google' and 'Yahoo'. And even though they technically originate from a network-administration background, we should remember the incredibly valuable function of the web server administrators & installers, who keep the whole thing working in the background.

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