It is reasonable to say that perhaps one of the most broadly interpreted & badly perceived terms within I.T. is the label 'Web-Designer'. Website Design includes a number of different aspects, and an understanding of these facets could help anybody seeking to get into the market. In essence, there are 2 principal sides to web-design; the creative element & the 'technical' process. The majority of people imagine a 'web-designer' is someone who is in charge of the visible aspects of the website. To put it differently, they look at web designers as artists on the whole. In reality the present day web designer's career is an 'inter-related' combination of technical understanding & design creativity - & the two things have become quite difficult to split up. When you break web design down in to its various functions, then it will become more evident how everything sits together.

First, we've got graphic artists, who design & build the graphic symbols and images which we see on a website. In real terms, graphic-artists usually aren't really web-site designers. More commonly they're multimedia artists that use software such as Adobe Photoshop and Flash to create their end results. Many have come from higher-education, with typically a degree-level art background. Obviously, this role involves a good artistic flair.

Web designers are second - they make use of design-software such as Adobe 'Dreamweaver' to prepare and design the appearance and 'feel' of the web site. By using visuals from the graphic-artist, they'll assemble the navigational structure of the web site, working with the clients to ensure that the feel meets their needs. An amateur web designer tends to start with the 'form' of the site, instead of the function. And yet, you should actually start with an understanding of the 'functions' its required to perform to construct a really productive web site. Perhaps it's in effect a web based catalogue, or an e-commerce website where merchandise can be purchased there and then. Perhaps you'll want to showcase products and solutions by means of video and a largely 'graphical' inter-face, or it could be it is mostly an 'informational' web-site where the necessity is straightforward access to key text information (such as this particular web site.) Essentially the web site must be able to meet it's needs - whatever those particular needs are. People will leave a web site and not go back if it's too difficult to 'navigate' - however attractive it looks on the surface. The overriding goal of every good site designers is for people to go to their web-site repeatedly - so it needs to be a pleasant and pleasant experience.

The most technically trained internet professionals are generally the web-developers. They won't just understand HTML, CSS & XML, but will have studied 'proper' programming-languages like 'PHP', ASP.Net, Visual Basic, 'C#', Java and others. They will also generally have a strong understanding of SQL Database technology, because this is one way most contemporary significant sites store their information. In reality, its un-likely that a large e-commerce website has been created in lay-out form by a team of web-site designers. More usually, following the construction of a place-holder 'template', the details will be taken from a Database & 'dynamically' inserted. This process makes not only the construction, management and upgrades hugely more straighforward, it equally produces a more consistent web-site.

Many free-lance web-designers can carry out a number of these functions themselves; in fact we come into contact with several who are able to regularly. It will require time however to create such a range of commercial skill-sets. The right professional web design training program then must teach several things: A briefing of the basics of web design first, then directly into using Dreamweaver to a professional level & the primary technicalities of 'Flash' as well. Next you must understand the coding languages HTML and 'CSS', & after that be trained in a synopsis of just how E-commerce operates. 'PHP' has to be covered to ensure that dynamic sites can be created (ASP.Net is far more involved, & 'PHP' is very simple to get into at first,) and a basic understanding of databases and 'SEO' should be mastered. All of this is simply to reach a standard of ability technically where you are able to work with a wide enough array of sites. The actual physical skillsets have got to come first, before you can elevate them to a more natural flowing style - just like when you were learning to drive your car. The majority of students can work through a manageable program such as this inside a year - supposing part time study and practice of close to 400 - 500 hrs. A skilled expert will be able to help you prepare the right path through this quagmire of commercial-learning, and we strongly suggest that you plan your route carefully before you start your web design training.

Supplemental skills that are very useful for commercial web-site designers are an understanding of project-management & e-commerce. Another field - that isn't to be under-estimated - is SEO ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This is focused on how to optimise website listings on search engines like 'Google' & Yahoo. Also of course, we must not overlook the web server installers & administrators who sit behind the scenes making sure the whole thing functions as it should; though they typically come from a network-administration background.

The design environments used by web designers are their key tools. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most commercially accepted in the market today (as of '10). Whilst Adobe Flash gives access to animated and interactive 'graphical' content, 'Dreamweaver' is the software that builds websites. In many ways we may look at 'Dreamweaver' as a glorified Word Processor. It lets you lay graphics & text according to specific rules and parameters, and then produce basic interactivity via page linking. HTML ('Hyper Text Markup Language') program coding is developed in the background with 'Dreamweaver', just as with any web design environment. HTML is a 'script' which in simple terms 'draws' & controls the web page displayed on your screen. It's the 'language' of web browsers. Layout 'tag' 'languages' like XML and CSS are associated with 'HTML'. These enable more streamlined HTML coding & more effective layout techniques, that will work on multiple platforms (because they're 'standardised'). Therefore the web-page will look the same on Microsoft 'Internet Explorer', 'Mozilla Firefox', Opera, 'Safari' and so on. (at least, that's the plan!) Subsequently the graphic-blocks you are laying and the text you're adding is being turned into 'code' in the background by Dreamweaver. Its very important to have an in-depth comprehension of these types of 'languages' if you wish to be a web designer at a commercial level.

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