Without doubt one of the most mis-understood & generalised labels within the IT market nowadays has to be the words 'Web Designer'? Web Design includes a number of diverse aspects, and an understanding of these can help anyone considering getting in the market. Effectively, there are two main areas to web-design; the 'creative' element and the 'technical' process. Many people think that a web designer is someone that is in charge of the visible areas of the website. Meaning a 'web designer' is fundamentally an artist who has had some 'technical' training. But in reality, within contemporary web-design it's turning out to be more and more difficult to separate the technical part from the creative aspect, as both of them are so inter-twined. It will become a little more obvious how things sit together if we break the job up in to its component roles.

People who design and build the images and graphic icons that go on a website are generally known as graphic artists. In real terms, graphic-artists ordinarily are not really web designers. More often they're multimedia artists who use software like Adobe Photoshop & 'Flash' to generate their finished results. The majority have come from further education, typically with a degree-level art qualification. Obviously, this particular role involves a strong artistic ability.

Then come the web-designers, who generate the lay-out and overall feel of a website by using a design environment like Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. Using visuals from the artist, they'll create the navigational composition of the web-site, working together with their clients to confirm the 'feel' is right. A web-designer with fairly limited understanding may well focus on the 'form' instead of the 'function' of a website. If you want to build a good web-site however, it is crucial to first of all look at what you actually want the web-site to do. Is it largely an e-commerce web-site, that really needs to be able to receive payments safely and securely, or is it an online product brochure listing? Maybe rather like this web-site the key purpose is easy access to pertinent info, or maybe it'll be a showcase for products and services via video and a heavily graphical inter-face. Fundamentally the site must be able to meet it's requirements - whatever those particular needs are. A lot of web-sites look fantastic but are a headache to get around and get what you need - and so users leave and never return. The goal of any good web designer is to first & foremost build an event that visitors enjoy and are relaxed with - so that they come back again and again.

Web-developers are the most technically apt of all. Not only will web developers know the languages above, they will also have had training in additional languages, for example 'C#', 'VB', PHP, Java, ASP.Net and others. And since most modern web-sites of any size 'store' their data using 'SQL' database-technology, they're also likely to have a solid grip SQL too. An average e-commerce website doesn't have a bunch of web-site designers who've produced it's 1000s of pages in layout form. Rather, a place-holder 'template' will have been built, & the material will be 'dynamically' loaded from a database. So along with significantly higher efficiencies with the web site build, using this method also provides for a more consistent look and 'feel' as well.

Its essential to appreciate that even the finest web-design programs can only teach you the methods & processes - not one will be able to convert you into a bona fide web-designer. During your training & study, you have to spend time constructing and developing as many websites as possible, to prepare & assemble your portfolio. Your own websites should be about anything - the local music scene, farm pets, a writer you enjoy or even motor bikes. Start to build interactive websites and generate 'traffic' on to them. Adobe certifications are useful, but showing how you can implement the training says far more about you as a web-designer!

The design environments employed by web site designers are their most important tools. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most commercially accepted in the market these days (as of '10). Whilst 'Adobe Flash' offers access to interactive and animated graphical content material, 'Dreamweaver' is the software program that builds web-sites. You could actually claim that 'Dreamweaver' is the Word-Processor of the Adobe CS series. In accordance with certain rules and constraints, it lets you display text and graphics, and then through a procedure known as page-linking you can generate basic inter-activity within the web-site. HTML (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) program coding is produced behind the scenes with 'Dreamweaver', just like any web design environment. It's the language of web browsers, & is a script which essentially 'draws' and controls the page you're looking at. Together with 'HTML' are the layout 'tag' 'languages' - such as CSS and XML. Because these tag languages are standardised, the streamlined & rather more efficient outcomes work effectively on a number of different platforms. This means the web-page will look exactly the same on MS Internet Explorer, 'Mozilla Firefox', Opera, Safari etc. (or shall we say, that's the plan!) Consequently though you're placing graphic-blocks & text, in the background, Dreamweaver is converting what you're doing into 'code'. Its very important to gain an in depth understanding of these various languages to be able to be a website designer at a commercial standard.

Many of these jobs can and certainly do crossover of course, we are involved with a number of independent web-designers who all cover almost all of the previously mentioned jobs. But that level of knowledge takes a little while to master. A web design program then that will prepare you to enter the workplace should include the following disciplines - A basic introduction to web design, followed by how to use Adobe Dreamweaver & gain a fundamental understanding of Adobe Flash. Next you need to get to grips with the 'coding' languages HTML and 'CSS', and then be taught an overview of how E-commerce operates. Some database & 'SEO' expertise is crucial, and an awareness of the programming-language 'PHP' (rather than the more complicated ASP.NET) so that you can build 'dynamic' sites. All of this is merely to reach a standard of technical ability where you are able to deal with a diverse enough array of web-sites. Similar to when you were learning to drive, you have to first obtain the physical abilities, before you can ultimately push beyond them & gain an element of finesse. A comprehensive training program of this sort would probably take about four to five hundred hours of part time practice and study and can therefore be successfully completed part-time over a year. A professional advisor will be able to help you prepare your way through this quagmire of commercial-learning, & we strongly suggest that you take the time to plan your path carefully before you start your training.

Professional web-site designers can also upgrade their offering if they choose to branch out into areas such as project-management and E-commerce for instance. Another area - that isn't to be underestimated - is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This concerns how to optimize site listings on Search Engines like Google & Yahoo. Also of course, we shouldn't overlook the web server administrators & installers who sit behind the scenes ensuring everything functions as it should; though they normally come from a network-administration background.

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