Without doubt one of the most mis-interpreted and generalised titles in the I.T. sector nowadays has to be the term Web-Designer? Web Design takes on board quite a few distinct aspects, & an understanding of these may help anybody thinking of getting in to the marketplace. Web-Design involves the technical components of a site and also the creative elements. Lots of people presume a 'web-designer' is someone who creates the visible aspects of the web-site. Quite simply, they see web-site designers as artists in the main. But in fact, within modern-day web-design its getting increasingly difficult to separate the 'technical' side from the 'creative' part, as both are so intertwined. We can illustrate this with greater clarity if we break web design down into its various parts.

Graphic artists are 1st - these people design & build the icons & pictures for a web-site. Strictly speaking, graphic-artists ordinarily are not really web designers. More commonly they are multimedia artists that use software such as Adobe 'Photoshop' and 'Flash' to bring about their finished results. The majority of graphic artists went to college or university, with a background in art and design. Clearly, this particular role involves a strong artistic bent.

Next we have the web designers, who create the lay-out and overall feel of a web-site using a design environment like Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. They use the graphics done by the artist, and together their clients produce an initial style and 'navigational' composition for the new web site. A web-designer with fairly limited knowledge would probably focus on the 'form' rather than the 'function' of a site. But, to really create a useful website, you should begin with a clear understanding of what you need the web-site to really do. It may be a web-based catalogue of merchandise, or maybe its an e-commerce web site that would need to have the capacity to sell straight from the site. Maybe much like this site the main function is straightforward access to relevant information, or it could be it'll be a show-case for merchandise by means of video & a heavily graphical interface. Whatever the client would like from a web-site, the essential prerequisite is that it meets the basic needs. Most people will abandon a web-site & not return if it's too hard to get around - however pretty it looks at first glance. The goal of any reputable web designer is to first and foremost produce an experience that visitors enjoy & are relaxed with - so that they return again & again.

The main thing to emphasise is the fact that training program alone won't make you a web designer; it will merely educate you on the techniques. Throughout your training & study, you have got to spend time building & creating as many sites as possible, to practice & assemble your portfolio. Design sites about your favourite hobby, your family, a favourite music group or TV show. Create an inter-active site, and start generating 'traffic' towards it. This will all look much more favourable on your Curriculum Vitae, and in your portfolio, than a qualification from Adobe will!

Alternative skill sets which are relevant to web-designers in the commercial market are a good grasp of E-commerce and project management. Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is another field that tackles how the site is indexed with search engines - so that it can be more easily found (this is sometimes an entire job in itself.) And behind the scenes but very crucially we have the web-server administrators and installers that make sure that everything works as it should. Technically they are network-administrator specialists though.

Of course you will find crossovers with a lot of these jobs - we ourselves have contacts with several web-site designers who're capable in many of them. Then again that level of knowledge will take a little while to master. You have to be taught a number of things on a professionally viable web design training program: A basic introduction to web design, and then how to utilise Adobe Dreamweaver & gain a basic knowledge of Adobe 'Flash'. The languages of HTML and CSS need to be covered next, with a level of E-commerce training included here. Some Database & 'SEO' know-how is essential, & an understanding of the programming language PHP (as opposed to the more complicated ASP.Net) in order to create dynamic web sites. Grasping these competencies will provide you with a chance to begin working on a decent cross-section of websites. Similar to when you were taking driving lessons, you have to first obtain the actual physical skill-sets, before you effectively push beyond them & gain an element of 'finesse'. A thorough training-program like this would possibly entail close to four to five hundred hours of part-time study & practice and can therefore be successfully concluded part-time over 12 months. An industry advisor can help you prepare your path through this quagmire of commercial learning, and we highly recommend that you take the time to plan your path with care before you begin your training program.

The key tools utilised by web-designers are their design-environments, with Adobe Creative Suite (presently in version 4 as of 2009/2010) staying the most commercially popular. The software which builds website pages is 'Adobe Dreamweaver', & Adobe Flash gives access to graphical content which can be animated & interactive. In a great many ways we might look at 'Dreamweaver' as a rather fancy Word Processor. It helps you to lay graphics and text in accordance with particular rules & parameters, and then create basic interactivity through page linking. HTML ('Hyper Text Markup Language') program-coding is produced in the background with Dreamweaver, just as with any web design-environment. Basically, this language of web browsers' is a script which 'draws' & controls the web-page being looked at. Alongside HTML are the layout tag languages - like XML & CSS. These tag languages allow more stream-lined HTML code and more efficient lay-out methods, that will work on multiple-platforms (because they are standardised). What this means is the web-page will appear the same on MS Internet Explorer, Mozilla Firefox, 'Opera', 'Safari' and so on. (at least, that's the plan!) So although you lay the graphic-blocks and add the textual content, 'Dreamweaver' is converting this in to code in the background. If you are going to be a commercially viable website designer, you'll have to have an in-depth knowledge of these languages.

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