Without doubt one of the most misunderstood and generalised titles in the I.T. field these days must be the term 'Web Designer'? Web Design takes on board lots of diverse aspects, and an understanding of these may help anybody looking to get into the marketplace. Basically, there are two key areas to web-design; the creative side & the technical process. The typical computer user considers web-site designers determine how a site looks and 'feels'. Basically, they look at web-designers because 'artists' in the main. In fact every web-designer's occupation is an 'inter-related' combination of technical know-how and design-creativity - and the two things have become quite hard to separate. When you break down web design in to its component tasks, then it becomes much more apparent how everything fits together.

First, we've got graphic-artists, who design and put together the graphic icons & pictures that you find on a web-page. Most often they do this by utilising graphic lay-out and animation software (like Adobe 'Flash' & Photoshop), and are not strictly site designers per-se. Often, they'll have come from an artistic background, & could have undertaken studies at university or college level. This element is more about artistic expertise than anything else.

Next, we have the web designers, that employ design-environments such as Dreamweaver to produce the layout & 'feel' of the web page. They take on the work done by the graphic-artist, and alongside their client deliver an initial look & navigational framework for the brand new website. An amateur web-designer often starts with the form of a web site, rather than the function. But, to really build a successful web-site, you have to start with a clear understanding of the things you need the website to actually do. Is it largely an E-commerce web-site, which wants to have the facility receive payments safely and securely, or is it perhaps an on-line product brochure listing? Or perhaps it'll include a lot of video and heavy graphics. On the other hand it might be principally an info web-site, where it is essential to supply easy access to appropriate web pages of wording. No matter what the client would like from a site, the fundamental requirement is that it actually meets the basic specification. A lot of web-sites look fantastic but are a pain to get around & find what you want - and so people leave & never come back. A good web designer must essentially create a web based experience that's both enjoyable and instinctive for those visiting the site - then they will come back more than once.

The key tools employed by web site designers are the design environments, with Adobe Creative Suite (presently in Version 4 as of 2009/2010) being essentially the most popular commercially. 'Dreamweaver' is the software that builds website pages, with 'Flash' providing usage of animated & interactive graphical content material. In a great many ways we may look at 'Dreamweaver' as a rather fancy Word-Processor. Graphics and text can be placed (according to certain limitations) and then a basic interactivity can be created by means of page linking. Like other web design-environments, Dreamweaver produces the program-code HTML in the background ('HTML' stands for 'Hyper Text Markup Language'). Basically, this language of web-browsers is actually a script that 'draws' and controls the page being watched. Matched with 'HTML' are the layout 'tag' languages like XML and CSS. Because they are standardised, these will work on multiple platforms to enable more streamlined HTML coding & more efficient lay-out techniques. And so whatever web-browser somebody uses, (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera and so on.) the page will hopefully look the same. So even though you lay the graphic-blocks & put in the text, Dreamweaver is turning this in to code behind the scenes. A thorough understanding of these various 'languages' is essential if you're to become a commercially-viable web designer.

The key point to emphasise is that the training program alone won't make you a web designer; it will simply provide you with the techniques. As you complete your training-course, make the effort to construct & develop a large selection of your own websites to produce a profile of your work. Your web sites should be about anything you like - the local music-scene, horses, an author you admire or motorbikes. You might even set up inter-active websites & get 'traffic' on them. Adobe accreditations are of help, but how you can use what you've learned says much more about you as a web designer!

The most technically-trained website professionals are normally the web developers. These people will not just know 'HTML', 'CSS' & XML, but will have learnt more official programming-languages like 'PHP', ASP.net, VB, C#, Java among others. Many also have an effective understanding of SQL, the database language - since the information on most large modern sites is stored in this 'language'. An average e-commerce site does not have a crew of web-site designers who have created its 1000s of web-pages in layout format. More often, following the formation of a place holder 'template', the material will be taken from a Database and 'dynamically' inserted. This process makes not only the construction, management & upgrades hugely more efficient, it also tends to make a far more consistent web-site.

Needless to say you'll find cross overs with a lot of these jobs - in-fact we have contacts with several web-designers who are proficient in a lot of them. But that level of understanding will take a while to master. A web design course therefore that can equip you to get into the market should include the following disciplines - A basic introductory tutorial to web design, and then how to utilise Adobe 'Dreamweaver' & have a fundamental knowledge of Adobe Flash. Next you must understand the 'coding' languages HTML and 'CSS', & after that be taught a synopsis of just how E-commerce works. Some Database & SEO know-how is essential, and a knowledge of the programming language 'PHP' (instead of the more complicated ASP.NET) so that you can construct 'dynamic' web-sites. The main reason you will need all these elements is they will give you the technical grounding to operate on a variety of site builds. Much like learning to drive, you have to first acquire the actual physical skillsets, before you ultimately push beyond them and achieve a certain amount of finesse. You would have to allow approximately 400 - 500 hours to study and effectively learn a wide-ranging program of this nature - so if your aim is to do this along with employment it could be completed within twelve months. Careful planning to obtain the best training program for your needs is a worthwhile investment in your future - knowledgeable career advisors will help you to sort the best way forward before you decide to start.

IT & Office Skills Multimedia Home-Study CBT Certification Training Courses >>