Undoubtedly just about one of the most misunderstood and over-worked titles in the I.T. sector these days has to be the term 'Web Designer'? Web Design incorporates numerous diverse facets, and a good understanding of these facets can help anybody considering getting into the market. Web-Design incorporates the 'technical' elements of a successful site and also the 'creative' elements. The typical PC user thinks web-site designers are responsible for how a web-site looks & 'feels'. Many of us may consider a 'web designer' a kind of artist. In spite of this, a modern 'web-designer' will realistically be as involved with the technical element of things as they are with the 'creative' element. If you break down web design into its component tasks, then it will become much more apparent how each thing sits together.

Firstly, there are graphic artists, that design and build the graphic symbols and images that you find on a web-site. Strictly speaking, graphic-artists usually aren't really web-designers. More often they are multimedia artists that utilise software such as Adobe Photoshop and Flash to produce their end results. Typically, they will have come from an artistic background, and may have undertaken studies at university level. This area is a lot more about creative expertise than any other function.

Web-designers come next - these people make use of design software like Dreamweaver to create and design the visual aspects and 'feel' of the web site. By using visuals from the artist, they'll construct the navigational composition of the website, working with the client to confirm the feel meets their needs. A lot of amateur web site designers concentrate first on the 'format' of the website, as opposed to it's function. However, you need to actually start with a grasp of the 'functions' its required to perform to build a really effective web site. Is it predominantly an e-commerce website, which wants to have the facility receive payments securely, or is it perhaps an online product brochure listing? Perhaps rather like this site the key function is easy access to pertinent information, or it could be it will be a show-case for items through video & a heavily graphical interface. Whatever the client wants from a web-site, the fundamental requirement is that it actually fulfils the basic specification. Most people will give up on a web-site and not return if it's too complicated to get around - however attractive it appears at first glance. The over-riding aim of all good web-site designers is for people to pay a visit to their website repeatedly - so it really needs to be a pleasant and gratifying experience.

The most technically trained internet experts are often the web developers. Along with being proficient in HTML, XML and CSS, web-developers will understand other highly regarded programming languages such as Visual Basic, 'PHP', 'Java', C# and 'ASP.Net' etc. A large number also possess a good knowledge of 'SQL', the database language - as the information on most large modern sites is stored in this particular 'language'. A regular e-commerce site does not have a group of web-site designers who have created it's thousands of web-pages in lay-out format. More often, following the creation of a place-holder 'template', the details will be taken from a database & 'dynamically' inserted. This makes not only the building, management and updates hugely more straighforward, it also produces a far more consistent web-site.

Additional skill-sets which are very useful to commercial web-site designers are a knowledge of project management and e-commerce. Search Engine Optimisation ('SEO') is another area that handles how a web site is listed with Search Engines - to ensure that it can be more easily found (this really is almost a whole job in itself.) And behind the scenes but vitally important we have the web server administrators & installers who make sure that the whole thing works efficiently. Officially speaking they are network-administrator specialists though.

The 'Adobe Creative Suite' is regarded as the most commercially-popular design environment utilised by web-designers nowadays. These valuable applications are currently ('10) on Version 4. The software program which builds websites is 'Adobe Dreamweaver', & Adobe Flash accesses graphical content material which can be interactive and animated. Dreamweaver may be looked at as a glorified Word Processor in many ways. In accordance with particular rules & constraints, it enables you to place text & graphics, and then through a method called page-linking you can produce basic inter-activity inside the web-site. 'HTML' (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) program coding is produced behind the scenes with 'Dreamweaver', much like any web design-environment. It's the language of web browsers, and is a script which essentially 'draws' & controls the web page you are seeing. Together with 'HTML' are the layout 'tag' languages - like CSS & XML. As these tag languages are standardised, the streamlined & more efficient results work effectively on a number of different platforms. The theory being that the web-page will appear identical on any web browser, whether it is Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, 'Safari', Opera or whatever. Consequently although you are placing graphic blocks & adding text, behind the scenes, Dreamweaver is converting this into code. If you're aiming to be a commercially viable web designer, you'll have to have a thorough understanding of these types of languages.

The key thing to emphasise is the fact that training itself won't make you a web designer; it will simply educate you on the techniques. Build as many websites as you possibly can whilst you work through your studies - the process will be invaluable and you'll have a portfolio to show what you can do. Make web-sites about a hobby, your family dog, a favourite band or Television show. You could even build interactive web sites & get traffic on them. Anything you do will enhance your Curriculum Vitae, and prove more to an employer than an 'Adobe' certification.

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