The definition of 'Web-Designer' is possibly one of the more over used & misinterpreted labels in the I.T. sector. For anyone wanting to get in the marketplace, some details about the distinct aspects might help to make things clear. Web-Design involves the 'technical' elements of a successful website as well as the creative elements. To the average man or women in the street, a 'web-designer' is somebody that designs the look and 'feel' of a web-site. Which means a web designer is essentially an 'artist' with some technical instruction. But in actuality, in modern-day web-design it's turning out to be more and more difficult to split up the 'technical' side from the creative side, as both of them are so inter-twined. It will become much more obvious how things fit together when we break the job up in to its various roles.

People that design and assemble the images and graphic icons which go on a website are called graphic-artists. In real terms, graphic artists ordinarily are not really web designers. More often they are multimedia artists that work with software like Adobe Photoshop and Flash to create their finished results. Most attended higher education, with typically a degree level art background. This part is more about artistic ability than any other function.

Then come the web-designers, who develop the layout and overall feel of a web site by using a design environment like Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. By employing artwork from the graphic-artist, they will put together the 'navigational' structure of the website, working together with the client to make sure the 'feel' is correct. A web-designer with little understanding would most likely focus on the 'form' instead of the 'function' of a site. But, to genuinely build a successful site, you need to start with an understanding of what you need the website to actually do. It could be an on-line inventory of items, or maybe it's an E-commerce web-site which would need to be ready to sell directly from the web page. Maybe you want to show off products via video and a heavily graphical inter-face, or it could be it's mostly an informational web-site where the necessity is simple access to essential text information (such as this particular website.) No matter what the client needs from a website, the essential necessity is that it addresses the basic specification. Such a lot of web sites look fantastic but are a headache to 'navigate' & get what you'd like - & so people move on and never come back. A good web designer must effectively create a web based experience that is both fulfilling & instinctive for the people visiting the site - that way they'll come back over and over again.

Many of these functions can & do cross-over obviously, we use various independent web designers who each can handle a lot of the above roles. Then again that level of knowledge takes a little while to master. The ideal commercial web-design program therefore needs to teach a number of things: First of all, an introduction to basic web design, followed by training in Adobe 'Dreamweaver' & a synopsis of the primary aspects of Adobe 'Flash'. This would then lead on to a knowledge of HTML and 'CSS', with some coaching into the area of E-commerce. PHP must be covered in order that 'dynamic' websites can be constructed (ASP.NET is far more involved, & 'PHP' is very simple to get into at first,) and a simple idea of databases and 'SEO' should be achieved. Learning these skills will provide you with a chance to begin working on a very good cross-section of sites. Much like anything else, we must learn how to actually do the physical skills initially, & then establish more finesse by way of experience & practice. You'd probably need to allow about 400 to 500 hours to study & properly learn a wide-ranging program like this - so if your aim is to get this done along with a job it could be done within one year. Detailed planning to obtain the appropriate training program for you is a great investment of your time - skilled training experts will help you sort the best route for you before you decide to get going.

The design environments employed by web site designers are their key resources. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most commercially popular in the industry nowadays (as of 2010). Whilst Adobe Flash provides access to interactive & animated 'graphical' content material, Dreamweaver is the software which builds sites. You could actually state that Dreamweaver is the Word-Processor of the Adobe Creative Suite range. Within certain rules and parameters, it helps you display graphics and text, & then through a method known as page-linking you can produce basic inter-activity throughout the web site. HTML ('Hyper Text Markup Language') program-coding is created behind the scenes with 'Dreamweaver', just like any other web design environment. 'HTML' is a 'script' which essentially draws and controls the web page displayed on your screen. It's the 'language' of browsers. Together with HTML are the layout tag 'languages' - like CSS & XML. These tag languages enable more stream-lined 'HTML' code and more efficient layout methods, which will work on multiple platforms (as they're 'standardised'). So whichever web browser someone uses, (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera or anything else.) the web-page will ideally look exactly the same. Consequently the graphic-blocks you're placing & the text you're adding is being turned into code behind the scenes by 'Dreamweaver'. If you are aiming to be commercially feasible as a web-designer, you'll have to have a thorough knowledge of these 'languages'.

Web developers are members of the equation, and the most technically-trained. Along with a sound grasp of HTML, 'XML' and 'CSS', web-developers will know other highly regarded programming-languages like VB, PHP, Java, C# & ASP.net etc. Many also have got a good knowledge of 'SQL', the database language - because the data on many large modern web-sites is stored in this language. The majority of E-commerce web-sites aren't the result of a large bunch of web designers who have created 1000s of web pages in lay-out form. More often, after the construction of a place holder template, the material will be taken from a database & dynamically inserted. So in addition to much greater efficiencies with the site construct, this method also makes for an infinitely more consistent look and feel as well.

It's essential to realise that even the very best web-design courses can only teach you the techniques & procedures - not one will be able to turn you in to a professional web-designer. Throughout your study and training, you must apply yourself to building and creating as many web-sites as possible, to prepare and assemble your portfolio. Your websites can be about anything you like - your local music scene, horses, an author you enjoy or motorbikes. Start interactive sites and generate 'traffic' to them. Adobe certifications are helpful, but how you can use the knowledge says far more about you as a web-designer!

Additional skillsets which are very useful to professional web-site designers are a knowledge of project management & e-commerce. Another area - that is not to be underestimated - is SEO ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This is focused on how to optimise web-site listings on Search Engines like Google & Yahoo. Also of course, we mustn't overlook the web-server installers & administrators who sit behind the scenes ensuring the whole thing works properly; though they generally originate from a network-administration background.

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