It is reasonable to state that one of the more widely interpreted and badly understood definitions in I.T. is the expression 'Web-Designer'. Web-Design takes on board a number of diverse aspects, and an understanding of these facets may help anyone looking to get in the market. Essentially, there are two main areas to web design; the 'creative' side & the technical side. Lots of people believe a 'web designer' is somebody that designs the visual aspects of the website. Basically, they view web designers because artists in the main. The truth is the present day web-designer's function is an 'inter-related' combination of technical understanding and design-creativity - and the two things are becoming very hard to split up. When you break web design down in to it's various functions, then it will become more evident how everything fits together.

Graphic-artists are 1st - these people design and build the icons and images for a site. Most often they bring this about by using graphic layout & 'animation' software (like Adobe Flash & 'Photoshop'), and are generally not actually site designers as such. The majority have come from higher education, with typically a degree standard art background. Above all else, this role involves a good artistic skill.

Next there are the web designers, who generate the layout & overall feel of a web site by utilising a design-environment like Dreamweaver. They work with the actual visuals which are provided by the graphic-artist, and talk with their client to initially develop the feel and navigational composition of the web site. A novice web designer often starts with the 'form' of the website, rather than the function. And yet, you must really start with an understanding of the functions it needs to do to create a really successful web-site. Is it largely an E-commerce web-site, which wants to be able to receive payments securely, or is it an online product or service catalogue listing? Maybe you need to accentuate merchandise by way of video & a largely 'graphical' inter-face, or maybe its mainly an informational site where the necessity is simple access to key text information (such as this website.) Whatever the customer wants from a web-site, the basic requirement is that it actually addresses the basic specification. Consumers will leave a web-site & not return if it is too hard to navigate - however pretty it appears at first glance. A good web-designer must in essence develop an on-line experience that is both pleasant & user-friendly for the people visiting the site - then they'll come back more than once.

The most technically trained internet professionals are normally the web developers. Not only will web-developers understand the languages already mentioned, they will also have studied additional languages, for instance 'C#', 'VB', PHP, Java, ASP.net and others. And because most contemporary internet sites of any size 'store' their data using 'SQL' database technology, they're also likely to have got a solid handle SQL as well. The majority of E-commerce websites aren't the result of a sizable group of web-designers who've built thousands of pages in a lay-out form. Instead, a place holder template will have been created, & the material will be 'dynamically' loaded from a database. Apart from being massively more efficient to build, manage & update, it also helps with the 'feel' of the web site remaining consistent.

The key tools utilised by web-designers are their 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 web-sites, with 'Flash' delivering access to animated & interactive graphical content. You could actually say that Dreamweaver is the Word Processor of the Adobe Creative Suite range. Text and graphics can be displayed (within certain rules) & then a basic interactivity can be produced through page linking. 'HTML' (Hyper Text Mark-up Language) program coding is developed behind the scenes with Dreamweaver, much like any other web design environment. Basically, this language of web-browsers is a script that draws and controls the web page being viewed. Layout 'tag' 'languages' like CSS & XML are associated with HTML. As these 'tag' languages are 'standardised', the smoother and more efficient outcomes work successfully on many different platforms. 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!) Consequently the graphic blocks you are laying and the text you're adding is being turned into 'code' in the background by 'Dreamweaver'. A comprehensive knowledge of these languages is essential if you are to be a commercially-viable web-designer.

Commercial web-designers can also upgrade their offering if they choose to branch-out into fields like project-management and e-commerce for instance. 'Search Engine Optimisation' (SEO) is another field that tackles how a site is listed with search engines - so that it may be found more easily (this really is sometimes a whole job by itself.) And although they typically come from a network-administration background, we should remember the valuable role of the web-server installers and administrators, who keep everything working in the background.

Of course you'll find cross overs with a lot of these functions - we ourselves have connections with quite a few web designers who're proficient in many of them. Although that degree of knowledge will take quite some time to master. A web-design program then that can prepare you to enter the work-place must consist of the following - A basic introduction to web design, followed by how to utilise Adobe 'Dreamweaver' and have a fundamental understanding of Adobe 'Flash'. Next you need to understand the 'coding' languages 'HTML' & 'CSS', and after that be taught a synopsis of just how e-commerce operates. To build 'dynamic' web sites you'll need to gain knowledge of PHP, which is a simpler programming language to get into than ASP.NET. In addition , you need a rudimentary understanding of databases & 'SEO'. The main reason you need all these elements is they will give you the technical ability to operate on all sorts of site builds. The physical competencies have got to develop first of all, before you can fine tune them to a more natural and flowing style - just like the time you learned to drive your first car. A thorough training program like this would possibly involve close to 400 to 500 hrs of part time study and practice & can therefore be reasonably concluded part time over 12 months. As there are lots of things to consider, it's well worth taking the time to look closely at any training programs that interest you. Talk to somebody with industry knowledge to help you sort things out.

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