Probably just about one of the most misinterpreted & over-worked expressions in the I.T. sector today has to be the words 'Web Designer'? If you're wanting to get into the industry, some details about the different facets ought to help to clarify things. In essence, there are two key sides to web-design; the 'creative' side & the technical process. Many people presume a 'web designer' is somebody that creates the visible aspects of the site. Lots of people may consider a 'web-designer' a form of artist. But in reality, within contemporary web design it's turning out to be more and more difficult to split up the technical side from the 'creative' element, as both are so inter-twined. If you break web design down into its different tasks, then it becomes much more obvious how everything sits together.

The people who design and build the pictures and graphic-icons which go on a web page are known as graphic artists. They're not exactly site designers per-se, and more often than not are multimedia artists using graphic layout & 'animation' software, (for example Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Flash.) Typically, they will have come from an art background, and may well have studied at university level. Most importantly, this role requires a strong creative skill.

Secondly, we have the web-designers, who employ design-environments such as Adobe Dreamweaver to set-up the layout & feel of the web page. They use the visuals created by the graphic-artist, and alongside their client create an emerging style and 'navigational' framework for the brand-new web-site. A web designer with fairly limited knowledge may very well begin with the form instead of the function of a web site. Although, to really build an effective web site, you have to begin with an understanding of what you need the website to really do. Is it for the most part an e-commerce website, that needs to be ready to receive payments securely, or is it an on-line product catalogue listing? Possibly rather like this web-site the key purpose is straightforward access to pertinent info, or it could be it will be a showcase for products and services through video and a heavily graphical inter-face. No matter what the purchaser wants from a site, the basic requirement is that it actually addresses the basic needs. There's no point producing a visually interesting site that's hopeless for anyone to navigate! The purpose of any good web-designer is first and foremost to create an event that people enjoy & are happy with - so that they come back again and again.

Web 'developers' are essentially the most technically apt of all. As well as an understanding of HTML, XML & 'CSS', web-developers will know other 'proper' programming languages like 'VB', PHP, Java, C# and ASP.net etc. A large number also have got a very good knowledge of 'SQL', the Database language - since the data on most sizable modern web sites is stored in this particular 'language'. In reality, it is unlikely that a large e-commerce site has been built in lay-out form by a group of web-designers. More usually, following the formation of a place-holder template, the material will be taken from a Database & 'dynamically' inserted. This process makes not only the building, management and upgrades hugely more straighforward, it also makes for a far more consistent web site.

The most important resources utilised by web-designers are their design environments, with 'Adobe Creative Suite' (now in version 4 as of 2009/2010) being essentially the most commercially popular. Dreamweaver is the software which builds web-sites, with Flash delivering usage of interactive & animated graphical content material. 'Dreamweaver' might be considered a rather fancy Word Processor in a great many ways. It enables you to lay graphics & text in accordance with specific parameters & rules, and then produce basic inter-activity through page-linking. Dreamweaver (as with any web design environment) produces HTML (HyperText Markup Language) program code in the background. Effectively, this language of web browsers' is actually a 'script' that draws & controls the web-page being watched. Lay-out 'tag' languages like XML & CSS are paired with 'HTML'. Because these tag 'languages' are 'standardised', the smoother and rather more efficient results function effectively on a number of different platforms. So whichever internet browser a person uses, ('Internet Explorer', Mozilla Firefox, Opera etc.) the page will hopefully appear exactly the same. And so though you're placing graphic blocks & text, behind the scenes, Dreamweaver is turning what you're doing in to code. It is very important to achieve an in-depth comprehension of these various languages if you wish to be a web designer at a commercial level.

Extra skills which are important for commercial web-site designers are an understanding of project management & E-commerce. Another discipline - which isn't to be under-estimated - is SEO ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This is all about how to optimise website listings on Search Engines like Google and Yahoo. And behind the scenes but vitally important are the web-server installers and administrators that make sure that the whole thing operates efficiently. Technically these people are network administrator specialists though.

The one thing you need to understand is that no training course can actually make a web designer out of you. The actual training course will simply cover all the techniques and skills. All through your study and training, you have got to apply yourself to constructing & creating as many web-sites as possible, to practice and build your portfolio. Create web-sites about your hobby, your dog, a favourite band or even TV show. You might even create inter-active web sites & get traffic on them. Everything you do will enhance your Curriculum Vitae, and prove much more to an employer than just an Adobe certification.

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