It is fair to state that one of the most broadly interpreted and improperly perceived definitions within I.T. is the expression Web-Designer. For anybody considering getting in to the marketplace, some details of the distinct aspects might help to de-mystify things. Web Design incorporates the technical elements of a site as well as the 'creative' aspects. To the person on the street, a web-designer is somebody who creates the look & 'feel' of a website. Meaning a web-designer is essentially an artist who has had some 'technical' instruction. However, a professional web designer will in fact be as occupied with the 'technical' side of things as much as the 'creative' element. It becomes more obvious how things fit together when we break the profession up in to its different parts.

Individuals who design & put together the images & graphic-icons that go on a web page are referred to as graphic artists. These are not strictly web-designers per-se, and generally are multimedia artists using graphic layout and 'animation' software, (like Adobe Photoshop & Adobe 'Flash'.) Most have been through higher education, typically with a degree standard art background. Obviously, this job requires a solid artistic bias.

Web-designers are second - these people work with design-software such as Adobe 'Dreamweaver' to prepare & design the appearance & feel of the web site. They use the visuals done by the artist, and in partnership with their clients develop an initial style and 'navigational' structure for the new web-site. A good number of novice web-site designers place emphasis to begin with on the 'format' of the web site, instead of its 'function'. But, to genuinely create an effective website, you need to start with a clear understanding of what you require the web-site to really do. Is it for the most part an e-commerce website, that really needs to be able to receive payments safely and securely, or is it perhaps a web-based product or service catalogue listing? Perhaps you need to showcase products and services by means of video & a heavily graphical interface, or maybe it's mostly an 'informational' site where the requirement is easy access to key text data (like this particular site.) Essentially the web-site must have the facility to meet it's needs - whatever those requirements are. A lot of web-sites look amazing but they are a pain to 'navigate' and get what you'd like - and so people move on & never come back. The aim of any professional web designer is first & foremost to design an event that individuals enjoy & feel happy with - so they come back again.

Commercial web-designers may also enhance their offering if they branch out into fields such as project-management & E-commerce for example. Another field - which is not to be under-estimated - is 'SEO' ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This is focused on how to optimise site indexation on search engines like 'Google' & Yahoo. And even though they generally come from a network administration background, we mustn't forget the valuable role of the web server installers & administrators, who keep everything working behind the scenes.

Many free-lance web designers can carry out several of these jobs themselves; in actual fact we come into contact with quite a few who are able to regularly. However, you will need time to acquire that level of skill. A web-design program then that can equip you to enter the work-place should encompass the following - A basic introductory tutorial to web-design, followed by how to use Adobe 'Dreamweaver' & have a fundamental understanding of Adobe Flash. This should then lead on to a comprehension of 'HTML' and 'CSS', followed by vital insights into the field of E-commerce. PHP really should be covered to ensure that 'dynamic' websites can be created (ASP.NET is far more involved, and PHP is more straightforward to get into at first,) and a basic understanding of databases and 'SEO' should be mastered. All this is simply to reach a standard of technical ability whereby you can work with a diverse enough array of web-sites. Similar to when you were learning to drive, you must first develop the actual physical competencies, before you essentially push past them & accomplish a certain amount of 'finesse'. You would need to give yourself approximately 400 - 500 hours to study & properly grasp a broad-ranging training program such as this - so if your plan is to accomplish this alongside full-time work it could be done within 1 year. As there's a lot of points to consider, it's well worth taking a few minutes to look carefully at any training programs that interest you. Talk to a person with industry knowledge who can help you put things together.

The most technically trained internet professionals are often the web developers. They will not only understand HTML, 'CSS' and 'XML', but will have learnt 'proper' programming-languages like PHP, ASP.net, Visual Basic, C#, Java etc. And because most modern web-sites of any kind of size 'store' their information using 'SQL' Database technology, they are also likely to have got a solid handle on this also. The majority of e-commerce websites are not the result of a large bunch of web-designers who've built many hundreds of web pages in a layout format. Rather, a place holder 'template' will have been created, & the material will be 'dynamically' inserted from a Database. This process not only makes the construction, management and up-dates vastly more straighforward, it also makes for a more consistent site.

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