Without doubt just about one of the most mis-interpreted & over-worked titles within the IT market these days must be the term 'Web Designer'? Web-Design incorporates a lot of distinct aspects, and an understanding of these could help anyone looking to get into the marketplace. Web-Design involves the 'technical' components of a successful website and also the creative elements. Most people imagine a web designer is somebody that is in charge of the visual aspects of the web-site. In other words, they see web-site designers as artists in the main. Yet, a professional 'web-designer' will realistically be as occupied with the technical element of things as much as the 'creative' side. It will become much more evident how things fit together when we split the profession up in to it's various parts.

Graphic-artists are first - these people design and create the symbols and images for a web-site. Strictly speaking, graphic artists ordinarily are not really web site designers. More often they're multi-media artists that utilise software like Adobe Photoshop and 'Flash' to bring about their finished results. Usually, they will have come from an artistic background, and may have studied at university or college level. Clearly, this job involves a keen artistic flair.

Web-site designers are next - they make use of design software like Dreamweaver to plan & design the visual aspects & feel of the web-site. By employing visuals from the graphic-artist, they will develop the navigational structure of the site, keeping in touch with their client to ensure that the feel is correct. A novice web designer often starts with the form of a web-site, rather than the 'function'. To create an effective site though, it's vital that you first look at what you actually need the site to accomplish. Maybe it's actually an on-line brochure, or an e-commerce site where merchandise are available directly. Or maybe it'll have lots of video & heavy graphics. Then again it could be largely an info web site, where it is important to offer simple entry to relevant web pages of copy. Regardless of what you need from a web-site, it must - at its simplest level - fulfil the 'function' for which it is intended. A lot of websites look fantastic but are a headache to 'navigate' & get where you need - & so people move on & never return. The purpose of any reputable web-designer is first and foremost to create an experience that visitors enjoy & feel happy with - so that they come back again.

The design-environments employed by web site designers are their most important tools. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most commercially utilised in the market these days (as of 2010). Whilst 'Adobe Flash' gives access to interactive & animated 'graphical' content material, 'Dreamweaver' is the software program which builds sites. In many ways we may see 'Dreamweaver' as a glorified Word-Processor. Graphics and text can be layed (according to certain limits) & then a basic inter-activity can be created through page-linking. Just like other web design environments, Dreamweaver produces the program code 'HTML' in the background (HTML stands for 'Hyper Text Markup Language'). It's the 'language' of web browsers, & is a script that essentially 'draws' and controls the page you're viewing. Layout tag languages like CSS and XML are paired with 'HTML'. Because they are standardised, these tag languages can work on multiple-platforms to allow more streamlined HTML coding and more efficient lay-out techniques. And so whichever internet browser somebody uses, ('Internet Explorer', Mozilla Firefox, 'Opera' etc.) the web page will ideally appear exactly the same. Consequently although you are laying graphic blocks and adding text, in the background, 'Dreamweaver' is turning this into 'code'. If you're planning to be a commercially viable web-designer, you will have to have an in-depth knowledge of these types of 'languages'.

Its important to understand that even the finest web design programs can only show you the techniques & procedures - not one can actually convert you in to a bona-fide web designer. As you work on your training-course, take the time to build and develop a good selection of your own web sites to build a collection of your work. Design web-sites about a special interest, your family, your favourite band or even Television programme. You could even set up interactive web-sites & get 'traffic' on them. Adobe certifications are of help, but showing how you can use the training says far more about you as a web-designer!

The most technically apt web experts are frequently the web developers. These people won't just know 'HTML', 'CSS' & XML, but will have also learnt more official programming languages such as 'PHP', ASP.net, Visual Basic, 'C#', 'Java' among others. And because most contemporary sites of any kind of size 'store' their data using 'SQL' database technology, they are likely to have a firm grip on this too. Most e-commerce sites are not the result of a large team of designers who've created many hundreds of pages in a layout format. More usually, following the construction of a place holder template, the material will be extracted from a Database & 'dynamically' inserted. This not only makes the construction, management and enhancements hugely more efficient, it equally makes for a far more consistent site.

Professional web designers may also improve their offering if they branch out into areas such as project management & E-commerce for example. SEO ('Search Engine Optimisation') know-how is extremely valuable for web experts - this deals with the skill of getting web-sites to or near to the top of the search engines for commonly used keyword phrases. Also of course, we shouldn't forget the web server installers and administrators who sit in the background ensuring the whole thing functions as it should; though they typically originate from a network administration background.

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