The definition of Web Designer is possibly one of the most over-used & misunderstood titles within the IT community. Web-Design incorporates quite a few different facets, and a good understanding of these facets can help anybody considering getting in to the market. There are fundamentally 2 sides to web-design - the technical side & the 'creative' design side. Most people think a 'web-designer' is somebody who creates the visible aspects of the web-site. Meaning a 'web-designer' is basically an artist with some 'technical' training. But in actuality, in modern day web-design its getting more and more difficult to separate the 'technical' side from the 'creative' aspect, because both of them are so intertwined. It will become a little more evident how things fit together when we split the profession down in to it's various parts.

Individuals who design & build the images & graphic-icons which go on a web page are called graphic artists. Most are not really web-site designers as such, and in many cases are multimedia artists utilising graphic lay-out & 'animation' software, (for instance Adobe 'Photoshop' and Adobe Flash.) Typically, they will have come from an art background, & could have undertaken studies at university level. This particular aspect is a lot more about a creative artistic ability than any other function.

Web designers are next - they work with design-software such as Adobe Dreamweaver to plan and design the appearance and feel of the web-site. They work with the graphics that are produced by the graphic artist, & work with the client to firstly create the 'feel' & navigational composition of the web-site. A novice web designer often starts with the form of a site, instead of the 'function'. But, to genuinely build a useful site, you need to start with a clear understanding of what you need the site to actually do. Is it predominantly an e-commerce web-site, that wants to be able to take payments safely and securely, or is it perhaps an on-line product brochure listing? Maybe you'll want to highlight products and solutions via video & a largely 'graphical' inter-face, or it could be it is predominantly an informational web site where the requirement is easy access to key text information (like this website.) Essentially the web site must have the ability to meet its needs - whatever those requirements are. So many web-sites look fantastic but are a pain to 'navigate' and get where you want - & so users give up and never come back. The overriding goal of every professional web-designers is to have people go to their website regularly - so it really needs to be a relaxed & satisfying experience.

The design-environments used by web site designers are their most valuable resources. Adobe Creative Suite 4 is the most commercially utilised in the industry right now (as of 2010). Dreamweaver is the software program that builds websites, with Flash providing access to interactive & animated 'graphical' content. In a great many ways we might see 'Dreamweaver' as a rather fancy Word Processor. It helps you to lay graphics and text according to certain rules and parameters, and then develop basic inter-activity via 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, and is a script that effectively 'draws' and controls the page you are viewing. Paired with HTML are the layout tag 'languages' like XML and CSS. As they are 'standardised', these tag languages will work on multiple platforms to allow more streamlined HTML code & more efficient layout techniques. What this means is the web page will appear exactly the same on Microsoft 'Internet Explorer', Mozilla Firefox, Opera, 'Safari' etc. (or shall we say, that's the plan!) So even though you place the graphic blocks and put in the textual content, 'Dreamweaver' is converting this into code in the background. It is important to gain an in-depth comprehension of these languages in order to be a web designer at a commercial level.

Needless to say there are crossovers with many of these roles - in-fact we have interactions with quite a few web designers who are skilled in most of them. It takes time though to create such a range of commercial competencies. A web-design program then that will equip you to enter the market should encompass the following disciplines - A basic introduction to web-design, followed by how to utilise Adobe Dreamweaver & have a fundamental knowledge of Adobe 'Flash'. Next you need to get to grips with the 'coding' languages 'HTML' and 'CSS', and then be taught a synopsis of how e-commerce works. Some Database and SEO know-how is really important, & an awareness of the programming-language PHP (rather than the more complicated ASP.NET) for you to build 'dynamic' sites. The reason you will need each of these elements is they will give you the technical wherewithal to be effective on a variety of site builds. Much like anything else, we must learn how to do the physical skillsets first, and then develop greater 'finesse' via experience and practice. An intensive program like this would probably involve around 400 to 500 hrs of part time study (& practice) and therefore can be viably accomplished part time over a year. An industry advisor can assist you to prepare your path through this labyrinth of professional training, & we strongly suggest that you allow time to plan your route with care before you start your training.

Supplemental skillsets that are very useful to commercial 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 all about how to optimize site indexation on search engines like 'Google' and Yahoo. And of course, we shouldn't forget the web server administrators and installers that stay in the background making sure the whole thing works; although they normally originate from a network-administration background.

The main thing to emphasise is that the training program alone won't make you a web-designer; it will simply educate you on the techniques. During your study & training, it's essential to spend time building and developing as many websites as you possibly can, to prepare and assemble your portfolio. Your own sites should be about anything you like - your local music scene, farm pets, a writer you admire or motorbikes. Construct an inter-active site, & begin building 'traffic' towards it. Everything you do will enhance your Curriculum Vitae, and demonstrate more to a recruiter than just an 'Adobe' accreditation.

Web-developers are the most technically trained of all. These people will not only understand HTML, CSS and 'XML', but they will have learnt 'proper' programming languages like PHP, ASP.net, VB, 'C#', 'Java' among others. A large number also have a very good knowledge of SQL, the database-language - because the information on many sizable modern web-sites is stored in this 'language'. A normal E-commerce web site doesn't have a group of web designers who've developed its countless pages in layout format. Instead, a place holder template will have been built, & the material will be 'dynamically' loaded from a Database. Besides being vastly easier to build, manage & update, it also aids in the feel of the web-site remaining constant.

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