Its fair to state that perhaps one of the most broadly interpreted & badly perceived definitions within I.T. is the expression 'Web-Designer'. In truth, web-design does incorporate quite a few distinctive fields, and so it may help to simplify things if we go through each one. Web-Design incorporates the technical components of a successful website along with the creative aspects. The average PC user thinks web-site designers determine how a web-site 'looks' & feels. To put it differently, they view web-site designers as 'artists' on the whole. But in actuality, in contemporary web design it is getting more and more difficult to split up the technical part from the 'creative' part, because both are so intertwined. It becomes a bit more obvious how things sit together when we split the work down into its component roles.

Graphic-artists come 1st - they design and construct the icons & pictures for a web site. In real terms, graphic artists aren't really web site designers. More commonly they are multimedia artists that employ software such as Adobe Photoshop & 'Flash' to produce their end results. Most graphic-artists went to university or college, with a background in art & design. Above all else, this kind of work involves sound creative talent.

Next come the web designers, who develop the lay-out & overall 'feel' of a web-site by using a design-environment such as Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. Through the use of artwork from the artist, they'll build the 'navigational' composition of the web-site, working together with the clients to confirm the feel is right. A lot of novice site designers concentrate to start with on the format of the site, instead of it's function. If you want to build an efficient website though, it is crucial that you first of all look at what you actually would like the website to accomplish. This may be an online catalogue of products and services, or possibly it's an e-commerce web site that requires to be able to sell straight from the web page. Possibly rather like this web-site the main function is straightforward access to relevant info, or maybe it will be a showcase for products through video & a heavily graphical inter-face. Regardless of what you require from a web-site, it must - at its most basic level - carry out the function for which its designed. There is no point building a visually impressive site that's hopeless for people to get what they want from it! A professional web-designer must in essence develop an on-line 'experience' that's both satisfying & instinctive for those coming to the web-site - that way they'll come back again and again.

Commercial web designers can also improve their offering if they branch out in to areas such as project management and E-commerce for example. Another area - that is not to be underestimated - is 'SEO' ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This concerns how to optimise web site listings on Search Engines like Google & Yahoo. Also of course, we mustn't forget the web-server administrators and installers who work behind the scenes making sure the whole thing works properly; although they typically come from a network-administration background.

The most important resources employed by web-site designers are their design-environments, with Adobe Creative Suite (currently in Version 4 as of 2009/2010) being the most popular commercially. Whilst 'Adobe Flash' offers access to animated & interactive graphical content, 'Dreamweaver' is the software program which builds websites. In a great many ways we could possibly look at Dreamweaver as a glorified Word-Processor. Text & graphics can be layed (according to known parameters) and then a basic interactivity can be created through page-linking. As with other web design environments, 'Dreamweaver' creates the program code HTML in the background ('HTML' stands for Hyper Text Markup Language). Essentially, this language of web browsers' is actually a script that 'draws' and controls the web-page being looked at. Layout tag languages like CSS and XML are associated with 'HTML'. Because they are standardised, these can work on multiple platforms to allow more streamlined HTML code & more efficient layout techniques. The theory being that the page will appear identical on any web browser, whether it is 'Mozilla Firefox', 'Internet Explorer', 'Safari', 'Opera' or whichever. And so although you are laying graphic-blocks and adding text, behind the scenes, 'Dreamweaver' is turning what you're doing into code. A thorough knowledge of these types of 'languages' is essential if you're going to be a commercially viable web designer.

The main thing to emphasise is that the training program itself will not make you a web-designer; it will simply provide you with the techniques. Build as many web sites as you can as you go through your training course - the process will be invaluable & you'll have a portfolio to show just what you can do. Your own sites can be about anything - your local music scene, farm pets, an author you enjoy or even motor bikes. Start to build interactive web-sites and generate traffic on to them. All this will appear much more favourable on your Curriculum Vitae, & in your Portfolio, than a qualification from Adobe will!

Web developers are essentially the most technically apt of all. They won't simply know HTML, CSS & 'XML', but will have also studied 'proper' programming-languages like 'PHP', ASP.net, 'VB', C#, Java and the like. They'll also generally possess a good knowledge of SQL Database technology, as this is one way most modern big sites store their information. Most E-commerce websites aren't actually the result of a sizable crew of web designers who've constructed 1000s of web-pages in lay-out format. What normally happens is a place holder template is built, and the contents are automatically fed from the database to the web site. In addition to being vastly more efficient to build, manage & update, it also helps with the feel of the web site staying consistent.

Many of these jobs can and certainly do cross over needless to say, we are involved with several freelance web-designers who each cover a lot of the previously mentioned tasks. It will require time though to create such a selection of commercial skills. A web-design course therefore that can equip you to get into the workplace should encompass the following - First, an introduction to basic web design, followed by training in Adobe Dreamweaver and a synopsis of the key elements of Adobe Flash. Next you need to get to grips with the coding languages HTML & CSS, and after that be trained in an overview of just how E-commerce works. PHP has to be covered so 'dynamic' web-sites can be built (ASP.NET is actually much more involved, and 'PHP' is very simple to get into at first,) & a simple idea of databases and 'SEO' should be mastered. Grasping these abilities will provide you with a chance to begin working on a very good cross section of web-sites. Similar to when you were learning to drive, you must first learn the actual physical skills, before you in essence progress past them & achieve a certain amount of 'finesse'. You'd need to give yourself somewhere around 400 - 500 hours to study & effectively learn a broad ranging program like this - so if your plan is to accomplish this along-side a job it could be completed within 1 year. As there are various things to consider, it's worth finding the time to look carefully at any training programs you're interested in. Speak to someone with industry knowledge who can help you put things together.

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