The term 'Web-Designer' is possibly one of the more over used and mis-understood titles in the I.T. market. In reality, web design does contain many distinct aspects, & so it may well help to clarify things a little if we break it down. Effectively, there are 2 principal sides to web design; the 'creative' element & the technical side. Lots of people think that a web-designer is someone that is responsible for the visual aspects of the website. Many individuals might consider a web-designer a kind of artist. In fact the modern web-designer's function is an 'inter-related' combination of 'technical' know-how & design creativity - and the two things are becoming quite hard to split up. If you break down web-design into it's different functions, then it becomes much more evident how everything sits together.

The people that design and put together the images & graphic icons which go on a web-site are referred to as graphic-artists. These are not really web site designers per-se, & more often than not are multimedia artists utilising graphic lay-out and animation software, (for instance Adobe Photoshop & Adobe 'Flash'.) Virtually all graphic-artists have been to college or university, with a background in art and design. This particular role is a lot more about a creative artistic expertise than any other function.

Then we have the web-designers, who develop the lay-out & overall 'feel' of a website by utilising a design environment such as Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. They work with the images that are supplied by the artist, and talk with their clients to initially develop the feel & navigational framework of the web site. A lot of novice web-site designers place emphasis first of all on the 'format' of the website, rather than its 'function'. Although, to really build a valuable web site, you have to start with an understanding of what you require the site to really do. Maybe it is in effect a web based brochure, or an E-commerce site where items are offered there and then. Or perhaps it'll contain a lot of video and heavy graphics. On the other hand it may be principally an informational web-site, where its essential to offer straightforward access to specific web pages of wording. Whatever you require from a site, it must - at it's most basic level - carry out the function for which it is designed. Consumers will leave a web site & not return if it's too difficult to navigate - however pretty it looks at first glance. The overriding goal of every good web-designers is for people to check out their web site regularly - therefore it really needs to be a relaxed & enjoyable experience.

Of course there are cross overs with a lot of these roles - we ourselves have interactions with quite a few web-designers who are proficient in a lot of them. However, it takes time to develop that level of expertise. A good commercial web design training-program therefore needs to teach a number of things: Firstly, an introduction to basic web-design, followed on by training in Adobe 'Dreamweaver' & a summary of the principal elements of Adobe 'Flash'. The languages of HTML & 'CSS' should be covered next, with a level of E-commerce teaching incorporated here. Some Database & SEO expertise is crucial, and a knowledge of the programming-language PHP (as opposed to the more complicated ASP.Net) for you to construct 'dynamic' web sites. The reason you require all these components is they will give you the technical grounding to work on all sorts of web site builds. Much like anything, we must learn how to do the physical skillsets initially, and then acquire increased 'finesse' through experience and practice. You'd probably have to give yourself roughly 400-500 hrs to study & properly master a broad ranging training-program of this nature - so if your aim is to achieve this alongside full-time work it could be completed within twelve months. As there are plenty of facts to consider, it's well worth making the effort to look closely at any training-programs that interest you. Talk to someone with industry knowledge who can help you sort things out.

Commercial web-designers can also improve their offering if they choose to branch-out into fields like project management and e-commerce for instance. Another area - that isn't to be underestimated - is SEO (Search Engine Optimisation). This is all about how to optimize site listings on search engines like 'Google' and 'Yahoo'. And even though they generally come from a network administration background, we mustn't forget the valuable work of the web server administrators and installers, who keep everything working in the background.

Web-developers are members of this equation, and the most technically-minded. Not only will web developers understand the languages above, they will also have studied additional languages, for example 'C#', VB, 'PHP', 'Java', 'ASP.Net' and so on. They'll generally also possess a solid understanding of SQL database technology, as this is one way the majority of large sites store their information. An average e-commerce site doesn't have a crew of web designers who've created its many hundreds of pages in layout form. More usually, after the construction of a place-holder 'template', the material will be taken from a database & 'dynamically' inserted. So in addition to significantly greater efficiency with the site build, this process also provides for a more consistent look and 'feel' as well.

The 'Adobe Creative Suite' is regarded as the most commercially popular design environment utilised by web designers nowadays. These key tools are currently ('10) on Version 4. 'Dreamweaver' is the software which builds web sites, with 'Flash' delivering usage of interactive & animated graphical content material. You could claim that Dreamweaver is the Word-Processor of the Adobe CS range. Within certain rules and constraints, it enables you to place text and graphics, & then via a procedure known as page-linking you can develop basic inter-activity within the website. Just like other web design-environments, Dreamweaver creates the program-code HTML behind the scenes (HTML is short for 'Hyper Text Markup Language'). 'HTML' is a script which basically draws & controls the page on your monitor. It's the 'language' of browsers. Lay-out 'tag' languages like XML and CSS are matched up with HTML. Because they are 'standardised', these tag languages can work on multiple-platforms to allow more stream-lined HTML coding & more effective layout techniques. So whichever internet browser someone uses, (Internet Explorer, Firefox, 'Opera' etc.) the page will (hopefully) look exactly the same. And so though you are laying graphic-blocks and text, behind the scenes, 'Dreamweaver' is turning this in to 'code'. A thorough knowledge of these types of 'languages' is vital if you are to become a commercially-viable web designer.

It's essential to understand that even the most effective web-design programs can only show you the techniques and processes - not one can convert you into a professional web-designer. All through your training and study, it's essential to apply yourself to constructing & creating as many web-sites as you possibly can, to practice & assemble your own portfolio. A hobby or other interest can be a very good starting place, or simply your favourite pet, or a holiday resort you particularly loved. You might even create interactive sites & get traffic on them. Everything you do will add to your CV, & illustrate much more to an employer than an Adobe certificate.

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