The definition of Web-Designer is perhaps one of the most over used & misunderstood titles within the IT industry. For anyone wanting to get into the marketplace, an explanation of the different aspects ought to help to make things clear. Essentially, there are 2 main areas to web-design; the creative element & the technical process. The average computer user believes web designers determine how a web-site 'looks' & feels. Lots of people may consider a 'web-designer' a type of artist. In reality the present day web designer's career is an 'inter-related' mixture of 'technical' knowledge and design-creativity - and the two have become quite hard to split up. It will become a little more evident how things sit together when we split the profession up into its various roles.

People that design & put together the pictures and graphic icons to go on a website are called graphic-artists. In real terms, graphic-artists aren't really site designers. More usually they're multimedia artists that use software such as Adobe 'Photoshop' & Flash to produce their results. Many have come from further education, typically with a degree-level art background. This particular area is a lot more about artistic expertise than any other function.

Next, there are the web site designers, who make use of design-environments such as Adobe Dreamweaver to generate the layout and feel of the website. They work with the images that are made by the graphic-artist, & talk with the clients to start to develop the feel & navigational composition of the web site. A novice web designer tends to start with the 'form' of the website, rather than the function. And yet, you need to really start with an understanding of the functions it's required to do to create a really successful website. This might be an online catalogue of products and services, or possibly its an e-commerce web-site which would need to have the facility sell directly from the page. Maybe somewhat like this website the key function is simple access to relevant information, or it could be it's going to be a showcase for merchandise by means of video & a heavily graphical interface. No matter what you need from a site, it must - at it's simplest level - carry out the function for which its intended. So many web sites look fantastic but they are a pain to navigate and get what you want - & so people move on and never return. The goal of any professional web designer is first & foremost to construct an event that people enjoy & feel happy with - so that they come back again.

Web-developers are members of this equation, and they are the most technically trained. Along with an understanding of HTML, XML & CSS, web-developers will know other highly regarded programming-languages like VB, PHP, Java, 'C#' & ASP.net etc. They'll generally also have a strong knowledge of SQL database-technology, because this is how most contemporary significant web sites store their data. In reality, it's unlikely that a big e-commerce site has been put together in lay-out format by a bunch of web designers. More commonly, following the formation of a place holder 'template', the material will be taken from a Database & dynamically inserted. So apart from much better efficiencies with the site build, this method also allows for a more consistent look & 'feel' as well.

Supplemental skillsets that are important for professional web-designers are an understanding of project-management & E-commerce. Another field - that isn't to be under-estimated - is SEO ('Search Engine Optimisation'). This concerns how to optimize website indexation on Search Engines like Google and Yahoo. Also of course, we shouldn't forget the web-server installers & administrators that work behind the scenes ensuring everything works properly; though they usually originate from a network-administration background.

The one thing you must understand is that absolutely no training course can in fact make a web-designer out of you. The program will only cover all the techniques & skills. Put together as many web-sites as possible whilst you go through your course - the practice will be invaluable and you will have a portfolio to show just what you can do. Your web-sites can be about anything you like - the local music-scene, horses, an author you enjoy or even cars. You could even create interactive websites and get 'traffic' on them. Anything you do will add to your CV, & indicate much more to an interviewer than an Adobe accreditation.

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