It's fair to say that one of the more widely interpreted and improperly defined terms within IT is the label 'Web Designer'. For anyone looking to get in the market, some details about the distinct aspects might help to make things clear. Fundamentally, there are 2 key sides to web-design; the 'creative' side & the technical side. To the person in the street, a web designer is somebody who creates the look and 'feel' of a site. Quite simply, they view web-site designers as 'artists' on the whole. However, a professional web designer will in reality be as occupied with the technical side of things as much as the creative side. It will become much more apparent just how things fit together when we break the profession up into it's different parts.

Firstly, we've got the graphic artists, that design & assemble the graphic symbols & images which we see on any web-site. They most often bring this about by means of graphic lay-out and 'animation' software (such as Adobe 'Flash' & Photoshop), & are not strictly web-site designers per-se. Often, they will have an artistic background, and could have undertaken studies at university or college level. This element is much more about creative ability than anything else.

Next come the web designers, who generate the layout & overall 'feel' of a website using a design environment such as Adobe 'Dreamweaver'. Through the use of graphics from the artist, they will assemble the navigational structure of the site, keeping in touch with their client to ensure the feel is right. A lot of novice web designers focus first of all on the format of the web site, as opposed to it's 'function'. To be able to build an effective web-site though, it is crucial that you first of all look at what you really want the site to accomplish. It may be an on-line catalogue of products and services, or maybe its an e-commerce web site that would need to be able to sell straight from the web page. Possibly rather like this site the main objective is easy access to relevant details, or it could be it will be a showcase for items by way of video and a heavily graphical inter-face. No matter what you need from a website, it must - at its most basic level - fulfil the function for which it is designed. Such a lot of web sites look wonderful but are a nightmare to 'navigate' and find where you want - & so visitors move on & never come back. The overriding goal of every professional web-site designers is to have people pay a visit to their web-site regularly - therefore it really needs to be a happy and interesting experience.

A lot of freelance web designers can fulfil a number of these functions themselves; indeed we come into contact with several who are able to quite frequently. Then again that level of knowledge takes some time to master. The right commercial web design program therefore needs to teach several things: First of all, an introductory tutorial to basic web-design, followed by teaching in Adobe 'Dreamweaver' & an understanding of the primary elements of Adobe Flash. This would then move onto a knowledge of HTML & CSS, with some training into the area of e-commerce. Some database & SEO know-how is important, and an awareness of the programming-language PHP (rather than the more complex ASP.Net) for you to build dynamic websites. Grasping these abilities will provide you with the ability to start working on a good cross section of web-sites. As with anything, we have to learn how to do the physical skill-sets initially, & then acquire greater finesse via experience and practice. A comprehensive training-program of this sort would probably involve around 400 to 500 hours of part time practice & study & can therefore be viably concluded part time over a year. As there are numerous areas to consider, its worth making the effort to look carefully at any training-programs you're interested in. Talk to someone with industry knowledge who can help you sort things out.

It's vital to understand that even the most effective web design courses can only teach you the methods & procedures - not one can actually turn you in to a bona fide web designer. During your training & study, you must apply yourself to constructing and developing as many sites as possible, to prepare and assemble your portfolio. Produce websites about your special interest, your family dog, a favourite band or even TV programme. Construct an interactive website, & begin generating 'traffic' towards it. All this will appear more favourable on your CV, and in your portfolio, than a qualification from 'Adobe' will!

The Adobe Creative Suite is the most commercially-popular design-environment used by web site designers these days. These key tools are now ('10) on Version 4. Whilst Adobe Flash provides access to interactive & animated 'graphical' content, Dreamweaver is the software that builds web sites. You could say that Dreamweaver is the Word Processor of the Adobe CS series. Text & graphics can be placed (within certain limits) and then a basic inter-activity can be produced through page linking. Just like other web design environments, Dreamweaver creates 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 basically 'draws' and controls the page you're viewing. Matched with HTML are the layout 'tag' languages like XML & CSS. Because they are standardised, these can work on multiple-platforms to facilitate more streamlined 'HTML' code and more effective lay-out techniques. The theory is that the web-page will look the same on any web browser, whether it's Mozilla Firefox, 'Internet Explorer', 'Safari', 'Opera' or whatever. Subsequently the graphic blocks you're placing & the text you are including is being converted into 'code' in the background by Dreamweaver. If you're aiming to be commercially feasible as a web-designer, you'll have to have a thorough understanding of these types of 'languages'.

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