Undoubtedly one of the most misunderstood and generalised expressions within the I.T. sector these days must be the words 'Web-Designer'? In truth, web-design does incorporate a number of diverse areas, and so it might help to clarify things a little when we break it down. In essence, there are two key sides to web design; the creative element and the technical process. The typical PC user considers web-site designers are responsible for how a website 'looks' and 'feels'. Lots of people will consider a web designer a form of artist. Yet, a modern 'web-designer' will frankly be as occupied with the technical side of things as they are with the creative element. It will become a bit more evident just how things sit together if we split the job down into it's various roles.

To start with, there are the graphic-artists, that design and assemble the graphic icons and images that we find on any website. Most are not really web-designers per-se, and most of the time are multi-media artists using graphic layout & animation software, (such as Adobe Photoshop & Adobe 'Flash'.) Usually, they will have an art background, and could have studied at university level. Above all else, this work involves a sound creative ability.

Next, there are the web-designers, that work with design environments such as Adobe Dreamweaver to produce the lay-out & 'feel' of the web-site. They use the graphics completed by the graphic-artist, and along with their client deliver an emerging look and navigational framework for the brand new web-site. A lot of inexperienced site designers concentrate first on the 'format' of the web site, instead of its function. But, you should really begin with a grasp of the 'functions' it needs to carry out to build a truly successful web-site. It might be a web-based inventory of goods, or possibly its an e-commerce web site that needs to have the capacity to sell directly from the site. Or perhaps it'll consist of lots of video & graphics. Then again it might be largely an info web-site, where it is essential to supply straightforward entry to relevant web pages of copy. Basically the web-site must have the ability to meet its needs - whatever those needs are. So many web sites look amazing but they are a pain to navigate & get what you'd like - and so users leave & never come back. The over-riding goal of every good web designers is to have people visit their website on a regular basis - therefore it really needs to be a happy and pleasurable experience.

The key thing to stress is the fact that training program alone won't make you a web-designer; it will merely teach you the methods. All through your study & training, you have got to apply yourself to building and developing as many web sites as you can, to prepare & assemble your own portfolio. A sport or other interest is a good place to start, or simply your favourite family pet, or a holiday resort you particularly loved. Build an interactive site, & begin generating traffic towards it. Every little thing you do will add to your Curriculum Vitae, & prove more to a company than just an Adobe certificate.

A lot of free-lance web-designers can handle several of these jobs by themselves; indeed we work with several who are able to regularly. But that degree of understanding takes some time to master. The ideal commercial web-design training program therefore has to instruct on several things: A synopsis of the basic fundamentals of web-design first, then straight into using Dreamweaver to a professional level & the principal technicalities of Flash as well. This should then lead on to a knowledge of HTML and CSS, and then some training within the field of E-commerce. PHP has to be taught in order that 'dynamic' web-sites can be created (ASP.NET is actually far more involved, & PHP is more straightforward to get into initially,) and a simple understanding of databases and SEO should be achieved. All this is merely to get to a level of competence technically where you can work on a diverse enough variety of web sites. As with anything else, we must learn how to do the physical skill-sets first, and then develop more 'finesse' by means of practice and experience. You'd have to give yourself approximately 400 to 500 hours to study and properly master a wide-ranging program like this - therefore if your aim is to achieve this alongside full-time work it could be carried out within 1 year. Careful preparation to obtain the correct training course for your needs is a worthwhile investment of your time - skilled training experts will help you sort the wheat from the chaff before you get going.

The most technically apt web experts are often the web-developers. In addition to being proficient in 'HTML', 'XML' & 'CSS', web-developers will understand other highly regarded programming-languages such as VB, 'PHP', 'Java', 'C#' & ASP.net for instance. Many also have a good understanding of 'SQL', the database language - since the information on most sizable modern websites is stored in this language. A regular E-commerce site does not have a crew of web-designers who've developed its 1000s of web-pages in lay-out format. More usually, after the formation of a place holder template, the contents will be taken from a Database and dynamically inserted. This process makes not only the construction, management and enhancements hugely more straighforward, it equally tends to make a far more consistent web-site.