What it Takes to become a Web Site Designer
So you browse the Internet, visit websites and all in all consider yourself to be pretty web savvy. Now you want to take your interest in the the world wide web a little further? In the next few minutes I'll cover some topics of what it really takes to be a website designer in 2007.
Web site design is something that pretty much anybody who is computer literate can "dabble" in just for fun in the afternoons or on the weekends making websites for the family or friends. But if you're serious about being a professional web site designer there is a lot you have to know and be willing to learn. A web site designer's skillet in 2007 has to be pretty robust. Gone are the days when you could get by simply by knowing how to use Microsoft Frontpage. In today's web design industry with technologies like Ajax and mobile web a web designer has to have a full range of skills if they want to be able to keep up with the industry and provide their clients with a great web experience.
Since day one, a web designer's main focus has been placed on the HTML language. HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is the language used by web browsers to display information. HTML or now I should say XHTML is still very important to know but it is just a drop in the bucket when it comes to making an attractive and functional website.
Adobe Photoshop is and always will be a very important tool to web site designers. Gone are the days when unattractive websites are accepted by the public, people have come to expect both style and functionality from web sites in 2007 and that isn't going to change. So if you don't know Photoshop, I suggest getting a few books and searching for some free tutorials.
Dynamic web sites are web sites where all or most of the content contained on the web site is stored in a database. When a user goes to a dynamic website in their browser a request is made to the database to pull the information and then display it to the user. This happens so fast the user doesn't even notice. A few years ago creating a dynamic website was a huge undertaking that involved programmers, articles and designers all working together to create a single project. This has all changed with web technologies today. ASP.Net, PHP, Ruby and other dynamic web application technologies have changed the way we build websites today. With one of these technologies a web designer can have a dynamic website up and running in practically no time at all.
So to recap, you still need to be familiar with HTML or now XHTML. You need to be able to provide quality graphics with Photoshop, and you must have at lease some experience with some web application technologies. Last but not least you really need to have a passion for what you're doing and a desire to learn about it and keep doing it. If you're not interested in what you're doing then it's not going to be easy to stay motivated to do it.
