If you want to pursue a profession where you can execute your artistic and creative streak, and are an expert at dealing with computers, then web designing is an apt career option for you.
The job of a web designer is to design the look, layout and the feel of a website. The look and feel of a website makes quite an impact on the viewers. If you choose to embark on a career in web page design, you'll be involved with the graphical and technical factors of each and every one of your client’s websites.
Before a web designer begins to work on designing a website, he first needs to discuss and learn from the client, his needs and wants and idea. Generally, every client will already have a basic plan formulated in his head before approaching a web designer. It is the job of a web designer to listen carefully to the client’s point of view and match his designs as required. This is where good communication skills come in handy. If the client and a web designer cannot interact and exchange their ideas properly, the whole look and design of the web site can go haywire. A client will hand over all the text documents and images that he wants embedded on the web pages and as a designer, you will have to design the web pages keeping them as the focal point.
After having thoroughly understood the theme and idea behind the website, the designer will come up with a graphic design. After having finalized the basic concept and design, then the web designer can go ahead and design the entire website.
- First the web designer will write the programming code for the web pages. He might either write it from the scratch or adapt it from other website software and packages.
- After the programming code is written, he will then need to test the website and check for any sort of technical or graphical discrepancies.
- Then he will upload the designed web site on the server and register the website with variety of search engines.
Since HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) is the core computer language required to create web pages, a web designer should have all the HTML tags at his fingertips. He should keep himself updated with the most recent improvisations and HTML extensions. Since a web designer has to deal with the networks and World Wide Web, he should have decent knowledge about FTP (File Transfer Protocol) and similar programs that help you operate over the World Wide Web. With regards to graphic designing, as a web designer you have to learn graphic packages like Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Paint Shop Pro, Flash, XML etc. since they aid you in designing web pages. Web designers should necessarily have a good and equal understanding of both the software aspect and graphical design to successfully design web sites.
Nowadays, there are a number of web design schools and institutions offering courses in web design. Most web designers generally have an academic background in fine arts or publishing or graphic designing along with computer science. Apart from the educational and training background, you need to be highly creative and vastly imaginative and should have good communication skills.
Most companies today are launching their own web sites. With this number increasing by the day, the demand for web designers is increasing too. Web designers generally begin their careers working as graphic designers or as layout artists for certain publishing companies and advertising firms. Web designers either work in a firm or are self employed, working as freelancers. All web designers need to prepare a portfolio showcasing his or her works before approaching a client. It is based on this portfolio that the client decides if he wants to hire the web designer or not.
Your Choice of Careers in Web Design
As a web designer, you can traverse into diverse paths. For example, as a project manager you are responsible for designing the entire websites and may manage a team to help you with this task. As a design director, you are involved with supervising the woks of your junior web designers; correcting and editing and improvising their works. This just goes to show that, as a web designer there is a lot of scope for you to grow.
This profession is quite demanding with irregular work hours and erratic schedules. You need to be flexible enough to deal with tight schedules and constant last minute changes and editing. But it is a creatively satisfying job and is very much regarded these days.
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