Becoming a Web Designer

From LoveToKnow Web-Design

It may seem daunting at times, but becoming a web designer for fun or profit is not as hard as you may think.

What is a Web Designer?

In the broadest sense, a web designer is someone who creates an Internet site, either for a business or for personal use, that is viewed by the general public. Becoming a web designer is much more than just typing text into a web design program and hitting create. In web design, you can gauge your status by your experience and knowledge:

Beginner HTML

A beginner in web design should be able to grasp HTML code to the degree of being able to add pages, images and changing font styles and colors. You should also be able to link to other pages and create some sort of file structure on the web server.

Advanced HTML

After you have dedicated your time to learning the basics of HTML, you can move on to learning how to do more advanced HTML skills. These skills include creating frames and tables and learning the basics of DHTML and CSS programming (cascading style sheets). This is the area of HTML where you can use tools to greatly decrease the complexity of coding. At this level, you will know about cookies and how they work, as well as how to add multimedia aspects to your site designs. Many people can become professional web designers once they master advanced HTML and related programming languages. You may also need to choose a career path:

Web Page Designer
Web Page Programmer
or both

Professional Web Designer

If you are a person that enjoys creative work rather than analytical work, then this career path may be more suited for you. A professional web designer focuses on the look and feel of a web page and the style of it. A lot of designers work freelance contract jobs either as an individual or as part of a firm. If this is your goal then you should get yourself versed in contracts, legal issues, and pricing strategy (check out web design sites for an idea). You will need to know how to manage content, create good looking and functional layouts, and how to promote and market yourself and the sites that you make.

This can also include using templates, software programs, and graphic design packages to make your sites shine. Adding flash and becoming a flash developer will also aide you in getting a great contract jobs, so that should be considered critical.

Professional Web Programmer

You can consider being a professional web programmer as being equivalent to the Wizard of Oz; the man behind the curtain as it was. This job deals with the back-end work of web design, so you will need to be very analytical and have a significant background in programming. You will need to know CGI scripting and how to set up passwords and other security measures. |Creating e-commerce solutions is also a very important aspect of this career choice. Being familiar with database programs is also an important aspect. This career is not as glamorous or "cool" as being a web site designer, but it’s a very important one. This career also includes learning how to work with XML.

Becoming a Web Designer

So you’ve decided to move forward with this career path? Lucky for you there is no actual need to attend college unless you want to work for major firms, but even then many will hire you based on your portfolio of work. Learn all you can though, because the more you know means you can develop better sites and make more money.

Theos Web is a nice starting off point for any would-be web designer. The site offers many do-it-yourself web design tutorials in varying subjects:
- Web Site Ideas
- Expandable Websites (fitting page for different screen resolutions)
- Design tips including 10 tips on how to create a fast loading site
- How to customize canned templates
- A run down on the best tools for web design
- Graphics design tips
- Creative ways to use tables
- Helpful guide on navigation
- Useful tips to using bullet points

World Wide Web School is a site that offers completely free web building tutorials. The tutorials located here include such things as learning XML, browser and scripting among many others.

If you want a completely free resource for web design then try Smart Webby. They offer articles, guidelines, tips and tutorials on HTML, CSS, Dreamweaver and Fireworks.