by The Extraordinary Tourist

Created on: March 20, 2007   Last Updated: April 17, 2007

There is more to finding web design work than simply approaching potential employers. Firstly, understand that there is a difference between being a web 'designer' and a web 'programmer'.

A web designer is someone who designs how the web site will look and how users will navigate around a site i.e. the site's layout. A web programmer is someone who designs the 'back-end' of a site i.e. all the things that make the site work, for example, linking the site to a data base of content or making the site search-able etc.

Most employers require their web designer to have some basic knowledge of web programming (such as HTML, Java-Script etc.) but in general will hire dedicated web programmers for more complex tasks. As a web designer your job is to make a users visit to a web site an easy to understand, pleasant and enjoyable experience.

If you aren't formally trained as a web designer, it is possible to teach yourself designing for the web if you already have a design background (for example - designing for print). Many design principles for other mediums do translate into web design. However there are a few specific to the web that you can pick up as you learn how to use web design software.

Web design software comes in many different varieties however the industry leader is 'Dreamweaver' and its related software packages such as 'Flash', 'Illustrator' and 'Photoshop' created by Adobe. All of these packages are quite expensive to purchase but well worth it for serious designers. It's useful to know that Adobe offers free 30 day trial versions of their products that can be downloaded from their web site at www.adobe.com so you can evaluate (or at least spend some time learning) each program.

Of the above mentioned software the two most critical are 'Dreamweaver' (this is your workhorse for designing and managing your web sites) and 'Photoshop' (where you'll design the majority of your graphical web site elements). Both 'Illustrator' and 'Flash' can be used to design web sites however these can be learned later as you become more confident with your skills. 'Flash' especially is worth learning if you want to design complex, animated sites.

Note that there are other web design software packages around that are more than capable of creating high quality web sites (I personally use Net Objects Fusion) however, unless you plan to start your own web design business, sticking to the industry standard is the safe option.

Potential employers will want to see examples of your work.

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