Opening your mind to explore new job prospects can be time-consuming
and fraught with bad information...
No matter what background you're from - if you're seeking to find an exciting new career path then it can be pretty hard. Have a wander round this site and you'll see some great starting reference material.
Read more by clicking the career option buttons...
It's virtually unthinkable that someone would go into business today and not have a website built. If a business wants to succeed, it must have a well designed and informative website. The role of the site is to increase the company's visibility, and act as a virtual shop front that can display products and provide useful information for the client. How often do we all turn to the internet now when we want to research something or make a purchase?
Of course, there's an equally growing demand for good web designers to build all these much needed sites. If web design is something you'd like to get into, you'll need to train and get your certifications. You can do this via a college or training provider, either by going in-centre or studying at home.
Take your time to explore the different training companies and colleges. Think carefully about how each training system would work for you - how it will suit your learning style, personality and other commitments. You should expect to learn a good cross-section of skills from your training programme.
However, you should first know the difference between courses for web developers, and courses for web designers. Training in web development covers all the behind the scenes aspects of a website, and involves learning about programming. Our concern here is for the web designer - who will learn skills to build websites that look and feel professional.
You must be a resourceful, arty sort of person if you want to get into web design. You'll also need to get on well with people, and be able to build good client relationships. Most likely your clients will tell you about their ideas for the website they want. It's then the web designer's job to construe those ideas and put the site together in an attractive and easy to navigate manner. As the expert, the designer should be able to guide the client with respect to the features that are available to them for the price they want to pay.
Adobe products are used as standard in almost all commercial web training. These are now the most universally accepted packages for use in industry today, and prepare students for various Adobe certifications. Two of the most useful products to study are Adobe Dreamweaver Creative Suite 4 and Adobe Flash Creative Suite 4. CS4, as it's known, is the latest version and is now standard, so avoid any companies still training in CS3. Learning how to use Dreamweaver will enable you to build creative web pages to a professional standard. However, if you add Flash to your Dreamweaver skills you'll be able to bring those pages to life. Students who master both tools will have the best and most valuable expertise for industry.
To gain employment as a web designer, you must build a sample portfolio of your designs as you work through your training course. Future employers will want to take a look at what you can do before offering you a position. If you wish to train to work as a freelance Web Designer, then certifications may not be necessary. However, if you do wish to become professionally qualified, your training should lead you to taking the Adobe Certified Expert certification, or the Adobe Certified Professional in either Dreamweaver, Flash or both.
It's quite short-sighted to restrict web design training to just the bits of the website that we can see. You can be so much more employable if you go through a course that also includes a range of other factors. Learn about the role of HTML and CSS. If you ever need to make a website more streamlined, this knowledge will come in very useful. Some knowledge of PHP programming and dynamic HTML will teach you about dynamic coding. Thirdly, look for some teaching on your course about e-commerce websites and how they work. Finally (although school is never over for the student of the internet!) there's the moveable feast that is Search Engine Optimisation.
It's perhaps the most essential tool in your arsenal; training will give you some grounding on how to optimise the websites you build to feature well on the Search Engines. The most artistic and creative websites that are virtually invisible are worth less than a one page diatribe that hits the screens of millions.
The growth of the internet has meant there are many opportunities in the Web Design industry. You can build a career and play a role in it yourself if you retrain now to join the industry. As the flexibility of the internet and speed of delivery continues to improve, so too is the way web sites are being built.
Resolve to make a change for the better now - by researching how you can make a career in web design and the internet work for you.