| | | | | Be a web designer? Here’s how! | In today’s e-age, web designers are in great demand. Designing an attractive interface is indeed a challenging task, as it requires technical proficiency as well as a creative bent.
Job profile
According to Maharshi Vyas, a freelance web designer, “The job of a web designer is to arrange images, text and forms in an aesthetic form, using designing tools.” Explaining this further, Chaitanya Krishnan, web designer, Flip Design, says, “Web design used to be quite similar to other design areas like print and publishing design. In fact, a lot of present-day web designers initially came from a background of print design. However, with newer technologies and websites becoming much more dynamic, this is not true anymore. Today a web designer has to be able to visualize a lot of other things when designing a website: animation, dynamic content structures, Cascading Style Sheet (CSS), etc.”
According to Krishnan, the job entails designing for all kinds of websites:
- Sites that have static content, but are visually dynamic: Typically these sites have no more than 6 to 10 pages. The content stays the same, but through the use of Flash and DHTML/ XHTML one gets a rich/ fun experience.
- Sites that have dynamic content (Content Management System (CMS) driven): Social networking sites are a classic example where the content of the site is always changing as users keep adding content.
Options galore
According to Vyas, “Nowadays, many IT companies hire web designers who can develop websites and presentations for them.” Krishnan says, “You can get plenty of jobs at design firms these days as firms have now started realizing that there is more to communication design than just print and retail design - which is what many of the old companies have been doing for the past decades. IT companies also hire web designers to supplement their programming workforce.”
Pre-requisites
There are many paths that an aspiring web designer can take. Krishnan offers, “There are design schools that offer courses in communication design that have branches/ modules for web designing built into the course. A web design course is not to be confused with a web development course. The latter deals with the programming aspects of the website and is a different yet equally important field in itself. Web design is to do with the look and feel of the site. It also deals with other fundamental aspects of the site like the interactive experience of the user, communication requirements of the clients, etc. Web development/ programming deals with the backend of the site: the HTML, scripting, CMS system, etc. A good web design course will typically train you in the basics of design: colour theory, typography, form and space, etc. And then you study the implications of the digital medium on these concepts. Web animation and web game development are also usually part of the course.”
Apart from doing a course from a reputed institute, “A web designer should have good aesthetic sense. He or she should be a good observer and have sufficient knowledge of colours,” adds Vyas. Krishnan avers, “A successful web designer should have mastered all the basics of design. He should have at least rudimentary knowledge of the backend technology. He should update himself with new emerging trends and technologies.”
Remuneration
Starting salaries range from Rs. 8000 to Rs. 10,000 per month. Nevertheless, with some amount of experience, you can easily go up to Rs. 30,000 per month.
Future prospects
“The field is developing in various areas. A web designer can also branch out into Internet marketing,” affirms Vyas. Krishnan enthuses, “The field is always reinventing itself. Every year there is something new - CSS, Ajax…and that’s just the tech aspect. As people’s tastes and demands change, the process of designing a website also adapts to them. Web designers are lucky to be in a field that is always in a state of flux. It can be challenging at times, but this field is for those who can’t imagine doing the same thing day in and day out.”
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