In tech, it can be hard to figure out where to start. Whether you want to be a web developer or a digital marketer, there are a lot of different options that you can choose from. A lot of people start in web design because it’s a good place to start if you’re new to the field. But how do you become a skilled web Designers?
People who become web designers have to use both the creative and analytical sides of their brains. This is true for many jobs in tech. Web design is a job that can be done in many different ways. When you find out what you like, you can specialize or change your direction.
If you want to be a good web designer, what skills do you need? There are a lot of things you need to know to get a job as a web designer, but we’ll also talk about some soft skills that will help you stand out.
Tech skills: What do you need to know to become a web designer?
To start, let’s talk about how to become a web designer.
1. VISUAL DESIGN
If you want to be a web designer, you need to know how to design things. But what does that mean? There is a lot more to visual design than just web design, so it makes sense to start there first. When you learn visual design, you learn the basics of web design.
Design principles are what make a site look and feel the way it does. They are one of the most important things for web designers to know about. They can be about proportions, typography, grid systems, color theory, or anything else you think about when you look at something. The first step in learning visual design is to make mood boards and type hierarchies. You also have to play around with web fonts and color palettes.
2. UX
People think of UX as user experience, which is how they feel when they use a website. This could be calm, angry, or something else. UX design is all about thinking about your designs from a user-friendly and user-first point of view. How can you make a website design that helps them get what they need?
To do that, you’ll do research on your users and make “personas” of them (profiles of imaginary ideal users). You’ll make a site map to show how the pages and content will be laid out on the web. There are ways to figure out how people use your site. In this case, do they always go straight to social media? Maybe they’re just looking for a way to get in touch. You’ll use a responsive design to make your site work better for everyone, no matter what kind of device they use.
During your job as a UX designer, you’ll make wireframes and use tools like prototyping and templates to sketch out the most important parts of each web page, including the user interface. All of these things are important for practicing user experience design.
3. GRAPHIC DESIGN AND WEB DESIGN SOFTWARE
As a web designer, just like any other skilled person, you need the right tools to do your job. Every time you work in web design or graphic design, you’ll want to know what the rules are. In some cases, they’ll be very important. Graphic and web designers use tools like Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch to make mockups and design assets like logos and images. These tools are also used when people want to change and improve photos.
You should learn how to use them (though, if you’re just starting out, you might want to try out a few free Adobe Photoshop alternatives instead).
4. HTML
To become a skilled web designer, do you need to be able to write code? You might not have thought that web designers would need to know any code, but some technical skills are required. A little knowledge of HTML and CSS is required for most design jobs these days. Html is short for HyperText Markup Language, which is the programming language that makes web pages look good on the front end. This is how you turn a lot of words into things like the title or the main body of the text or the bottom of the text. It’s also how you get “cool” things like photos, videos, and graphics on a site.
5. CSS
When HTML isn’t enough for you, there are CSS or Cascading Style Sheets for you. Code written in CSS tells browsers how to format and style HTML for a web page. It’s what makes all of the text and other content look good and have a good look. There are so many things that you can do with CSS. You can change the color of the text, change the font, and more. These are the places where you can show off your design skills and make each site unique to you.
BONUS! JAVASCRIPT
As long as you know how to write HTML and CSS, you can make your designs. But if you also know how to write JavaScript, you’ll have a huge advantage over your competitors. When you write code in JavaScript, which is both a front-end and a back-end programming language, you can make static parts of your site more interesting. When you use JavaScript, you can make Twitter feeds that update automatically, websites that look different when you’re logged in, and image sliders that change when you are.
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