Web Hosting Talk : Web Hosting Main Forums : Web Design and Content : Qualifications for Web Design?

[inspireme]

Web designers need to be creative and come up with new and innovative stuffs. So I would suggest you to get your basics right and practice alot. Hard work is the key to success in any profession.

[J D A]

NONONONONONONONONONONONO!

Scrap Dreamweaver and start with the basics.

-Learn xHTML and CSS and get a firm grasp of the language.
-Move to learning more about CSS3 & HTML5 (you don't have to master that right away).
-Become a master at Photoshop. Knowledge will only get you so far with the program -- the rest requires imagination.
-Learn how to utilize jQuery / JS (or learn it. This should also be with xHTML / CSS).

-Then learn more about HTML5, CSS3, Fireworks (learn it alongside PS so you can slice PSDs).

Believe me, if I had known about WHT back in 6th or 7th grade, I'd be a lot better at web design / development than I am now. Soooooo much better.

I'm also taking Web Design II and it is utter garbage. You don't learn code, just how to click buttons in DW (which I don't even use or care to use, honestly). Some garbage examples of what Adobe's book teaches you (we're using the 2011 / 2012 version of the DW guide: www in the url is the machine name. A site must have www. Because subdomains don't exist. Table based layouts are professional. What is a wrapper? It doesn't exist either.

Sorry if the message is so scrambled, I'm just kind of in a hurry like always!

[esprintguy]

That's a very broad question, actually, and pretty tough to answer. It's like you asked what qualifications there are for an engineer without even specifying whether you are talking of a mechanical engineer, sound engineer, civil engineer, electronics engineer, or any other type.

[side3]

IMHO, as has been touched upon earlier in this thread, one of the first things to become proficient in, is communication. Not necessarily in a marketing perspective, but in understanding what a customer expects from a website and explaining how you can meet those requirements.

A good grounding in customer service skills also helps. You'd be surprised at how long you'll spend updating a client, talking things through with them, helping them understand your design decisions and even troubleshooting problems with them. Knowing how to keep communication professional, helpful and efficient is truly a key skill in this industry.

From a technical perspective, it's entirely dependant on what you're wanting to do. Many people choose either front-end design (Photoshop) or coding (in your case, Dreamweaver), rather than trying to specialise in both. Think carefully about where your skill set lies and go from there.

[theseller]

For me the best is to build it first using Photoshop (which will be use for personal reference and customers reference ofcourse)

Then the images will be export base on the arrangement on the template.

NEVER USE PHOTOSHOP CUT - This is inappropriate and must never be use. This will never get you hired and in worst case, get you fired.

Start with a base HTML template, drop in a CSS framework and CSS reset.

And then work on the grids, define how many grids is your template is. After that design repeatable content.
Finish up, cleanup the css and check on multiple browsers.

This is my workflow.

[Hutchbat]

Basically you'll need to learn Photoshop and illustrator ..

If you want to code your designs, you'll need to learn HTML and CSS ! then may be jQuery and CSS3.