Career Summary

The internet is constantly evolving and new technologies, techniques, and design standards are developed on a daily basis to make websites more functional and user friendly.

The role of web and media designers is to utilize all of the media possibilities of the web to create dynamic, attractive, and easy to use web sites. The media outlets include: Flash animation, Java applications, streaming and downloadable video, streaming and downloadable audio as well as standard web pages. The basic design of most pages on the Web use HTML, Images, and CSS for style layout. Other pages may utilize XHTML and JavaScript, or use web application scripting languages to develop applications, such as ASP, PHP, Perl, Python, etc.

Web pages are set up for a variety of uses such as E-Commerce, promotional and business informational web sites to sway a consumer’s interest to their company. Other web pages are for personal use to display family videos or pictures, to tell people more about themselves, or to communicate in things such as forums, web chat, or comments on articles.

Web design contrasts with web development, which includes Web server configuration, writing Web applications, and server security. It is essential to define the purpose of the website in the planning process. This will determine who will visit the site -- they are your audience. Content evaluation and organization is also a vital part of the web site creation process.

If web design interests you, you must commit yourself to learning new skills on a fairly ongoing basis. Web designers who have animation experience will have a more opportunities for employment.