Web design is the branch of web development that includes the creation of user interfaces for sites or applications.
Web Designer:
• designs the logical structure of sites;
• Thinks over the most convenient ways to present your information.
• participates in the preparation of the Internet project.
Because of the intersection of the two fields of activity, a competent web designer must be familiar with the latest Internet technologies and have a corresponding artistic value. Most design professionals focus on creative education, such as in a design studio.
Web designer is a relatively young profession, and professional training in the field of web design has not yet become widespread in Russia. Due to the growing demand for online representation, there is a growing demand for web design and the number of web designers. Currently, both web studios and individuals (freelancers) provide such services.
Clarification of the term
Website design is a type of graphic design, the purpose of which is to create and design objects of the information environment of the Internet in order to give them high consumer properties and aesthetic value. This interpretation separates web design from web programming, emphasizes the specifics of the professional activity of a web designer and positions web design as a kind of graphic design.
Currently, the term is accurately understood as meaning the design of the structure of a web resource, which provides ease of use.
An important part of the resource's design has recently become its adaptation to W3C standards, which will improve the accessibility of content for people with disabilities and mobile users, as well as its cross-platform layout (in this case, the so-called cross-browser layout). Internet marketing (Internet marketing) is also directly related to website design, that is, the promotion of the created resource and search engine optimization.
Process and result
A unique design is more expensive, but also involves painting from scratch, a completely new development for a specific task. Depending on the professionalism and / or company policy, the web designer develops the idea and concept of the project completely independently of each other or receives a number of requirements (color, style, etc.), expectations and ideas from the client or the creative director and tries to adhere to them. Most clients mistakenly identify a web designer with a webmaster and trust them to publish a website.
Sometimes a designer can offer his solution based on a template (his own or someone else's). This speeds up the work and costs the customer less. Some designers even specialize in creating layouts for sale as ready-made templates, which can then be purchased by less experienced designers or webmasters and used to create generic websites (there are almost no unique designs). Sometimes a small redesign and adaptation of such a template for a specific order is called website development.
The end product of a web designer's work is a layout: an image that represents the intended appearance of the website's pages in the future. This image is multi-layered, and almost every detail at the discretion of the designer is a separate layer attached to other layers of the image, making it easy to perform corrections, replacements, rearrangements and other tasks. Depending on your idea and goals, the layout can include photographs, complex collages, illustrations, text layers, and unique symbols. Separate layouts are sometimes drawn for the home page and internal pages, with additions or modifications to suit the theme of the page.
The image can initially be vector or raster, made in Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, GIMP or another visual editor (for example, Scribus or Inkscape), but for a layout designer, the image is usually converted to a raster format.
For demonstration to the client, the image is usually translated into a simple one-layer and familiar image format.
