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- Use a combination of creative and technical skills to design the look and feel of websites
- You'll need excellent design skills, some basic coding skills and the ability to use specialist design software
- Work freelance, for a company or specialise in a particular field like UX or UI design
As a web designer your work will normally focus on the elements that make up how a website looks and feels for users. You could work as part of an in house team within a company, where your work would be focused on creating and improving the websites just for that organisation, or you could work for an agency (or for yourself) where you'll work on different projects for different organisations. You might also be responsible for managing the design of other online services like mobile applications, social media accounts and digital marketing campaigns.
You'll often work closely with web developers (who programme sites) and marketing professionals.
You could specialise in a particular aspect of web design like UX design or
UI design. See the specific role description for UX designer for more on this.
DAY-TO-DAY DUTIES
- Meeting clients to discuss what they want their site to do
- Preparing a design plan
- Deciding which branding, text, colours and backgrounds to use
- Laying out pages and positioning buttons, links and pictures
- Using design software
- Adding multimedia features like sound, animation and video
- Testing and improving the design and site
- Uploading the site to a server
DAY-TO-DAY ENVIRONMENT
If you're self-employed, you'll set your own working hours. You'll work indoors in an office or in your own home at a computer. You may spend some of your time travelling to meet clients.
You'll need
You'll need strong creative skills, the ability to pay attention to detail, good problem-solving skills and a logical approach to work, the ability to explain technical matters clearly, and an ability to work to deadlines. You may also find it useful to have image and video editing and copywriting skills.
You don't always need qualifications to become a web designer, but you'll usually need to show that you've got skills in: visual design, UX (user experience design), SEO (search engine optimisation), marketing and social media, and using design software like Photoshop, Illustrator or specialist web design and prototyping tools like invision or figma.
You could take a higher national diploma or degree in web design and development, multimedia design, digital media development, or interactive computing.
Some employers will expect you to have a portfolio of work to show them, like websites you've worked on.
Colleges offer a wide range of courses, like a Level 3 Certificate in Web Design and Development, or Level 4 Certificate in Digital Media Design, and there are lots of free online tutorials so you could teach yourself the necessary skills. Any experience of creating websites for yourself or others you can get will be helpful when applying for jobs.
You could also take a T level in Digital Production, Design and Development.
You may also be able to get into this role through a higher apprenticeship in creative and digital media, or an advanced apprenticeship for IT, software, web professionals. You could also do a creative digital design degree apprenticeship.
CAREER PROSPECTS
With experience you could move into design team management or expand your skills to become a web content manager. You might work towards a move into business management. You could also work as a freelance web designer, or set up your own web design business.