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Thinking of becoming a web designer? Great. We can always use more of those! Your creative talents can certainly be translated to such an invaluable and celebrated profession in this modern, digital age. With so many new businesses popping up, countless entrepreneurs are looking for someone to build them an amazing homepage. But to get the ball rolling and to avoid any speed bumps, there are certain skills you should have before you embark on your web design journey.

Let’s jump right in!

      1. Creativity

Whether you are hired by a company or work freelance, your clients or employers need a designer who is able to contribute with their own ideas rather than just doing what they are tools. Your project manager will love you for alleviating the pressure of having to constantly tell you what to do if you’re proactive and creative in your approach to designing a web page. If you want to get into this business, you have to think for yourself with out-of-the-box ideas and solutions.

      2. Resourcefulness

If you want to really excel in a career in web design, you must be able to leverage a wide variety of creative design tools to supplement your work. While website builders such as Elementor offer a range of premade assets and elements to drag and drop, being able to build those assets yourself will put you leagues apart from other web designers. Here are some tools you should know how to use:

• Adobe Photoshop 
• Adobe Illustrator 
• Adobe After Effects 
• Adobe Animate 
• Canva
  
  3. Communication

Being able to properly express the reasons behind your designs while comprehending the complex and sometimes abstract requirements of your clients/employers are absolute necessities as a web designer. Good communication skills can also help you to build better relationships, network more effectively and can be translated to your own marketing content for self-promotion.

      4. Digital Marketing and Social Media

Digital marketing skills will be a great asset to your career as the industry is becoming more and more advanced as we progress further into the virtual age. As a web designer, you will play a vital role when it comes to someone’s digital marketing strategy, so it is good to know how digital marketing works to provide greater context and accuracy to your web designHs.

Likewise, having social media skills will allow you to better understand the platforms potential clients are heading from when being trafficked to the websites you have designed. If you are a freelancer, you will need to have some basic social media knowledge to market your own services and create more clients.

     5. Time-Management Skills

As with any profession on the planet, managing your time and work is critical as a web designer since you will be juggling multiple projects and deadlines, whether you are employed or a freelancer. There are a number of free project management tools available on the web, such as:

• Trello
• Milanote
• Monday
• Asana
• Workzone
  
  6. HTML and CSS

Thanks to modern website builders such as WordPress, Wix and One, coding is strictly necessary but it doesn’t hurt to pick up some skills in HTML. To put it simply, HTML is the way you turn words into paragraphs, headlines, and footers, and also the way in which you get other  forms of assets on a site, such as videos, graphics, photos, etc.

CSS is used to style the website. It’s responsible for the choice of fonts, colors and layout in a website’s design. Whereas HTML lays the foundation for a webpage, CSS styles it.

      7. UX Design

User experience (UX) design is a skill a web designer needs teams in order to create products that provide meaningful and relevant experiences to potential customers. This involves the design of the entire process of acquiring and integrating the product, including aspects of branding, design, usability and function.

      8. UI Design

User interface (UI) design is the process web designers use to build interfaces in software or devices with the aim to create a user-friendly and engaging experience. As a web designer, having skills in designing original and innovative interfaces can greatly set you apart from those who you use premade tools from other providers. 

Next steps: 

Web design is an ever-evolving profession that requires you to stay on your toes and able to adapt to sudden changes in the industry. Every year, there’s a new bit of kit or software that is released that you will have to learn how to use and integrate into your designs to stay competitive, so keep always keep an eye out for new products and services in the world of web design.

And as always, watch this space for more blog posts, news articles and updates from The Web Creator’s Toolbox.