Web design is one of the fastest-growing skills in the digital marketplace. To remain at the top as a web designer, you need to constantly improve your skills to deliver quality designs to your customers and meet their expectations.
Suppose you’re a web designer or aspiring to be one; you can develop your skills and learn a thing or two by going through the portfolio of web design by Mac J Web.
Technical skills you need to be a good web designer
Your success as a web designer is dependent on both your technical (hard) and soft skills. Once you learn the necessary skills, you can niche down and explore all the various opportunities that come with it.
- Enhancing UX: To be a good web designer, you need to be able to create designs that are user-friendly and user-focused. The design of a web can affect a user’s overall experience.
- Visual design: This is the art of selecting the right design principles that can enhance the feel and boost the look of your created website. Designers with advanced visual designing skills are usually in high demand.
User experience is closely related to visual design; only that visual design has to do more with esthetic elements. Color psychology, typography, spacing, type hierarchy, and grid systems are the most common tools used in Visual design.
- Design software: Familiarizing yourself with all industry-standard design software is necessary as this shows you are a professional and you know how to use the right tools to ensure the job is done.
Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Sketch are the most commonly used tools for the important aspects of the job, like designing logos and images, creating mockups, enhancing photos, and course modifying.
- HTML and CSS: Coding has now become a necessary skill for web designers in this era as you are expected to understand HyperText Markup Language (HTML) to at least a minimum level. This will help you optimize and place your content on the web and give it a structure and form.
Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) is a specific code that allows you to format and style HTML components of a page. CSS improves the aesthetic appeal of your content. With CSS, you can change fonts, add/remove background, tweak colors, and do even much more.
Soft Skills You Need To Be A Good Web designer
- Communication: Regardless of being a web designer or not, this skill is of great asset to a professional in any field and should be developed. As a web designer, this is especially important to you as you are able to effectively convey your ideas in clear language so you and your stakeholders or clients can work, discuss and be on the same page.
This also applies to working collaboratively with other teams, as you should be able to consistently provide updates for projects.
- Time management: Time management skills are important because there are always tight deadlines to meet. Designers must be flexible and quick to respond to requests and changes due to the rapid pace of project iterations. Management of schedules, following up on project needs, and flat-out efficiency in their workflow are attributes of a good web designer.
- Client management: You’ll have to work with stakeholders or clients to create websites that are appealing to them and functional. So, you should be able to communicate your ideas to non-tech inclined clients and know how to manage their expectations as you are trying to deliver projects much better than they hoped.
Suppose you are a freelancer designing directly for clients. You should have a plan to ensure your project backflow and cash flow are realistic and healthy.
- Digital marketing: For a web designer, digital marketing skills such as SEO and social media marketing skills are a huge asset. The knowledge of these skills can be used to adapt to the marketplace as you are a crucial part of a digital marketing strategy.
With these skills, you will be very valuable to a potential client or employer.
A web designer makes sure websites are aesthetically appealing, functional, and user-friendly by harmoniously combining visuals and content. With the right skills as a web designer, there’s no limit to what you can create in the tech space. You can decide to work for yourself or get employment with an already established web development company. Any path you choose, the most important thing is for you to keep upgrading your skills.