10 Essential Web Designer Skills to Help You Succeed
With the repaid advancement of the web, it is essential for designers to have high level web designer skills to be able to create highly interactive designs. If you are a beginner, you should first of all attain these web designer skills so that you can succeed in the industry. To become a good designer, you should have the ability to combine content and visuals in a harmonious way. There are also others skills such as communication and collaboration that are also essential. Below are the top website design skills that can help you succeed.
10 Essential Web Designer Skills You Must-Have
1. Composition
This is one of the top web designer skills needed to succeed. Composition involves being able to arrange visuals, text and all the other components. The arrangement of all these elements play both utilitarian and artistic role in the entire design. A website that has all these elements arranged in the right way does not only have a great look, but also grabs the attention of the web visitors. A good designer should be able to create a well composed layout that involves bringing balance with negative space, contrast and proportioned elements. There is the visual harmony of the web design, hierarchy and organization of ideas that a good designer must be able to bring them up.
2. Color theory
Every web designer should know the simple concepts of combining a wide range of colours to come up with new colors. The knowledge to do this helps craft appealing colour palettes for the design. One of the top skills required for web designer involves having ample knowledge with the colour wheel and know how the different colours such as the analogous, complementary and contrasting colours work together. Using clashing colors is one of the major mistakes that novices in web designing make. Note that some form of visual dissonance can make a website interesting, but clashing hues can make the design layout unreadable and ugly. Headers, calls to action and text should have colours that work well and be legible. A good designer should know when to apply darks and lights, saturation, contrast. These are critical colour skills when it comes to web designing. It is good to have a good understanding of the colour theory to be able to combine them in the best way possible.
3. Responsive design
In the modern times a good website must be responsive. Thus, responsive design is a critical part of the web development process. The key for responsive design is to make sure that CSS, HTML and JavaScript features like text, menus and buttons are usable and clear everywhere. A highly responsive design ensures that the content is delivered consistently. The design works effectively by having a master layout that adjusts efficiently to fit well in the screen that it is loaded. A good web designer should know to create design that translates to different devices. This helps the design to reach a huge audience without compromising the level of user experience. There are several tools they should use to bring the responsive web designs to life.
4. Graphic designing
Graphic and website design all share the same creative space. The two usually involve the artistry of creating visuals. Note that designing of a logo or website are two distinct design disciplines, but are both part of branding. In addition to website design skills, a web designer should have graphic design skills. The designer should know how to create custom illustrations, hand-drawn typography and other forms of creative flourishes that improve the entire web design process.
5. Search engine optimization
Search engine optimization is one of website design skills needed to create high quality web design. Web developers and designers should have basic knowledge of SEO, since this gives you an upper hand when performing different web design projects. There are a lot of factors that influence ranking of your website in the different search engines. Some of these factors include website content, inbound links, performance, download speed and how mobile friendly it is. A web designer should be able to pay attention to all these factors when doing the design work. Once you attain SEO skills, you can be able to apply all these factors to make the website more appealing to major search engines, thus making it easier to attract massive traffic.
6. Be able to use several web design tools
There are a set of tools used in web designing. Good web designers should know how to use all the essential tools to create high quality web designs. Besides, they should also know how to make use of the most critical design software applications. Despite that you can design in a website browser; there are certain tools that you need to use for various tasks. For instance, a good designer should have knowledge on how to use tools such as Sketch, photoshop, Wondershare Mockitt for icon designing, image processing and prototyping. As a designer, you should be able to use the appropriate tools at the correct stage. This helps make your web designing work more effective. You should know how to use tools such as adobe illustrator that is an effective vector graphics processing tool that is used for graphic design, font design, illustration design, product packaging design and other tasks. Besides, you should also know how to use Adobe After Effects that helps perform other complicated web design tasks.
7. Discipline
Discipline is one of the soft skills that make a great web designer. To succeed in this field you need to be highly disciplined in every aspect of the web designing stage. Being disciplined increases productivity and ensures that you always hit deadlines especially if you are doing the designing on behalf of a company or other clients. Time management is core to being disciplined. You need to pay attention to what you are doing to be able to create highly interactive web design. You do not to do the job when you already have other things that are distracting you. Ensure you use your time constructively to ensure that you do the job slowly without rushing. You should have great work ethic and be disciplined to further your web designing skills and knowledge. Be ready to keep up with the changes that are occurring in the industry.
8. Typography
Typography is one of the top web designer skills that involve the way a web designer communicates meaning. Thus, a good web designer should be able to deliver messaging with the right typographical choices. There are a lot of font options that can confuse beginners on the one to choose for their work. Some fonts such as Verdana, Roboto and Georgia are appropriate for body copy. There are other decorative fonts that require to be used sparingly to spice the look of the web design. A good web designer should understand the difference between the different styles and where they should be applied. There are a lot of resources you find online that can help boost your typographic skills. Some of the resources you can use include Font in use or Font combinations.
9. User Experience (UX)
User Experience refers to the emotional response that people have towards a website design. A good designer should be able to integrate the different elements to create a design that is appealing. This involves applying dynamic and interactive elements to make the site friendly for users to navigate. User experience shapes a person experience, while guiding and engaging them through the website. It involves creating a website with uncluttered layouts, intuitive design and audience specific design.
To create a website design it is good to use the best tool with the elements. Wondershare Mockitt is the best tool you can use to create a website that offer the best user experience. It is a tool with a myriad of assets that helps you create a highly interactive website design. With Mockitt, you can complete the designing work within ten minutes. Its intuitive interface makes it easy to use even if you are a beginner in website designing. With simple and drop actions, it means it only takes a few minutes to learn how to use it.
If you create web designs with a team, Wondershare Mockitt allows you to work on a similar project effectively. It is also possible for one member of the group to make some changes and you will find the changes they make in real time. The tool allows you to share the design with others so that they can preview and give comments on how they interact with the design.
10. Understand principles of design
The core to a great website design is understanding the principals involved in the designing process. Understanding the basic web design fundamentals makes a great difference in creating just a standard design and building a design that is unique and calculated. Some of the top principles of web design you should possess include emergence, reification and invariance. Emergence involves being able to view an arrangement of visuals and knowing what they represent. Reification involves the use of the most critical parts on an element to make it easy to identify. Invariance helps you make things to look unique from the same objects. Applying variance makes it possible for you to highlight essential parts of a web design.
