What does a Website Designer do?

Published: May 6, 2024

Today, websites are very important for companies, creative people, and sharing information online. A well-made website can make or break a brand’s online presence. This is why a website designer’s job is so important. This article explains the different jobs and skills needed to be a website designer.

Who is a Website Designer?

A website designer is someone who creates the look and feel of a website. They use their artistic skills and technical knowledge to make websites that are easy to use and look great. These designers are crucial for helping a brand, like BrandVillage, look good online and ensuring visitors have a positive experience on the site. They understand how people use websites, turn a brand’s style into online designs, and stay updated with new trends and practices. In short, a website designer ensures that a website is attractive, functions well, and meets the needs of those who visit it, which is essential for companies such as BrandVillage that specialise in web design services.

Website Designer’s Many Jobs

A website designer has many jobs to create a fun online experience. Here are some key jobs:

• Visual Design: Designers plan the overall look of a website. This includes things like the layout, colour choices, fonts, and pictures. They make nice-looking designs that match the brand.
• User Experience (UX) Design: UX design makes sure the website is easy to use and meets the audience’s needs. Designers make a smooth journey for users, guessing user behavior and optimising the navigation.
• User Interface (UI) Design: UI design focuses on the interactive website parts like buttons, menus, and forms. Designers make sure these look nice, are simple to use, and are styled consistently.
• Front-end Coding: While not doing all the coding, designers often know HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. This helps bring their designs to life, ensuring it work across devices.
• Graphic Design and Multimedia: Modern websites use images, animations, videos etc. Designers must understand graphic design and multimedia tools to make engaging visuals.
• Content Planning: Designers may help plan website words like writing text, undoubtedly organising information, and matching content to branding and SEO.

UX Designer vs Web Designer

UX designers and web designers both work on websites, but they focus on different things. UX designers are mainly concerned with how people feel when they use a website. They do research, create profiles of typical users, and design the basic layout and functionality to make sure the website is easy to use and meets users’ needs.

Web designers focus more on how the website looks. They use coding and multimedia to make the website attractive and ensure it matches the brand’s style. They also make sure that the look is consistent throughout the site. Even though they have different main tasks, many designers have skills in both areas, which helps them build better websites overall.

The Website Design Process

Discovery and Planning

The first step in the website design process is to gather project requirements, understand the client’s goals and target audience, and conduct market research. Our Designers at BrandVillage create sitemaps and wireframes to establish the website’s structure and layout. This careful planning ensures that the final design meets the client’s needs and resonates with the intended users.

Wireframing and Prototyping

Building upon the initial planning, designers create wireframes and prototypes to visualise the website’s layout, user flow, and overall functionality. This step allows for early feedback and iterations before moving into the design phase, ensuring a solid foundation for the final product.

Design and Development

During this stage, the website designer brings the design to life, incorporating visual elements such as colors, typography, and imagery. They ensure that the design is responsive and compatible across various devices and browsers, providing a consistent experience for users.

Testing and Optimising

Before launching the website, extensive testing is conducted to identify and resolve any issues or bugs. Designers optimise the website for performance, accessibility, and search engine visibility, ensuring a seamless and inclusive experience for all users.

Launch and Maintenance

After the website is launched, the designer’s role shifts to ongoing maintenance and updates. This includes monitoring website performance, addressing any issues that arise, and implementing design or content updates as needed to keep the website fresh, engaging, and aligned with the client’s evolving needs, a process well-handled by our teams at BrandVillage.

Key Designer Skills

Successful designers need diverse creative and technical abilities:

• Art and Creativity: Design is an art form. Designers must understand beauty, color, fonts and layout to make brands look nice.
• Technical and Coding Basics: While levels vary, designers should know HTML, CSS and JavaScript basics. This helps understand web tech and work with developers.
• Problem-solving: Designers look at user behavior, find issues and creatively solve them through logical thinking.
• Communication: Design needs teamwork, so speaking and writing skills are vital to share ideas, get feedback and agree on goals.
• Adapting and Learning: The design industry constantly changes, so designers must stay up-to-date with new tech, web design trends and practices.

Types of Website Designers

• In-house Designers: Big companies often have their own design teams. These designers work inside the company and make sure the website fits the company’s goals and style.
• Freelance Designers: Freelance website designers work by themselves, choosing projects from different clients. They enjoy flexibility in their jobs, but they need good business skills to find new clients.
• Agency Designers: These designers work for companies that specialise in web design. They work with others like writers and programmers on many projects at once, often for different kinds of clients.
• Specialists: Some designers focus on certain types of websites like online stores, portfolios for artists, or business websites. They know a lot about the special needs and best ways to build these kinds of sites.

Who Web Designers Work With

• Developers to build functional designs
• Writers to match content to branding
• Marketers for optimisation and engagement
• Project managers for coordination

Who Hires Web Designers

• Agencies and design studios
• Businesses across industries
• E-commerce companies
• Creatives for portfolio sites
• Non-profits and government and many more.

Web Design vs Web Development

Web Design

Web design focuses on the visuals, user experience, and branding of a website. Designers create layouts, choose fonts and graphics that align with the brand identity. Their primary goal is to make the website visually appealing, user-friendly, and consistent with the company’s image. Web designers ensure that visitors have an enjoyable and intuitive experience while browsing the site.

Web Development

On the other hand, web development concentrates on the functionality and technical aspects of a website. Developers write code (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, etc.) to build and maintain websites. They are responsible for the structure, performance, and features of the site. Web developers handle tasks like integrating databases, implementing server-side scripting, and ensuring cross-browser compatibility. While there can be some overlap, web design and web development generally require distinct skill sets.

Web Design Tools

Designers use tools like Adobe Suite, Sketch, Figma, InVision, prototyping apps and code editors.

Whom Website Designer Collaborate With?

While crucial for visuals and UX, designers collaborate for successful projects:

• With Developers, Marketers, and Clients: They work closely with developers to code designs properly. With marketers, they apply engagement and SEO best practices.
• Understanding Goals and Audiences: Great design needs understanding client goals, audiences, and brand for effective alignment.
• Incorporating Feedback: The design process involves many changes. Designers must apply feedback from clients, teams, and users to refine and meet goals.

Conclusion

A website designer has many different jobs that need skills in making things look nice, making the website easy to use, coding, and planning words and information. Today, having a nicely designed website is very important for doing well. A good website makes people trust the brand more, makes the website simple to use, keeps people engaged, and helps the business get better results. To have a solid online presence, it is important to work with skilled website designers or website design agency in Melbourne like us. We make sure the website looks great and also make it really easy and enjoyable for people to use the website. This ensures that clients of BrandVillage receive the best possible results from their investment in website design.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

1. Can designers work on back-end coding?

Designers mainly focus on the front end (visuals and user experience). Some may know about back-end like databases, but complex back-end coding is usually done by web developers.

2. How long to design a website?

The time varies based on the project’s size and the changes needed. Simple websites may take a few weeks, while very complex sites can take several months.

3. Do designers need to code?

Not all designers are expert coders, but knowing HTML, CSS, and JavaScript basics is helpful. It allows them to better communicate with developers.

4. Can designers work on mobile apps?

Yes, many designers also create user interfaces and experiences for mobile apps. The design principles are similar across digital platforms.

5. Why is accessibility important?

Accessibility ensures websites work for people with disabilities. Designers follow guidelines for keyboard use, color contrast, image descriptions, etc. for an inclusive experience.

6. Difference between web and graphic designer?

Web designers focus on digital designs for websites and apps, considering user experience. Graphic designers create visuals for various media like print, packaging, and branding.

7. Is following design trends important?

Staying up-to-date on trends is important for designers. Trends influence not just looks but also user expectations. Following trends helps create fresh, engaging user experiences.