Member Avatar for crolic

Hi everyone. My story is simple: I am looking for ways to be a web designer.

For now, I started learning Figma and Photoshop.
Do you think that with these klowledge I can get a designer work?

Where and how does web-designers work usually? Do they only create protopype designs and that is all?

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Dani AI

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Short primer for and anyone starting with Figma + Photoshop. Those tools are a solid visual foundation, but paid web-design roles usually look for demonstrated problem solving, process, and handoff ability as much as pretty screens. Roles vary—some teams expect deep research and product thinking, others want visual-only comps, and some expect front-end skills. Referencing points by and , clarifying the target role early helps shape which skills to prioritize.

Concrete skill targets that separate beginners from hireable designers: Figma mastery (components, variants, auto-layout, prototyping, design tokens), responsive layout thinking (content-first breakpoints), basic accessibility checks (contrast, keyboard flows), simple usability testing (5-users, task-based), and clear developer handoff artifacts. Familiarity with how HTML/CSS behave in the browser is useful not to code full sites but to design feasible patterns and reduce rework.

Portfolio guidance that works in practice: publish three case studies that show the full process — brief/constraint, research/insights, low-fi wireframes, iterations, clickable prototype, final screens, and handoff notes. Include at least one data-heavy UI (dashboard or list) and one responsive landing or mobile flow. For quick experience, do volunteer or micro projects, redesigns of existing pages (document assumptions), or small freelance tasks; label what was done solo versus collaboratively.

Practical handoff checklist and next steps: deliver a component library and token list, add a "dev notes" page with responsive states and edge cases, and write simple acceptance criteria (Given / When / Then) for interactive behaviors. Adopt a steady practice habit as and suggested: iterate small projects, gather real feedback, and turn each into a concise case study. This combination of process, artifacts, and collaboration skills opens both UX-only and hybrid front-end opportunities.

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Member Avatar for rproffitt

The last web designer I worked with could and did for a project setup a Tomcat server, write the code for the backend for vehicle GPS tracking and then the reporting backend, user interfaces, Java, Javascript, HTML and quite a long list if we keep going.

Are you going to do a lot more than what you listed? Otherwise you may be what I may call a graphic artist which would not be a web designer but a skill a web site can use.

PS. In other words, add to your stack. Example: https://www.daniweb.com/programming/web-development/threads/519207/how-can-i-become-a-full-stack-web-developer-in-half-a-year

Edited by rproffitt because: Add PS.
Member Avatar for Dani

To rproffitt's point, are you interested in being a web designer or a web developer? (Although I think he may be a little incorrect in terms of the function of a web designer in 2019 / 2020).

Designers focus on the aesthetics of the website. They plan out the user experience (UX) and user interface (UI). They focus on color theory, navigation, user behavior, conversion rates, and how the overall look and feel of a website, and each of its pages, work together to create the best experience for the end-user, and most profitable experience for the website.

Graphic designers don't really exist much nowadays in terms of the web, where so much can be done with CSS and HTML5 nowadays. However, there's definitely still a huge need for graphic design for ad campaigns, magazines, and of course logos and building out the occassional infographic.

Web developers write the actual front-end and back-end code that goes into creating a website. Front-end developers focus on HTML5, CSS, and Javascript, while back-end developers focus on SQL and PHP, Python, or whatever their language of choice is.

Systems administrators are those who maintain the actual web servers, database servers, caching servers, file servers, etc. Their job is to do things like set up and configure the MySQL server, Apache, nginx, load balancer, CDN, etc.

Webmasters are people who are tasked to create or maintain websites for small businesses, usually by using existing tools such as Wix, blogging platforms such as Wordpress, etc. They typically do not have programming skills to build something on their own, but they're experienced power users on the web.

commented: Thanks for this. My buddy did it all but does not consider himself to be a webmaster as he tends to start with deploying the server hardware and build +15
commented: Thank you! Now i see that i'd like to be a front-end developer +0
Member Avatar for crictime.su

i think html is very basic language from where you have to start.

Member Avatar for Turkish_1

With so much technology out there, you should start off at self pace and see how far you can push your limit and willingness to learn. A good way is to youtube your topic and see what others do. Good luck.

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