If you’re thinking about taking web design courses, there are a few things that you should know before you get started.  Taking web design courses will help you accelerate your career by teaching you the latest technologies and techniques in website design.  This will allow you to enter the job force with a degree or certificate in hand that lets potential employers know that you’re a cut above the rest since you’ve trained with the best.  In this economy and competitive field, you’ll need every advantage you can get if you want to succeed.

What are the Basic Web Design Courses?

When you sign up for a website design degree program, you’ll take a variety of classes depending on the school and the degree you are going for.  Regardless of where you go, there are a number of core classes that are essential to the web design profession.  This includes courses that teach you the proper coding and visual design techniques that are necessary to design a modern day, functional, interactive website.  When you can do this, you can make a nice living doing web design.

These core courses in website design include classes that focus on HTML and CSS essentials, as well as web graphics, animations, page mockups and visual skills.  You’ll also learn how to use Dreamweaver, Adobe Photoshop and more, while you become versed in JavaScript and advanced CSS layouts.  For those who are more into motion Flash design, you’ll also be able to take courses that focus on Flash Animation and Flash ActionScript for game design.

Intro to Web Design

This is one of the first courses you will take.  Intro to Web Design will teach you about the history of website design, covering all of the technical fundamentals as well as basic design principles that everyone needs to know.  You’ll be exposed to the best and worst online practices around, giving you a first person look at what to do—and what not to do—in web design.

You’ll focus on honing your creative and technical skills while delving into informational science and entrepreneurship. You’ll also learn about aesthetics and functionality and the thin line that separates the two ends of the design spectrum.

HTML and CSS Essentials

If you want to design a website that is up to modern day professional standards, you’re going to have to learn how to use HTML in conjunction with CSS.  When you take web design courses on HTML and CSS Essentials, you’ll learn how to use HTML to mark up a document’s structure and then CSS to dictate how each element of the site should look.

When you start to master the basics through hands-on exercises, you’ll delve into the fast-paced world of HTML5 and CSS3.  This is the future of web design, including multimedia and visual effects.  Of course, the bulk of the course will concentrate on using CSS for positioning and typography as well as creating HTML tables.  Generally speaking, you will learn the best practices in web standards, as established by the World Wide Web Consortium.  By learning and adhering to these standards, the websites you design will be more accessible, user-friendly and cross-browser compatible.

Dreamweaver

For most professional web designers, the preferred HTML editor is Adobe’s Dreamweaver program.  This program puts all of the tools you need right into one application, giving you a way to design the most sophisticated websites, even if you don’t have full mastery of CSS and HTML just yet.  You’ll learn about Cascading Style Sheets, typography, colors, fluid grids, data tables, jQuery navigation bars and much, much more.

You’ll learn how to work with the web editor, while building up your portfolio that you can use to demonstrate your mastery of this leading web design program.  If you don’t know how to use Dreamweaver, you’re just not ready to compete in the competitive world of web design.

Web Graphics Using Fireworks

Finally, one of the more exciting web design courses we want to talk about is web graphics.  This simply gives you a way to convey powerful feelings, ideas and emotions into media through picture.  These types of graphics boost a site’s perception in the public eye as well as the performance in search engines and overall.  By creating a visual hierarchy and combining it with logical and intuitive interface design, you’ll learn how to organize—and recognize—the important information right offhand.

This allows you to make superior websites through the amazing Adobe Fireworks program.  You’ll learn the basics of Fireworks as well as all about the tool set, the features and the top techniques.