The internet is easily one of the fastest growing and conquering industry. Even industries that once had nothing to do with the web are now partnering up with online technology. It is vital that every company have some sort of web presence in order to be taken seriously, and to get the company’s message out there. Print publications are adding online versions, and it is expected that many publications will switch to being only online in the future. Therefore, the need for web designers grows exponentially with each passing year. It is a career constantly in demand, and surely a safe track to take in your living. The great thing about web design, aside from the fact that there is always work, is that by learning a few key programs, you’re good to go. The ACTS Learning Center owner Steven Patterson explains the necessity of learning Adobe Dreamweaver for web design.
Dreamweaver is a web development application that you, the web designer, would use to design web pages. You would not only be designing graphics and interactive features, but you would also be designing the very layout of the page, with everything that will be on it. Dreamweaver is what you will use to create, insert, and format.
The most paramount step of learning Dreamweaver, and web design in general, is to learn the scripting and programming languages, especially HTML. This language is a set of words and symbols that form commands. While you are entering the commands onto the Dreamweaver system, the images and text are being manipulated on the web page. For example, you may want certain words in the body of your “About” blurb to get bigger and turn red when someone drags their mouse over it, so that they can tell it’s a link. That is done with HTML. You would insert the HTML commands in your blurb of text onto Dreamweaver, and Dreamweaver translates that command without showing it on the actual web page. So your Dreamweaver text looks cryptic and riddled with symbols, but your web page looks like interesting text with growing and color-changing links. Dreamweaver also supports the programming language, ActionScript, the main language of Adobe Flash, as this is what makes features animated and/or interactive. Other languages are supported as well, most notably JavaScript and Active Server Pages. A class is necessary to learn these languages. It is just too scattered and overwhelming to be able to be self-taught. More formal training teaches you the commands as part of whole processes, so everything fits together, works together in one stream of thought, and makes sense. So, now, instead of just having to memorize each command and when to apply it, you know have to do this or that to get result A or B. Think of it like learning a new spoken language. You can either sit down with a French dictionary and memorize words and then try to make sentences, or you can take a class that will teach you how to converse – it’s much easier to remember these words and phrases as part of a process.
Once you learn the languages and how to apply them, you can go about learning when to implement what techniques and processes, and you will begin to be able to create entire web pages. The final step is learning how to format them, edit them, and make them live, and furthermore maintain them over time. It is a good idea to learn Dreamweaver along with other graphic and web design programs, like Adobe Flash and Illustrator. This way, you develop a suite of programs in your repertoire that really makes your possibilities endless.
