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If you’re a designer, an online portfolio can help you attract new clients or score your dream job. Publishing your most compelling work samples creates...

Easy Steps to Create a Beautiful Design Portfolio

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Effective web designers create eye-pleasing websites that help clients address business goals. But how do you identify local web designers...

6 Steps to Hire a Local Web Designer

Web designing involves everything from planning and conceptualizing the setup of a website to creating the content and getting the site online. It includes both the aesthetic aspects of the website and the back-end development that keeps everything running. Specific elements included in web design are:<ul><li>Graphical design elements</li><li>Images and icons</li><li>Embedded videos</li><li>Written content</li><li>Font choices</li><li>Page layout</li><li>Color choices</li><li>Animation</li><li>Site navigation</li><li>Site performance and speed</li><li>Forms and links</li><li>Site structure</li><li>Cross-device compatibility</li></ul>Depending on the type of site, website design might also include the creation or incorporation of online shopping carts, apps, or customized elements.

A web designer handles the look and functionality of a website, creating a site that meets the client's needs. Web designers frequently use software such as Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Animate, and Adobe After Effects, to create visual elements for the page. A web designer should also know the coding languages HTML and CSS.

Front-end web development includes programming and building the structures that support the visible portions of a website. This might involve using programming languages, such as HTML, CSS, JQuery, and JavaScript, to make site elements work seamlessly on different browsers, different computer screen sizes, and mobile devices. Front-end developers also handle site updates when web standards change.

SEO stands for search engine optimization, which is the process of creating content that ranks highly in browser searches. In web design and development, this includes everything that can affect how the site appears in searches, including the domain name choice, site loading speed, site indexing, overall structure of the website, and elimination of broken links.

CMS stands for content management system, which includes the software programs used to create and maintain a website. A web developer builds the CMS, and a web designer uses it to add content and visual elements to the site. A web designer can also set up the CMS to have a convenient graphical user interface (GUI) that lets the site owner easily add content to specific areas. This might include a form that the owner can log into to post new blog articles or share links to news items about the business.

Responsive web design helps a site adapt to different browsers and platforms so everything works correctly on any device. A responsive website alters the elements on the page to fit the screen, so it might shrink graphic elements or change how a drop-down menu operates, depending on whether the user is on a smartphone or a 24-inch computer monitor.