HTML is the only required skill.

CSS, MySQL, Javascript, AJAX, and PHP are highly recommended.

Photoshop and Flash would be bonuses. However, with more and more people using Apple products, I'd suggest avoiding Flash if possible.

I would like to know what all skills are required to design different types of websites.

It depends on what you mean by "design."

Since you posted in this forum, I'm assuming you mean graphic design- page layout, graphics, etc. If so, the designer would need to have artistic skills and the ability to use whatever graphics program you use in-house (most like Photoshop?). He/she should also be able to design for functionality, not just show. If he/she will also be building web pages, then HTML and CSS are also definite requirements. Being able to work with different types of people (clients, upper management, sales people, programmers, etc.) and convert their needs/wants into a finished product is also critical.

If you mean "design" in the sense of overall development of a web site (user interaction, flow control, programming, database integration, coding pages, etc.), then additional skills would be PHP (or whatever web application your shop uses), MySQL (or whatever database you use), and JavaScript/AJAX. Being able to work with all levels of the company and translate their requirements into a finished product is also critical.

HTML is the only required skill.

CSS, MySQL, Javascript, AJAX, and PHP are highly recommended.

To create web designs you don't need to know any of those things. These are things needed for developing websites not designing them... assuming that the OP isn't confusing the two.

I have dealt with a lot of designers and most have almost zero knowledge of HTML and CSS. They give me a template ... sometimes just a flat image, and I html'ify that.

It is nice to work with a designer that has some concept of HTML and CSS. However I won't accept HTML/CSS from designers anyway as the markup is never how I want it.

Mini, if you are talking just doing design.. get good at 1 design tool.. Illustrator is a great tool for creating web and print work IMO. The more you stick with 1 tool the more you will master that 1 tool. If you want to create templates from your designs you can check out Fireworks.

It would be a strange situation if you submitted artwork for a project and they asked you to make it in Quark instead of Illustrator.

IMO... The only reason to learn something different is if you want to work somewhere that uses something different or if you aren't happy with the tool you are using.

To create web designs you don't need to know any of those things. These are things needed for developing websites not designing them... assuming that the OP isn't confusing the two.

Spot on.

Web design is used too much as an umbrella term, web design should be for the visual design only, and web development should mean the coding of that into a functioning site.

There are people out there that design websites and don't know any HTML - I too have done jobs for someone like this in the past.

However I think that with the emergence of CSS3, Photoshop design for websites is becoming increasingly inefficient compared to creating styles with CSS.

For a commercial website other things need to be taken into account during the design stage, such as information hierarchy, usability and SEO - some would say that this is the real important part of website design, at least for commercial success.

Let me explain clearly what happens in our company. Our website code is splitted into two - the design part and the programming part. We use PHP (Smarty). The employees have separate designations - Programmers and Designers.

The programmer does his/her part of the job and hands over the page/file to a designer. The designer improves the look and layout of the page especially the nesting of the table tags.

I can't understand how designers can handle the <tr>s and <td>s in a more efficient way than programmers? Our designers also adjust the size and look of images.

This division of labor is essential... programmers are not artists, artists are not programmers. Few programmers need to know how to optimize an image, and artists have no clue how or even why arrays are necessary. Every once in a great while there are individuals with sufficient skills in both paradigms to be stellar in output, but that is very rare.

If the company is large enough, you have two divisions. If you are a single operator you do the best you can (or bring in contract help, usually high school/college kids) to do either A or B.

Few expect that Nasa Astronauts are good NASCAR race drivers, or that retail merchants are good farmers. VISUAL DESIGN is generally the purview of artists... finding artists with HTML/CSS skills is where effort is expended for web-based business.

[edited by: tangor at 5:33 am (utc) on Nov 13, 2010]

DUPE. Delete, please.

Photoshop and Flash aren't web design, they're graphic design. You can use graphic design with web design though web design requires (X)HTML, CSS and JavaScript if you wish to do web design competently. A server side scripting language like PHP and a database like PostgreSQL are required for understanding web development. Honestly you need to learn all five because most pretty websites don't achieve much if anything for an income and Craig's List for all of it's graphic designer horror seems to be pretty popular.

- John