Although still a relatively new commercial industry, web designers have been forced to witness their specialist field continually evolving around them. Even since its widespread conception in the mid 90’s, we have seen already seen a swing in the roles and responsibities of commercial web designers.
Web Designers of Old
When the eyes of the business world were heavily focused on the dot com boom, so were the eyes of many people looking to gain understanding and ultimately profit from the craft of building websites.
It’s no surprise that the first real uptake were people of the computer programming variety. Due to the lack of technological advancement on the internet, many people would soley associate HTML craft with the title Web Designers.
If you can remember that far back, the internet was just a series of pages of text with low resolution graphics and a whole host of horrific animated effects such as flashing text, 3 frame Gifs and dare I mention, the infamous page transistions.
Enter Creative Web Designers
With the above taken into consideration, web designers were barely considered designers at all, and with the added do it yourself attitude of the geo ‘have a go hero’ cites, it was but more reason for reputable graphics designers to turn up their noses.
It was evident from word go, but as we saw the rise of popularity and and increased revenue returns, the world of print had finally admitted long term defeat to the dark cloud which was looming over its future.
With increased technological advancements and broadbands speeds, the availability of professional images and more advanced graphics and designs, the role of a web designer is no longer just to be able to contruct a page, but to enhance marketing messages with the power of design. The process of modern website design now encapsulates the importance of stunning design, be it with Photoshop, CSS or Even Flash.
If a web designer can no longer perform these skills, then they will ultimately be squeezed out of the market by those who can.
Video killed the Cat
As we take a step back and look at the effects that graphics had on the industry, it’s clearly apparent that we will again see the striving growth of the internet’s latest marketing pacemaker, web video.
Get ready for the march of the Web Designers that can not only flex the creative muscle, but can also compete in the ‘arena de video’. Time can be the only judge, but the jury won’t be out for long on this.
