Web Designers are the creative professionals who design “how websites look”.

According to a recent report, this is the year for web designers. And Monster.com (one of the premier job search websites) predicts a hefty 26 percent growth rate for the web design profession.
So, what?s web design and what does a web designer know and do?

Well, web designers are experts or professionals in making websites look good using graphics, HTML, XHTML and CSS.

If you are considering a career in web design, here are some sought after skills by hiring managers and recruiters:

• You need to be strong in at least one graphics software package (Adobe, Macromedia, Flash, etc.)
• You need to be fluent in CSS and XHTML.
• You need to have good color co-ordination. That?s you must be able to come up with color schemes that blend and stand-out at the same time.
• You need to be able to plan a website. Not as easy as it may sound because some websites consist of thousands of pages.
• You need to be able to mock up a web page, design it and then develop it.

In addition to the skills listed above, exceptional web designers also know:

• How to design accessible websites.
• How to design websites with usability in mind.
• How to design search engine friendly websites.
• How to integrate websites with databases using Server Side scripting and programming languages like JSP (JavaServer Pages), ASP.NET, C#, Visual Basic .NET, PHP, Ruby, Perl, etc.

In previous posts, I mention that you don?t really have to be writing code 100% of the time to have a career in computer programming. As a web designer, your time will be spent between writing code and doing creative web design work. Each company or client will differ in how much code they expect a web designer to write.

Note that while some companies want a web designer who can do everything, others are purists in their approach and would like you to do 100% web design work. So, here is a career success tip for you.

And if you are considering a career in web design, according to this MSNBC article, this year is going to be a really good year for you

To learn more about well-paying careers in web development, information technology and software development, visit here.