Most companies hire web designers on the basis of their display portfolio of previous websites and designs they have completed. So it is really important that you have some “real world” experience to show, even if it involves only personal or volunteer projects for schools or community organizations.

Career advancement for web designers involves moving up in seniority in the design arena or progressing in the marketing/communications department of a firm, according to what skills they have and what they are most interested in.

Web designers should not be confused with web developers - they have different skills. Developers work on the server side of websites with programming languages like PHP, Java, and JSP, while designers usually don’t do much coding. In general, the web designer comes up with how they want a site to look and then work with the developer, who figures out how to make the “look” into a functional website by creating the code that operates behind the scenes.

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