Every year on May 31st, we celebrate Web Designer Day to honor all the hardworking people behind spectacular websites. It spotlights the dedication and creativity of these digital architects, inviting everyone to acknowledge how they help build functional, beautiful, and user-friendly websites.
The contribution of web designers to a brand’s online success is immeasurable. But what exactly do these creative minds do? To celebrate Web Designer Day, we’ll discuss a web designer’s role in creating high-converting websites. Plus, we interviewed our very own Pat Mapili to take us through a day in the life of a web designer.
What Do Web Designers Do?
Web designers create digital visuals that significantly impact first impressions, SEO, and the overall user experience. To convert visitors into paying customers, they’re tasked with grabbing user attention and delivering a cohesive, visually striking, and engaging journey through text, graphics, and layouts.
In general, a web designer’s work focuses on the following areas:
- Visual design – the task of creating a website’s different elements: color schemes, typography, images, and more
- User experience (UX) – UX makes a website user-friendly and easy to navigate. Good UX translates to seamless browsing.
- Responsive design – This area of website design ensures visually appealing and highly functional websites across different devices.
- Web accessibility – As the name suggests, web accessibility is about making websites more accessible to people with disabilities. It promotes inclusivity.
Moreover, web designers juggle the responsibilities we’ve mentioned above with other essential tasks. Some designers manage technical aspects such as registering domain names and working with top website hosting services, while others skip this task. You may even see web designers organize key design files and assets, update or redesign sites, and collaborate with other team members.
What are Some Essential Web Design Skills?
Web design requires the perfect combination of workplace and technical skills. Let’s look at these essential skills one by one.
Workplace Skills
A web designer’s job isn’t limited to creating visual elements. They’ll also need interpersonal and organizational skills to work with clients, team members, and stakeholders.
With strong workplace skills, designers can clearly express their ideas, handle multiple projects, and collaborate with teams effectively. All three lead to an uninterrupted design process that finishes and implements projects on time.
In a nutshell, web designers must have the following workplace skills.
Communication
Communication skills help web designers:
- Know what clients want and ask them about their specific goals and target audience.
- Express their ideas and design decisions clearly.
- Update stakeholders on ongoing projects, explain escalating problems to them, and stick to established timelines.
Time Management
This workplace skill is crucial to managing multiple projects, delivering the most critical tasks, and finishing them on time.
Collaboration
Web designers are expected to work well with writers, developers, other designers, and IT teams. Most importantly, they must be receptive to constructive feedback and use it to improve their work.
Technical Skills
When it comes to technical skills, web designers must know how to build and optimize websites. This is especially important if your brand aims for high search rankings.
Many web designers are well-versed in design software, UX principles, and basic coding skills. They use all three to build functional and beautiful websites. In addition, proficiency in specific programming languages is a must for web designers because it lets them improve website elements and collaborate with web developers better.
Programming Languages for Website Design
Designers can use HTML (HyperText Markup Language), CSS (Cascading Style Sheets), JavaScript, Python, or Django to create websites.
HTML allows web designers to build a website’s overall structure. It’s used to add different elements to webpage copy, create links to web pages, design better web forms, and embed videos, audio, and more into website copy.
Meanwhile, CSS adds style to web pages. Designers use this programming language to change fonts, adjust color schemes, modify backgrounds, and more. JavaScript combines both HTML and CSS for more interactive web pages, creating clickable and easily accessible design elements.
Finally, the straightforward, versatile, and extremely powerful Python is built for web applications, games, statistical calculations, and other applicable functions. Django, a tool used to create sophisticated and scalable websites, runs on Python.
Meet Pat: Web Designer by Day, Gamer by Night
Now that we’ve talked about a web designer’s key responsibilities, let’s jump into Pat’s life on the job.
Pat is a 29-year-old web designer with nine years of experience. She graduated with a degree in Multimedia Arts and entered the field of web and graphic design soon after getting her diploma.
“I was able to learn the basics of web design in school, and although I focused more on graphic design, illustration, and print during my time there, I guess these helped me when it came to doing web design. The first job I applied to after graduating was as a web and graphic designer, and I’ve been at it ever since.”
Pat’s Work at a Glance
Although Pat is pretty young, she’s already earned her stripes and shown that she’s a force to be reckoned with. She’s behind DevWerkz’s website, where she showcased her prowess in illustration.
“I loved how I was able to incorporate illustrative elements into our website. It shows how we’re fun but mean serious business.”
Pat was also part of the team that revamped websites for Growth Rocket, a digital marketing agency, and City Girl Gone Mom, a lifestyle blog for New York influencer Danielle Schaffer.
Before joining DevWerkz, she designed websites for the high-end property developer, Rockwell Land Corporation.
When she’s not making world-class websites, you’ll probably find Pat immersed in her video games or comic books.
A Typical Day as a Web Designer
Before opening her computer, Pat spends some time alone to freshen up, bask in the sun, and complete a light workout.
“I wake up at around 9:30 to 10 am. I make sure to drink water, wash my face, get some sun for 10 minutes (although I forget sometimes), and do some stretches before I start working.”
Albeit short, those few minutes under the sun are essential. Pat considers this morning routine as a way to calm her mind before putting her game face on.
Behind the Website: A Closer Look at Pat’s Work Routine
At DevWerkz, web designers are given all their tasks at the beginning of the week. Pat adds these to her personal tracker and prepares the resources needed for her projects when she clocks in.
Every day is different for a web designer. Handling multiple projects at once is not unheard of, especially when business is booming. For Pat, being organized ensures the integrity of her work and keeps her from feeling overwhelmed.
“I make sure to list all my tasks down, review each of them, and take note of their deadlines. From there, I figure out which one to prioritize. I tend to finish smaller and easier tasks first so I can concentrate on the harder ones later on. I also ask the PM (project manager) what to prioritize if it gets too overwhelming.”
According to Pat, she doesn’t usually face clients since she gets all the information she needs from the team’s PM. Team meetings are infrequent and brief, primarily to share updates on their respective deliverables.
The key tasks are to collect data and design elements, and ensure you fully understand the client’s vision.
Pat’s Top Tools for an Efficient & Productive Design Process
As for tools of the trade, Pat uses Figma, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Notion, and Trello.
We’ve crowned Figma as one of the best wireframing tools for UX designers. It gives web designers multiple tools to create and tweak visual elements, including prototyping, design systems, and an online sketchbook called Figma Draw. Bonus: You can work on projects with other users in real time and produce code for finished designs on Figma.
Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator are under the brand’s Creative Cloud suite. One lets you edit images and create eye-catching graphics for websites, while the other is considered an industry-standard vector design tool. Additionally, both of these programs have AI built into them for faster work.
Last but not least, Notion and Trello make project management more effortless. With Notion, you can build a knowledge base for projects and track progress within customizable workspaces. Trello is a digital Kanban board that shows all of your current tasks. Important information about each task is specified on individual cards so that you can perform your deliverables immediately and effortlessly.
Break Times & Winding Down
Preventing burnout is also a crucial part of any web designer’s workflow. Pat takes breaks in between tasks to keep herself from overthinking.
“I go out to pet my dogs for a bit to reset my brain. Sometimes, I reward myself for finishing a specific goal, like reading one chapter of a comic book after a tough task.”
At the end of her shift, she makes sure to outline tasks for the following day.
“I mirror tasks in Notion to my personal tracker (Trello). I make sure to include everything (i.e., briefs, pegs, files). I even include the filepaths to that specific task folder: the filepath on the computer, links to Figma, and Dropbox folders. This makes it easier to reference them when needed.”
A Short Rundown of Pat’s Daily Routine
Pat’s working day goes like this:
- 9:30 AM – wake up, drink water, wash my face, get some sun, and do some stretches
- 10 AM – check Notion for new and updated tasks; mirror changes to personal tracker
- 10:30 AM – research on client requests (i.e, reading briefs, searching for design inspiration, and preparing elements needed for the designs)
- 11 AM – start design and layout
- 1 PM – lunch break
- 2 PM – continue working
- 3 PM – do revisions for a different task
- 4 PM – start on a new task
- 6:30 PM – reviewing functions for the next day; asking project manager questions or file requests
When the Computer is Off…
After a long day behind the desk, Pat unwinds and recharges in different ways.
She’s a furmom to three dogs, a food lover, a big bookworm, and a serious gamer. Comic books make her especially happy, along with conquering Splatoon and the Dishonored series on her computer.
Pat also shares her long love for illustration, stating, “I used to be very passionate about illustration back when I was in college (I used to want to be a VisDev artist!). I still am, but not to the point where I would want to do it as my main job or source of income.”
Tips & Tricks From a Seasoned Web Designer
Looking back at her journey, Pat has these things to say about the field and to aspiring web designers:
The Learning Never Stops
“You have to keep learning constantly. It’s the same thing in graphic design, I just never truly realized it at the time.”
Focus On Your Strengths
“You don’t have to stress or burn yourself out trying to specialize in everything. Just do your best in your niche.”
Communication Skills Are Important
“Hone your communication skills so that you can successfully express your ideas, questions, and other sentiments to your clients.” After all, these skills are key to helping clients attract and convert their target audiences with well-designed websites.
Embrace Constructive Criticism
“Don’t take any negative feedback to heart and just learn from your mistakes to be better.”
Bonus: More Words to Live By
“You can get anywhere if you simply go one step at a time.” – Dave Ramsey
Work with Pat & the Rest of the DevWerkz Team
eCommerce stores, brand websites, blogs, social media platforms, video streaming sites—they’re all built by web designers. These talented individuals, like Pat, use art and technology to make websites stand out and deliver outstanding results for new and established brands. It’s why they’re an indispensable part of a brand’s journey in today’s digital world.
Do you want to collaborate with web developers and designers for your next project? We’ve got you covered. Contact DevWerkz today and watch your vision turn into a high-converting website that’s stunning yet functional. And, for more insights and updates on website design and development, visit our blog.
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