Web Designer
A Web designer is someone who works with the visual elements of a Web page. This is the person that makes the page look "pretty." Web designers integrate components such as images, Flash files, or multimedia into the page to enhance the user's visual experience, or to supplement existing content.
If you want to become a Web designer, you need to be familiar with some client-side scripting, possibly some server-side scripting, XHTML, Flash development and image manipulation. One very important, and integral, facet to being a successful Web designer is to understand Cascading Style Sheets (CSS). Another, lesser facet, is knowledge of semantic coding (using HTML tags to delineate content, rather than using them for presentational styling — <p> for paragraph, <h1> for a heading 1, etc.)
In contrast to the Web developer, a Web designer often has to work with teams of people, which requires additional skills in communications. He or she will work with one or more programmers and/or the Web content author(s) to create a design that both allows the Web applications to work unhindered and that complements, rather than overpowers, the actual textual content of the Web page. Web designers often are required to have some marketing knowledge, necessary to create designs that appeal to a certain clientele. Lastly, it's important that Web designers have knowledge of usability, accessibility, W3C standards of both HTML and CSS, and a thorough understanding of cross-browser compatibility.
To be a successful Web designer, you need an artistic eye and creative bent. If you enjoy art, social studies or communications, you're probably more inclined to be a Web designer.
Source: webreference.com
