Even web design is a large field, the best Web Designers tend to share a few things in common beyond their skill sets. Here are the top characteristics of an effective Designer:
1. They’re passionate about their portfolios
You might notice that any good Web Designer is going to pour a lot of time, energy and effort into creating the perfect portfolio website.
To succeed as a Web Designer, one needs to have a polished, professional and eye-catching portfolio to showcase the past projects you’re most proud of and show any would-be client or employer that you can spin the same magic for them.
These web design work samples should be varied and show your versatility as a Web Designer. And trim the fat — a quality over quantity approach is definitely preferred.
Web Designers, especially when they’re starting out in their career and are therefore more likely to survive on freelance gigs, must have a decent head on their shoulders when it comes to business.
When negotiating with a company over pricing, Web Designers need to know what the competition pricing is and market their services in a competitive way relative to their experience level and location. A good Web Designer also knows how to come up with a realistic budget, pricing and schedule for the services they’re proposing, another element that requires a bit of a head for numbers.
Freelance Web Designers will also have to deal with contracts, something the best designers don’t take lightly. Don’t just glance at the pricing and sign off on anything without being clear on the terms.
3. They’re organized and stick to schedule
The best Web Designers have lost count of how many websites they’ve designed over the course of a career. Over time, they developed clear processes that have been refined again and again. As a result, they can easily identify — and avoid — any pitfalls or mistakes ahead of time.
That’s important because time is a crucial aspect of any website project. A good Web Designer needs to supply clients with a document of their website development process to show how they’re going to go about building a website.
Effective Web Designers will also inform stakeholders in advance any time they encounter a problem that could put deadlines in jeopardy. Although one should never miss a deadline, if it doesn’t happen, good Web Designers would be detailed in explaining why they failed to meet their schedule.
Even as we reference the importance of meeting deadlines, it’s also worth acknowledging that sometimes things come up that no one could have predicted. Whether it’s clients changing their minds about a design feature or the web development team hitting a snag with the back-end of the proposed website, a Web Designer needs to roll with the punches and alter the scope or contents of a web design project on the fly.
Web Designers should be ready, willing and eager to adapt and confront problems should they crop up.
It’s also best for Web Designers to be flexible in the types of tasks they perform. Web design work on a website could eventually span duties Web Designers don’t typically perform — say, content creation or SEO — but it’s to everyone’s benefit if one meets those challenges with enthusiasm.
5. They have strong communication skills
Expert Web Designers will talk to clients in a down-to-earth, jargon-free way to explain the web technologies and design ideas they’re considering.
If Web Designers can’t communicate intricate concepts and terms to clients — whether in person verbally or in writing over email — they won’t be trusted to communicate a company message via their design.
Working in web design means interacting with many different professions, most of whom have totally different roles. Handling all of those relationships smoothly is the something all great Web Designers need to learn to do.
6. They are open to ideas
Inevitably, clients or stakeholders are going to have ideas for how they think their company website should look. Sometimes those ideas will be great, and sometimes they won’t be — but it’s the job of Web Designers to listen and take those ideas into consideration as they continue on with the website.
You never know where the next great design idea could come from. Good Web Designers will also scour the web for inspiration and to explore the latest design trends.
7. They are familiar with the latest design tools
New tools are constantly being created, improved or introduced to help make web design easier.
Good Web Designers are committed to constantly exploring the use of these tools to make themselves more efficient and effective. This could mean up-skilling with online courses, workshops or bootcamp courses, or just staying on top of webinars, YouTube tutorials and design blogs that could cover the latest innovations.
These tools often empower Web Designers to focus on big-picture elements of their websites rather than being stuck in the weeds worrying about smaller tasks.
8. They have a sense for design and an understanding of their users
It probably goes without saying that you can’t be a good Web Designer unless you understand design and how to make things visually appealing, not to mention important web design theory principles like color theory, structure and user experience.
UX design, whether it’s in Web Designers’ official titles or not, is increasingly an important part of any design job. Web Designers can get inside the shoes of their users and understand what they want and how they will likely move through as they experience the website.
That means that Web Designers must leverage whatever user research and data analysis you have access to so you can make informed decisions about the design and structure of the site.