It really varies, if you’re just looking for a visual design position then your portfolio should have strong visuals and a diversity of work. Don’t just feature your ‘prettiest’ shiny works, but also pull some that show your abilities in the user experience realm. If a site doesn’t work for the user, it’s still a bad site no matter how nice looking it is. And be ready to talk about the site design, and your role in it.

If you’re seeking a position where code skills are part of the mix, be ready for code sample requests. As the head tech nerd here – good code is as, or more important to me than a pretty picture. Like I said above, if they site does work, it’s a bad site. I’ve seen a lot of sites that have a pretty looking design – but they fall flat due to poor code which loads slowly, is broken or has any number of other problems.

In regards to how long it take to become a Web designer there are certainly a lot of things to take into account. For me, it only took a couple years because I already had a strong design background (4 years of school and 10+ years as a professional) and I was already very familiar with the programs. In regards to the baseline knowledge for a student, knowledge of Flash is certainly a plus, but HTML and CSS are a must. Thanks for the comment and if you have any additional questions/comments feel free to drop us a line.

-Mike

If you’re just looking to design (only) then you’d need proficiency in Creative Suite or similar tools, a grasp of design and color theory and how they actually apply to a web site. The limits and abilities that the web offers are much different than something in the print medium, and understanding that is just as important as they ability to make pretty.

I’d say that being educated in HTML and CSS is a must. I’m not saying be a code ninja – but understanding those things tells you a lot about those limits and abilities I mentioned before.

For how long.. It’s hard to say. I’ve been working in the field in one shape or form for a long time, so my perspective is a bit off. But a lot of it depends on how much effort you put in. If you want to become technically proficient in things like HTML and CSS there will be a good bit of study time to learn the basics and then it’s a never ending continuing education. Things are always changing, so you have to be willing to keep up.

As far as it being like a direct mail… Not sure if that’s the best analogy, but I get what you mean. Yes, good (for google) copy isn’t always pretty copy, fun or cool. But web sites are all about planning. And if you going into it knowing that your copy has to say certain things and work in concert with certain HTML tags, it’s quite possible to do something nice looking, and that works for google.

(a little shameless self promotion here) We recently lauched
http://www.ecmag.com/mediakit/
and
http://marinesmagazine.dodlive.mil/
- Both were designed from the outset with SEO in mind, as well as Align here. I think they all look pretty good, and are doing well in the search wars too.

I hope this answers you question/comments a bit. If you want some more thoughts, pop another comment or drop me a line.
~Ian

So how long do you think it takes to “become a web designer”? And what is the baseline knowledge for a student to get hired?