There are many people who become web designers and do decent enough work to get by. However, there are certain traits that make up a GREAT web designer, and these traits set them apart from designers who just do mediocre work.

Read on to learn about the traits that separate the designers who do a job from the ones who set a design precedent.

What Should a Web Designer Know?

best of both worldsMany web designers have a knowledge not only of the creative side of web design, but also the technical, program side. This knowledge separates the good from the great because designers with knowledge in programming better understanding how a page can be set up and the features that will make it navigate well.

Designers are and should be experts with multiple types of design programs like Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, and good with multiple languages like JavaScript and CSS. Finally, a web designer must be able to work with different media types to add sound, sliders or video to web pages.

An extra skill set that great designers have is content writing, making them able to design the whole page from scratch, and not just pieces of it.

5 Traits of a Great Web Designer

Although great web designers have more than five qualities or traits that make them great, below are five of the most common that all seem to hold:

    1. Communication Skills

All great web designers are able to communicate well with their team and articulate their thoughts and ideas or changes in the scope of a particular project or task. Websites are huge projects, and a designer needs to be able to express their vision so that others can implement it.

    1. Listening Skills

One of the most important traits of a great web designer that sets themselves apart from the rest is the ability to listen to the needs of the project and business at all times. Design is more than just making a page look pretty – it needs to meet the goals of the business or project.

    1. Proactive Behavior

It is important that a web designer is able to give constructive feedback and ideas when they are given a task. Part of being a great designer is being able to convince those who are not designers that the design works.

    1. Well-Versed

A great web designer is someone that has a vast range of knowledge. They are not only able to come up with and implement a great design but also able to build a web page (using different design platforms and coding languages) and use the latest technologies to do so.

    1. Able to Adapt and Integrate

Because it is not always possible to start from scratch or redesign an entire foundation already created, a great designer must be able to integrate their design into the already created pieces while keeping their vision intact.

Final Thoughts

A great web designer doesn’t just do their work and go home at the end of the day. They are a person who sees design in everything they do and is able to innovate the design process.

Finding someone that can embrace design no matter the challenge is the person you want to find and most likely will be a GREAT web designer, separating themselves apart from the rest of the pack.

“Creativity is contagious. Pass it on.” – Albert Einstein