Effective Web designers build trust and confidence in your company and products and helps in brand development.

The Online Web Design Directory provides best solutions for web site design and development companies located in various states of America, like California, Florida, Washington DC, New Jersey, etc… to get their company listed in various categories and get business leads without any burden to their marketing expenses. To promote a business online by finding a good, targeted business directory is a challenge. Most businesses with web sites seek online business directories to get some good targeted traffic back to their web site.

The companies also have the option to list their companies in particular categories like web design, graphic design, website programming, online marketing, web hosting, domain names, flash, video production, content writing, etc… as per the services they offer to their prospective client.

A. Web Design Directory - Online Marketing Advantages
Web Design Directory – is Coming up new idea for Web Design Directory services as well as it can helps to Find Web Designers, Graphic Designers, Web Design Companies etc.

In USA Regions
Our Web Design Directory Is Helpful For added Online Marketing Advantages
As well as This Online Marketing Advantages is divided into Different Categories:

• Search Engine Optimization
• Email Marketing
• Online Advertising
• Search Engine Copywriting

Web Design Directory Provides possibilities to advertise your firm in specific States Directory, City Directory, particular Category Directory, Sub Category Directory and Individual City/Service Page Directory. Major City Directory includes, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Austin, Miami, San Diego, Boston, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, New York, Denver, Phoenix and many more.

Our Online Web Design directory Services particular categories like web design, graphic design, website programming, online marketing, web hosting, domain names, flash, video production, content writing, etc… as per the services they offer to their prospective client.

B. Coming Up New Idea for the Online Web Design Directory Services
Web Design Directory – is Coming up new idea for Web Design Directory services as well as it can helps to Find Web Designers, Graphic Designers, Web Design Companies etc.. You can list your firm in specific States Directory, City Directory, particular Category Directory, Sub Category Directory and Individual City/Service Page Directory. Major City Directory includes, Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Austin, Miami, San Diego, Boston, San Jose, San Francisco, Sacramento, New York, Denver, Phoenix and many more.

The Online Web Design directory Services particular categories like web design, graphic design, website programming, online marketing, web hosting, domain names, flash, video production, content writing, etc… as per the services they offer to their prospective client.

Difference between Graphic Design, Web Design and Advertising Design.
Based on the practices of these years and these last two months, I've noticed that when we offer our services as Web designer tend to confuse the customer by our very Confucianism in terms of the concepts of web design.

We started with Web Design:
Probably not need much eplicacion in which we do not have many doubts, however we tend to confuse Web Design India with Web Development, as well?, Simple, we offer Web design when in reality we are referring to sites that use only static HTML, something CSS and a lot of Photoshop. If the server is using Linux PHP Mysql; If the server is Windows will use ASP SQL.

Graphic Design:
The graphic design includes a wide range of services, ranging from the design of business cards, brochures, flyers, folders executive, and so on.

Marketing Material
For the Marketing Material must meet the standards of the client, respect the tipografia, colors, sizes, relationships, separations and other items set forth in its Corporate Identity.
For the preparation of a Corporate Identity intervene marketers (Graduates in Marketing) and study hard but the results are admirable, then that the marketers completed its work and entegó document to the customer, the latter will pass the document to your Publicist who is responsible for what is established in that document is fulfilled.

Therefore we can say that generally perform work of Graphic Design merely, but if it concerns the standards set in his client's Corporate Identity and moved on to talk about Advertising Design Advertising and Graphic Design, as you want to call. Besides that is heard more attractive offer "Graphic Design Advertising."

A. Web Design a Professional to Sell on Line
If you want to visit their web sit at home and attracted by the Web design of your page, in this article will find a series of tips on how to achieve that goal.
Is it difficult to design your site? Will be asking what are the tips to make a good web design chennai, right? The elegance in the design done in a professional manner, the cleaning of your site, with pleasant background colors, and clarity to read the contents, with a letter that contrasts with the design to make it clear, are some of the things that must be taken into account when designing your site.

On the contrary, their presence on line, all this can not show the customer who visits your site, and how to show the elegance of his company, is to have a modern web, and with a professional Web Development.

Imagine for a moment that your business is like one of those "Mega-business online, and make different designs to assess which of them could attract more visitors, making him enjoy your stay in your site. If instead the solution to your business does not see it feasible with these tips, do not worry, there are professionals who perform these kinds of designs and guide them in their "start" as a business online, offering advice on marketing and sales strategy for ANYONE who is deprived of power trading for the network. Invert (if it is an investment that will bear fruit) your money in elegance and professionalism of your web image.

Do not wait for tomorrow, sure that at this moment you are visiting with his former image, not with the image of Web 2.0 stylish and attractive.

B. SEO Friendly Web Design: Need for Boosting Your Business
You must have a website that looks superb and attracts visitors and customers. The best answer for this can be that an effective website design is user-friendly and SEO friendly.

Features of SEO friendly web design
Content Management: Content should be unique, attractive and very much relevant.
User-Friendly: Website must have user-friendly features that makes browsing and navigation easy along with less time consuming.
Presentation: In the times of Web 2.0, presentations and looks have been the key for internet marketing.
Technical Aspects: HTML coding, graphic designs, flash, multimedia, alignments and other things combine together to create a unique web design.
Importance of SEO Friendly Web designs: Better Visibility at the Search Engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN etc.

Popularity and help in building a unique brand image, Direct interaction with visitors and potential customers, Good and Entertaining presentation attracts visitors’ attention, According to the modern Internet trends, SEO friendly web design is must to enhance one’s online business.

When designing a Web page, certain information should always be included:
• Basic Company Information: This can include vision or mission statements, a history of the business, a summary of business philosophy, etc.
• Product Line Information: Commercial Web pages should include photos and text descriptions outlining the benefits of the products. Consultants often recommend that businesses establish separate pages or sections for each major product line—connected, of course, to the main company Web site.
• Technical support: Frequently asked questions (FAQ), parts information, product diagrams, and technical specifications are just some of the ways a company can provide support from its Web site.
• Service section: Free information that is of interest to potential customers, designed to keep them coming back to the site.
• "What's New": This section is essentially intended to inform visitors of new initiatives, products, etc., that are covered on the Web site.

The site needs to be updated on a regular basis to ensure continued content integrity.

A. How Can We Know the Way of Website Designing With Web Page Templates
There are thousands of ready-to-go web page templates for creating a good website. With the advent of newer web technologies, there are different types of templates today. Dynamic HTML (DHTML) templates, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) templates, JavaScript templates, Flash web site templates, Macromedia Dream weaver templates are some of the most familiar ones to mention.

There are hundreds of web sites that offer free templates which are fully functional. But most of the professional web site templates usually come with a price. Web page design or web site design is a very important step in creating a successful and attractive website. Website designing should be such that visitors can effectively interact with the features provided in the different web pages of the website. With the help of these applications or software, scripts are written and incorporated in the web page templates.

Today’s websites have stunning web pages with extremely appealing interfaces. The web pages include text, graphics, animation, sound, movies, forms, polls, hit counters and many other features. Due to very attractive look, design and diversity of Flash files (with extensions .swift, .flay etc), Macromedia Dream weaver – a web developing software – soon became extremely popular. Dream weaver is basically used for web related publications.

Today in the internet, Flash website templates are already available in abundance. Besides Macromedia’s software suit, Flash files and Flash web site templates are prepared by many third party software and applications. Dream weaver templates are truly professional templates. Many of the internet’s top website designs are based on Dream weaver templates. On the other hand professional web page templates made of Dream weaver’s diverse features are generally very charming and they make your website look great like www.oversightsystem.com.

These professional Dream weaver web page templates may be attached with a small price tag. In the cyber world, websites and web pages are the primary media by which we interact with internet.

B. Why You Should CSS Instead of Tables When Designing Your Web Page
When designing your web site you should use CSS, along with the HTML tag.

1. Tabular Data.
Tables are for Tabular Data. They simply are not for designing a page. Here is a good page at about.com that explains Tabular Data.

2. Nested Tables
Nested tables is a common way to make layouts with tables. With nested tables, one, or more, tables are placed inside each other. There is a problem when designing a page this way, it takes the browser longer to render your page.

3. Changing fonts, colors, and layouts.
Lets say you had a site with 100 pages, with tables, and you wanted to change the header of every page to blue instead of red. With CSS you could go into the CSS file, included on every one of those 100 pages, and change the font-color to blue.

4. Invalid XHTML
When using tables for your web page layout, you are writing invalid XHTML.

5. Smaller HTML files
No one wants a huge HTML file, full of messy code, right?

Learning to find freelance web design job opportunities can be as simple as browsing online job boards, using bidding sites, and/or seeking clients locally. Make the most of every contact, and use every available option for finding freelance web design job opportunities.

Seek Local Clients
Although there are a wealth of jobs to be found online, many freelance web designers prefer to find local clients.

Browse Online Job Boards
There are many different types of job boards online, ranging from exclusive freelance job sites to corporate job boards. Many online job boards dedicated exclusively to freelance web design jobs. Others cater to a broader design market to include not only freelance website design jobs but also freelance graphic design work, illustration jobs, creative design work, programming and development jobs. All types of job boards can offer freelance web design job opportunities, but by visiting job boards focused only on freelance work, finding work as a freelance web designer is usually easier.

Use Bidding Sites
In addition to more traditional job boards, where an employer posts an ad for applicants to respond to directly, many freelance web site designers have luck finding jobs at freelance bidding sites. An employer posts a freelance web design job, and freelance website designers bid on the job by quoting a price for the project. For freelance web design work, visit the Go Freelance job board. Choose from many fresh freelance web design jobs, freelance graphic design jobs, freelance illustration jobs and more.

A. A Great Freelance Web Design can win Multiple Orders
Obviously, he or she has the expertise to do freelance designing on the web. And not all companies readily offer the job of web designing to freelance designers. Instead of going to a web designing company, it is more cost effective to hire freelance designers for the job as they are readily available like freelance editors for various online publications. Freelance web design becomes imperative for companies to not only draw more traffic to their sites, but also to sell their products.

Much of the product sales online happen due to the grand freelance designing by freelancers who have made sales figures rise. If the website has been made attractive by a freelance web designer, he gets more jobs online through referrals and also when the company plans for another website or for developing the existing one.

But the client who hires a freelance designer or a freelance web designer knows what he wants and expects the same to be delivered. Clients can also save thousands of dollars if they work with a single freelance web designer for all their ongoing projects. Working with a freelance designer for many projects together also sort of gets him or her on board the company and a trust develops. The freelance web designer knows beforehand what the requirement would be and he or she would work to perfect it much more.

A lot of responsibility goes with accepting a freelance web designing job. If the freelance designer is not convinced or has issues about the job, he or she should get it cleared with the client before proceeding. Freelance designers should sense the client’s requirement and go about accordingly to set up a project which would be in total conformity.
Freelance designing involves a lot of time and patience, but also requires enough speed to get the work done on time to meet the deadline.

B. A Few Things Freelance Web Designers Should Know
changes with lightening speed. Creating your website in Dreamweaver is a good idea but you want to know how to do all of the things in Dreamweaver without the program. As a freelance web designer you should be well versed in Dreamweaver and Photoshop and all of the other programs that can be used to make websites beautiful. You want to be able to offer clients a number of different options when it comes to your creative skills.

Finding work as a freelance web designer can be tough. However there are a few places that you should get your website posted and advertise for work. If you are looking for any type of freelance work there are a number of sites, such as Sologig.com that you can register with. Web designers typically get work online but you might be surprised at how much work you can get form word of mouth. Some people have a product that they would like to sell online but have no idea how to put a website together. You will be surprised at how many people are interested in your services.

There are plenty of people online that will try to get you to work for much less than what your skills are worth. Have a rate chart and stick to it. O not let people talk you down on your rates. Offer a money back guarantee if you do not deliver the work when you are supposed to with all of the attributes that are supposed to be there.

Why offshore web design and development
Offshore web site design and development help to keep prices at least 3-5 times less, for example, average hourly rate of web development services in USA is $35-75; in UK – $25-50, in Ukraine – $5-20.

How it works?
So if the web design project is estimated on 50 man-hours of work, you charge the customer $1500, from which $500 you pay to your offshore partner company, and $1000 is your profit.
The partner company works on the project and delivers it to you along with copyright for the work. If you already have your own web design company it is easier for you because you already know situation in the market, gain certain reputation, have clients list, etc.

But don't be afraid if you are new to web design business. The second step is to find trustful and reliable partner – offshore web design company – that will work as "development center" for your business. This company must have good experience in web design and development area, good reputation, top level of customer care and communication. For example, you can try searching in search engines for appropriate key phrases "offshore web design", "offshore web site design", "offshore web development" and analyze sites of your potential partners.
Also here are several sites where you can find lists of offshore web design companies sorted by country.
http://web-designers.bluegeckonetwork.com/
http://www.theoutsourceguide.com/
http://www.1234-find-web-designers.org/

How to choose the right offshore web design partner company?
There are 2 main factors that determine your choice – cost and quality of web design work.

Cost
Basing on the average web design prices in your local market and your competitive abilities you set prices that you will charge to your customers. There are several methods of web design price calculation, most used are flat price for fixed web site packages, and price based on man-hour rate. Most web design companies operate with both and choose one depending on each project type and requirements.

Quality
Consider the company reputation, portfolio of previous works, testimonials of previous customers, level of communication.

A. Offshore Web Design, Web Development, Internet Marketing and Software Development Services
Direct to India is comprised of Management, Website Designers
Direct to India is specializing in cutting edge internet solutions, software development, database development and development of Web Applications using a variety of technologies.

Direct to India provide versatile, high quality and cost effective, customized web solutions including website design, custom website development, graphics design, flash website design, ecommerce website design, website maintenance, search engine optimization, logo design, content management system, real estate websites, open source customization and many more.

Direct To India provides all web based services like
offshore web development and design, offshore internet marketing, offshore web design outsourcing, offshore outsourcing, offshore seo, offshore Graphics Design, offshore e-commerce solution, offshore online marketing and SEM.

Direct to India provide highly integrated series of proficient services that span over divergent areas such as Web Development, Maintenance and Support, Web Designing, Enterprise Solutions, Remote Infrastructure Management, Integration, Internet Marketing, Branding & Identity

All these we provide with our flexible business models, the business models we follow Fixed Price Model, Full Time Equivalent, Time & Material

• On Time on Budget Deliveries
• 100% Client Satisfaction
• Highly experienced and professional teams with proven technical, functional and domain expertise
• Dedicated development team
• Process centric approach to project development
• Accessibility to time tested and proven code base, frameworks and libraries for best optimization of time, technology and resources
• Proven delivery models with industry standard project management systems
• Shortened development cycles
• Faster time to market
• Significant cost advantage
• Flexible Business Models
• India advantages
• Result oriented Hardware and software infrastructure
• IP Protection & Security
• Seamless communication...
• Multiple High Bandwidth Internet connection
• Web Development, Maintenance and Support
• Web Designing
• Enterprise Solutions
• Remote Infrastructure Management
• Integration
• Internet Marketing
• Branding & Identity

Internet technology is always evolving.

B. There is a Great Range in the Price of a Web Site
Integrated Resolution Design's Web Site Prices Fit Every Budget!
Prices For Different Types of Web Sites The following prices are based on sites that IRD has built.

ONLINE STORES, SHOPPING CARTS
3 item, PayPal 'buy now button' with 4 page site, custom visual design ($450)
200+ items, lightly customized 3rd party cart, custom visual design, blog ($1275)
6000+ items, extensively customized 3rd party cart, training, custom visual design ($5350)
3rd party directory script, very slight tweaking, 3rd party visual design ($675)
Custom-built events directory with basic searching, basic admin options, no visual design ($2100)
Custom-built membership directory with basic searching, basic admin options, no visual design ($2100)
Custom-built product directory with basic searching, advanced filtering, advanced admin options, member profiles, custom visual design ($4500)

CONTENT MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS
16 simple pages, stock 3rd party CMS script, custom visual design ($731)
14 complex pages, articles sub-pages, customized 3rd party CMS script with searching, 3rd party directory script, 3rd party classifieds script, 3rd party banner management script, 3rd party visual design ($3150)

EVENTS REGISTRATION
Added to existing site: simple custom-built system with event selection, online payment, minimal admin options ($750)
15 pages, custom-built system, custom visual design, events registration, payment, workshop selection, complex admin area, support ($3094)

BASIC WEB BROCHURES
7 pages, custom visual design, one simple form ($469)
16 pages, custom visual design, simple home page Flash animation ($731)
30 pages, custom visual design for home page, another for internal pages, two complex forms ($1313)
52 pages, custom visual design which is slightly different for every page ($1800)
Add blog to existing brochure site ($225)
Add blog to existing ecommerce site ($300)
Create .mobi version of existing 5 page site ($131)
Add complex form to existing site ($244)

If one more person asks you, “what’s your website address?” you can politely tell them, www.i_dont_have_one.com. As the owner of a website design company in Tampa Bay, I can give you 6 Reasons Why You Should Have a Website:

1. Marketing
A website is a great way to compliment your existing marketing strategy and when compared to radio commercials, tv ads, billboards and even the yellow pages, nothing is as economical and versatile as your website. More and more consumers use the internet to get information about products and services so include testimonials from other satisfied customers; provide background information about personnel, give some history about your company or post some photos. People like doing business with people they know and trust, so make your website informative and educational and you maybe surprised at the results.

2. Resource
Your website gives customers and potential customers all the information about your business they need. Customers will have an immediate resource with important information about you business.

3. Interaction with Customers
Your best customers are repeat and referred customers and there is no better way to interact with new and potential customers than keeping in touch with them online. Through your website you can post a newsletter, take a polls or surveys and promote special deals. A well designed website lends legitimacy to your business and can lead to increased sales.

4. Marketing research
The web is interactive and can provide valuable information about what your customers want and need. This marketing research will help you efficiently grow your business. Every big business has a website and every small business should too! A well designed website presents a more professional image than a larger competitor whose web presence appears weak or amateurish.

5. It is Lucrative
If you develop an effective online marketing strategy, your website will bring in new business and new customers that you may not have acquired through other traditional advertising strategies.

6. Customers Expect It
Isn’t this where we started? In today's business world, the internet is the way we do business and without a web presence, your business risks never being found by prospective customers. Questions?

A. The Guidelines of Website Design All Website Design Companies Should Know
The guidelines of website design all website design companies should know
If you plan on hiring any of the popular website design companies in the market today, make sure they know these elements of design. These are the basic rules while designing any site and all website design companies should know about these!

Good content:
While this is an offshoot of design, many website design companies do not emphasize on it enough. There are certain website design companies that do both design as well as content writing.

Browser compatibility:
Many website design companies fail to take this aspect into account when designing sites. Today, sites with static text no longer appeal to people. This is why website design companies need to use more graphics and high tech photographs on the sites. Also, sites should never have image heavy pages that take over 10 seconds for loading. Users get easily impatient and will quickly surf to some other site before the page loads!

Themes and colors:
Every company has its own brand identity, which needs to be preserved while designing a site. Always look for website design companies that preserve your brand image in the design.

Navigability:
Nothing turns off customers more than bad site navigation. Hence, while designing a site, website design companies need to ensure proper navigational elements.

B. The Benefits of Outsourcing Your Design Services to a Website Design Company
Today, outsourcing website design has taken the internet world by storm. Everyone from small to large-scale organizations is outsourcing their web design requirements to a website design company.

Cost factor:
One of the biggest factors to make organizations outsource design to a website design company is the cost effectiveness. Today, one can avail high quality services from a website design company. Many of the designers in a website design company have high-level qualifications and many years of experience in designing. Many a website design company today can boast of high-end infrastructure and facilities to conduct its design projects. These firms have access to the latest software and technologies needed to produce stunning website design. You can easily find a good quality website design company, which has excellent facilities, technology, robust infrastructure etc., which can help sustain innovative website design activities.

Risk sharing:
The same concept applies when you outsource design services to a website design company. That means all the design and website elements would suffer as a result.

Scalability:
Many a website design company incorporates these tactics to ensure a more robust design. Thus outsourcing design to a website design company has several advantages. You can find the proper website design company after assessing rates and service portfolios.

With the current state of the economy, most businesses know they have to advertise to stay ahead. Many business owners are now turning to the internet for an affordable marketing solution. But unless you know the tips and tricks of the industry, you could still spend more than you need to on web design services. Consider these affordable web design solutions when you need to build a larger customer base.

Your website doesn't have to be filled with flash animation and video to bring in new customers. Affordable web design companies can provide you with a beautiful site even without these costly products.

Hire an affordable web design company that has been in business a while. Deciding what you want before hand is a great affordable web design tip. Don't waste money paying for your website to be constantly changed. Buy an affordable web design package. Many website design companies offer packages to help save money. These packages will contain a set number of pages, revisions, and design components. If all else fails, you could always design your own website for an affordable web design solution.

There are a lot of companies that allow you to use predesigned templates for building your website. You simply type in your information and publish it live to the web. As you can see, there are many affordable web design solutions to choose from. When you are just making your presence known on the web, you may want to choose an affordable web design solution rather than going all out. Web design prices can differ by hundreds and even thousands of pounds.

A. Good Web Design Solutions Can Make You Website Stand Out From the Crowd
Apart from the look, your web design has to be equally striking. Your web design should provide good content and load quickly. However, you should ensure that your web design looks different from your competition. It is sometime tempting to look at your competitors’ websites and assume that yours should have the same web design and content. It’s your job to make sure that your web design answers this question clearly. Making a good web design is a skill that requires both creative flair and technical knowledge. It is as well time consuming.

Wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to add web pages to your website without worrying about the web design? CMS is used in web design to allow the website owner to add content to his website without the need to know HTML.

Moreover, through good web design solutions, the website owner can log on to a password protected web page to make the changes he wants. As such, the web design industry can provide some cheap CMS packages such as Adobe Contribute which runs as an application on a computer. Simple CMS packages might only let you edit words and headings on existing web pages.

More complex CMS packages are readily used in web design to add pages or even upload images. In web design, setting up a CMS is more complicated than creating a web page. Unless you are an experienced web design professional, you may need to hire one to effectively set up a CMS for you. You could even assign various people different sections to update on your website.

B. In Order to Ensure the Best Quality in our Web Design Solutions
Ruiz Media is the best web designing company in UK that provides excellent web layout services. Right from responding to the request for information, for more detail visit www.master-web-graphics.com mind-mapping brainstorming sessions, conceptualization, draft design, beta-release and production-release of your work, your Project Manager maintains excellent paperwork, project notes and copious documentation to ensure that final product is exactly matching your specifications.

In order to ensure the best quality in our web design solutions, each of our projects goes through the following checks before reaching you as the final product:
* Project Initialization
* Requirement Analysis
* High Level Web Design (Wire Frame and Mock up Approval)
* Low Level Web Design (HTML and Scripting Solution Designs)
* W3C Validation
* Testing
* Package and Release

With our brain pool consisting of creative minds and technical experts, we have been serving our clients with following types of web designing projects:
* ECommerce Websites
* Communities
* Shopping Portals
* Flash Web Designing
* Joule Web Designing
* Dynamic Websites
* Drupe Technology
* OS Commerce Development

Designing Your Directory Structure The first step to implementing a website is to design the directory structure. By avoiding this concern and designing your website with your user’s goals and needs in mind you will create a more positive user experience. Original design also includes professional flash introduction of web site, logo designs, web page development, multimedia presentations, web based software programming for search engine friendly web site.

Choosing the right graphic design school can mean the difference between enjoying your time at school and dreading every day of it. Thankfully most graphic design schools are so well organised and planned these days that it is hard to pick a dud. Graphic design is receiving much more attention now than ever before and the increasing demand in graphic design related education has led to a new wave of educational facilities opening up solely dedicated to this burgeoning field of work.

So what are the main points you should look for when choosing a graphic design school?
1. Cost and fees
2. Facilities on site
3. Class sizes
4. Location
6. Online or offline
7. Qualification level
8. Work placement opportunities
9. Experience of teachers
10. Subjects covered

These 10 points should all be focused on when you are choosing a graphic design school to go to. Your chosen school may not meet your desired criteria for each point but as long as most of your desires are met you will get a lot out of going to a graphic design school.

Online vs. Offline Graphic Design Schools
There are an increasing number of online graphic design courses becoming available. You also miss out on the social aspects of college however many online schools conduct regular chats, teleconferences and provide student forums for interaction and help.

Once you have qualified from graphic design school you can start looking for work. Ideally you will want to be working part time whilst studying to gain practical experience. Whatever the case, your degree or certification from graphic design school will make your resume stand above those who are unqualified.

A. Graphic Design Schools - Everything You Need To Know
A successful future in the new media industry (and specifically, graphic design) depends on choosing the right school. In my case, they asked for a portfolio of work as part of the admission process. If, however, you have already completed a similar program, you may wish to take a new program merely to upgrade your skills (because the field of new media is always changing). If you can, it really, really, really helps if you take a freehand drawing course prior to learning how to draw using a computer.

1. Recognition
- Does the school participate in any graphical arts competitions?
- Have students accomplished anything of reknown in the industry?

2. Teachers
I have never encountered an instructor that wasn't immensely knowledgeable about the subject area.

3. Job Placement
100% make sure that you get into a program that incorporates on-the-job experience.

4. Curriculum And Tools
You must assess whether the curriculum is relevant to you field of study. You may want to compare the curricula of different schools to see which offers the best form of education. As it so happens in my case, the administration did something they have never done before: changed the curriculum halfway through the program. Don't just oogle at the computers, snoop around and see the programs directory and make note of what programs are installed, and if they are the latest versions.

5. Student to Teacher Ratio
Graphic design is kind of an industry that more or less demands personal contributions on every project.

6. Accreditation
Accreditation means the school has passed a certain standards of educational quality. If you can, ask for literally one minute of the head departments time and find out a listing of companies that students have been hired into.

7. Cost
A full education in graphic design can cost anywhere from 13,000 to 16,000 dollars for an intensive one-year program (120 credits). Let's face it, Harvard University will look a lot better on your resume than Texas Community College. Three great recognized schools in are BCIT located in Vancouver Canada (Vancouver is the equivalent of Hollywood for graphic designers, web designers, and all new media experts), the Art Institute (with locations worldwide), and the Vancouver Film School (VFS) that has graphic design programs that are very specialized.

8. Scholarships
Some schools offer scholarships based on academic performance. Some offer them based on art competitions they hold regularly. You should qualify for a national student loan either way, and repayment is extremely affordable.

B. The Advantages Of Getting A Graphic Design Degree
Graphic design could be a great career opportunity for you. If you are considering college or thinking about making a career change, you might consider getting a degree in graphic design.

Why get a degree?
For one thing, there's the whole college experience. You learn about professional resources, literature and research. Most importantly, you learn how to learn. These are skills that you will need when you start to work as a graphic designer.

Another advantage of going to school and getting a degree is that it gives you an opportunity to build your professional portfolio and develop your resume. You will have worked with teachers who are respected designers and with professional designers who are working in a variety of industries.

What will you learn?
Obviously, you'll learn about graphic design, but that's only the beginning. You'll take both general education and graphics design classes, and you'll develop important professional skills.

General education: A lot of people think general education requirements are a waste of time, but don't blow them off and don't underestimate how valuable they will be to you professionally. People who earn a degree in anything are generally assumed to be educated, and there are basic things educated people should know. It's important to be an educated person; it helps you to communicate with other educated persons. Graphics design: You'll probably enjoy your graphics design classes the most. You will learn about art and about computer technology. Composition, design principles, photography, animation and CGI are all examples of the kinds of things you will learn.

Graphics design is a rapidly changing field, and, even though it's necessary to learn the fundamentals, much of what you learn in school will be outdated within a few years of graduation. Professional skills: In school, you'll have opportunities to work on projects with other student designers and with professionals. These projects will help you learn professional skills that you can only acquire by doing the work. You'll learn how to work with other people, how to be a team member and a team leader, how to work with clients, and how to work under pressure. You'll learn about budgets and timelines and business practices. These "hands-on" skills will make you ready to enter the job market as a professional graphics designer.

We are a media culture, and graphics design is used in nearly every industry, corporation, job and school and home in the world. As a professional graphics designer you can work in the publishing, music or television industries. You could work for a design firm, or start your own firm. You could do anything from producing corporate reports to designing magazine layouts to creating corporate brands. You might create logos or signage or graphics. You may work with audio-video media or print media. You could help design computer games or animated movies.

The employment future for graphics designers is good. Graphics design is a great profession, and getting a degree in it could be the beginning of a rewarding career for you.