Last week we discussed some of the tools and business savvy necessary to build a successful Web design business. In this article we discuss the skills and knowledge needed to succeed as a Web designer.

Knowledge of HTML

The advice to learn HTML may seem obvious to most, but unfortunately there are many people passing themselves off as "Web designers" who use WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) editors and believe that if a page looks okay in their chosen editor, it will look the same in any browser. The faux designer slaps up a "view with xxx browser" after discovering that a Web page that looks okay in one browser, totally falls apart in another.