Required Web Design Software
Do you build websites? Are you a web designer? Business owner? Web design hobbyist who wants to build a website? There are tons of different web design software packages out there, but let me help you cut through the junk and tell you what you need to know.
If you are interested in the web design process, make sure to check out my other articles that break it down for you. If we look at things from a practical perspective, a website consists of two main pieces, html pages and web graphics. So the bottom line is, there are really only two pieces of web design software that I recommend and that you need - Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver.
Photoshop is the image editor of choice. Yes, there are many tools out there such as Fireworks or Illustrator, but Photoshop is the tool we use to create web graphics.
Photoshop is the industry standard when it comes to creating web graphics. You can create everything from the ground up with Photoshop, ultimately ending with your completed web design comp. You can design your website navbars, buttons, logos, and any other web graphics you will need.
The other must have web design tool you need in your arsenal is Adobe Dreamweaver. There are literally dozens of other html editors, but this is the de facto standard. The main reason you should choose Dreamweaver is because it has all sorts of built in functionality to make your job as a web designer much easier. It's got everything from templates, to a css editor, a full html, css, everything O'reilly reference library, auto-complete for your code and much, much more.
Dreamweaver will help you build and view your html pages with ease. One of my favorite aspects of Dreamweaver is the split view. It gives you the ability to check things out from either a coder or designer view, actually it lets you see both views at the same time which is extremely helpful to me to make sure that I'm doing things right.
To sum it up, you only need to purchase two software packages, Adobe Dreamweaver and Photoshop to build websites. Don't be fooled into buying some budget web design software if you are serious about building websites, these are the tools used in web design agencies around the globe.
Now that you know what you need to buy, I'm going to share a HUGE SECRET with you. Make sure to read my article "7 Free Web Design Tools I Use Everyday"
And while you're at it, make sure to subscribe to my Free Web Design Essentials Mini Course. Subcribe for free and receive 10 web design essentials delivered right to your inbox, you'll be glad you did.