In my college days, I worked on the backend tech stack. After college, I joined a service-based IT company, where I got a chance to work on Javascript. I found Javascript so interactive that I started exploring the front-end tech stack on my own. After learning many things on Youtube & Google, I aimed for a Frontend Development certificate. I successfully completed the certification in June, this year.

Here are few of my key learnings about Frontend web development that I would like to share-

Front-end development: what is it? The portion of a web page that people see and interact with is called the front end. The user interface, text, pictures, animations, and every other content are all included. The coding and presentation of these pieces to the user is the subject of front-end development. (Back End Developers undertake the behind-the-scenes work, such as managing databases and where and how content is kept.)

You can make a static mockup of the website using Photoshop. Front-end developers use code to make your design come to life. Three languages are typically used for front-end development:

The markup language known as HTML (HyperText Markup Language) is used to specify the general structure of the page, including its basic layout and how to load it.

The styling information, such as the layout, widths, typeface, etc., is set up using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets).

JavaScript: Any dynamic or interactive elements on a web page are created using JavaScript (for example, forms).

This may first appear a little intimidating to a beginner programmer, but with the correct assistance and resources, they can be picked up very quickly. Here are some ways front-end development can assist you to enhance your designs and your employability if you still need some inspiration.

How Web Designers Can Benefit from Front End Development You don't have to be an expert in all of the front-end languages to be a designer. You may significantly increase the quality of your web designs and your ability to deliver by understanding the architecture of how they interact with one another and learning enough coding to put together basic web pages. This is how:

Better Workflow Understanding = Better Designs You've probably received designs from developers who claim that the PSDs and mockups just cannot be converted into working code. We are all aware of how annoying that is. When you are aware of the technology that powers the web, including how HTML, CSS, and JS interact to make your design come to life.

Greater Management of Design and Implementation To take it a step further, you can have more control over your design when you know how it converts to code. Depending on your degree of expertise, you might be able to code it yourself or at least have a more meaningful conversation with the developer and specify exactly what you want done — utilising front end terminology — in their own language.

Enhanced Project Turnaround Time The turnaround time for your projects can be significantly accelerated by learning to code the front end. - according to the scope of the project and your level of coding expertise. You can think about doing the coding yourself for tiny projects like a personal website with only three or four pages.

As an alternative, knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JS will enable you to create designs that are more developer-friendly and to interact with the front-end developer much more effectively for larger projects that go beyond your newly acquired coding skills.

More customers equals more work One point of contention for independent web designers is that the finest assignments frequently go to agencies. Clients simply don't want to hunt for a developer to code it after initially hiring a designer to create the design. Offering bundled services are one of the best ways for independent web designers to compete with creative agencies. Developing your coding abilities to the point where you can give clients live websites will help you land more clients and a bigger share of the pie.

Increasing your skill set brings up a lot more job alternatives for people who love working in advertising agencies or web development companies.

Conclusion

You don't have to be a front-end development guru to be a web designer (unless you want to!). Here are the requirements for front-end development success. But acquiring fundamental front-end coding abilities can help you step up your game and enter a completely different league.

Have any of you designers out there studied front-end coding? How did that affect your designs and the types of jobs and projects you were able to accept?