Reading an old Web Worker Daily (WWD) post talking about web design careers sparked my attention.

[timeago time=”2006-01-01″] ago I realized web design was extinct.

How is that possible? Web Design is one of the hottest careers right now, and has been put in the top 20 most sought after positions in the US.

Here’s How: If you can only write xHTML and CSS then you will quickly be replaced by PSD to HTML.
Learn to program and make yourself valuable.

The WWD article says that most Web Designers know JavaScript and PHP, but as soon as someone begins programming they transition into being a Web Developer, which makes them far more valuable.

Transition from Design to Development

The main reason I started to transition from just designing (xhtml & css) to Development (JavaScript, PHP, MySQL, C#) was I discovered the amazing service www.psd2html.com

P2H.com (which stands for the process of taking a photoshop design document and turning it into html markup) will take any web design in photoshop and turn it into perfect HTML & CSS in 8 hours.

They are humans doing the conversion, but software also exists to do this process.

HTML & CSS design is a commodity now. No longer does being able to write html and css (alone) qualify you to do much of anything in the web world.

Anyone can pick up a copy of Dreamweaver or GoLive, start dragging and dropping, and spit out a halfway descent website without ever touching html or css. (Note: I hate both of these programs. Notepad++ and hand coding are the only way.)

No One Wants static Web Sites Anymore

The second huge driver of my motivation to become a Developer and not just a Designer anymore was the client requests I received.

Everyone I was doing web sites for wanted to be able to update the website themselves, but didn’t want to learn HTML to do it.

So, WordPress, Joomla! and Drupal came roaring into my life. All of which require PHP & MySQL knowledge.

Now I refuse to even build static websites, because they are just that, static, meaning useless…

I Have Never Looked Back

Beginning to program changed my life, no kidding, and I do not miss the old days of just HTML and CSS.

As I am writing this post using WordPress, I would like to expound on how much I love this software platform.

Regardless, programming allowed me to step out of the static and extinct web world and into the beautifully dynamic and lively world of web development.

With almost any programming language at your finger tips the world opens up to you exponentially.

If you’re a web designer, start dabbling in PHP to begin. Your file extensions are going to change from .html to .php but that small alteration WILL change everything for you.

Enjoy the new world!