All websites consist of two things: design and content. Content handles the text/media of the site, but web designers create the layout and appearance of it. As a result, web designers are frequently high in demand by companies, and people with a degree in web design find lots of work really quickly. Best of all, the work gets rather lucrative pretty quickly.

Website Designer

The basic bread and butter job for someone with a degree in web design is that of the website designer.  Your main weapons are HTML and CSS, both languages designed to be interpreted by Internet browsers to deliver the look and feel of a web page. You’ll use programs such as Adobe Dreamweaver and Microsoft Expression Web to create sites from scratch. If you’re not big on being with one company, you can also freelance as a web designer, working with lots of clients to combine function with aesthetics to create awesome websites.

Web Developer

If you also have knowledge of programming languages such as Javascript, PHP or Ruby, you can do web development as a career. Development ranges from designing pages with PHP in mind to creating plugins for online applications that do things like share content, download information, or analyze your website for you. You can even create entire new applications yourself for the community to use. Often, companies hire one person to do web design and development, so it pays to have both skills if you want a better chance of finding a job when you graduate with this type of degree.

Theme Creator

If you don’t want to design websites from scratch, you can instead create and sell themes for several web-based applications. Unlike plugins which modify the way an application works, a theme changes the theme’s layout. Themes for applications such as WordPress, Drupal, Joomla, and Tumblr sell very well on the market, with some going for upwards of $199 for licensing a theme (See Genesis or Thesis for an example.) Of course, with this kind of job, you’ll typically need experience with the application you’re using, since the best themes are made to make design on these applications easy for people with no development knowledge and you have to know what people want most in a theme.