However, for some people that's not enough , , they want their own personal stamp on their websites and, instead of opting for providers' templates, they set about learning how to design their own.

An easy way to do this of course is by following guidelines from a book, CD or website, but for those who are serious about what they want to learn, a sit-down course with a tutor can be the best option. A three or four-year full-time course is not necessary to become fairly proficient at web design. In fact, web design tends to be just one element of a programme when it comes to full-time third-level courses.

For those interested in doing web design as a hobby or to help with their job or business there is a plethora of courses available around the country. Vocational Education Colleges in practically every town offer affordable 10 and 20-week courses in web design, which run one evening a week. Private course providers are plentiful across the country, but sometimes students will pay more for these courses. FAS is also a major provider of such courses. These can be done full-time over the space of a week, over a number of weekends or for one or two evenings a week over several weeks.

Eleanor Manning of the International Academy of Computer Training (IACT) explains that there was a huge interest in web design courses before the dotcom bubble burst in 2001. "After the whole bust it obviously diminished dramatically, but there is a continuous momentum and interest at the moment, " she says.

A wide variety of people sign up for web design courses, says Manning, including businesspeople who are looking to develop their own companies, products or services and want to promote themselves or increase sales online. These are joined by people who want careers as web designers as well as traditional graphic designers who want to move into the web field and people who get promoted into that area of their organisation. "If people come to us to train they tend to be more serious about it because our training is more specialised; it's very detailed and it's expensive."

People can do courses in basic or advanced web design, HTML and Dreamweaver.

The general requirement for any course is to be PC literate.

Anybody without prior experience of web design would start from scratch. Those with experience can do more advanced courses.

Manning claims that IACT was the first company to design a webmaster training course. It has two courses , , one in web design and one in web development. The difference between the two is that designing is about the front end of the site and developing is about the back end of the site. "The designer course gives you the skillset to do the whole front end , , the look, the feel, the layout, the content and the management. The developer course focuses on the back end. If you want a fully functional site with e-commerce capability, use existing databases or design databases from scratch, it'll allow you to sell through the internet, set up web servers and look at the whole security aspect."

FREE WEB TOOLS

Earlier this month Microsoft Ireland announced it is offering web developers and internet hobbyists across Ireland the opportunity to develop website applications by giving away its latest web development tools free of charge.

The software, called Visual Web Developer, is being made available as a free download at To coincide with the availability of the free tools, Microsoft has also announced a major website development competition. Prizes range from a Hewlett-Packard laptop to Xbox 360s and from games to Microsoft software. The competition runs until July. To enter, participants should develop and register an ASP.NET 2.0 website with the free Microsoft web development tools. Along with the tools, Microsoft has negotiated free 30-day, no obligation ASP.NET 2.0 and SQL Server 2005 web hosting for all participants.

Sean Foley, group manager of developer and platform at Microsoft Ireland, said: "We believe that the availability of these web development tools, along with the competition, will create a great opportunity for Ireland's growing web developer community and the growing number of hobbyists and developers. The new tools provide a graphical and easy-to-use way to build new web capabilities and deliver content using the very latest technology."