CertificationFilter: Help our web/graphic design team find appropriate certification's for our field.

April 24, 2009 6:10 AM

CertificationFilter: Help our web/graphic design team find appropriate certification's for our field.

Where I work a lot of importance is put on getting certifications. Our boss would like to find a standard certification that everyone in our graphic design department can receive.

Some of us are strong programmers, while others are heavily into the design end of things. We all deal with .NET and 508/accessibility on a daily basis.

Finding something that fits for all of us across the board as well as meets the approval of our boss has been a little tough.

What would you recommend?

posted by pghjezebel to computers & internet (3 comments total)

You can get Adobe certified. Designers could get certified in Photoshop. I think there are some programming languages on the list, too. Middle ground might include certifications in Dreamweaver or Flash. Here's a list of exams.
posted by bristolcat at 6:25 AM on April 24

There really is no industry-standard certification in the graphic design world. As bristolcat shows, you can get various Adobe certifications, but, in my experience, such certifications tend to be greeted by a polite "That's nice." About all certification shows is that you took some classes and passed the tests. It doesn't assure quality or creativity, which is what graphic design is supposed to be all about.

About the only area aligned with graphic design that values certifications is the professional pre-press world, where you really do need to know your print technologies.

But, if your boss is so stuck on window-dressing, then the Adobe certifications are going to be your most "impressive" bells-and-whistles for graphic design.

I assume you probably have a more solid handle on certifications geared toward web technologies that aren't graphic design specific.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:43 AM on April 24

If you're looking for a single, meaningful certification for everyone in your group, but people in your group do different things, you will ultimately be unsuccessful. So, it looks to me like your alternative is to choose a single, meaningless certification, and you should choose the path of least resistance.

If everyone uses .NET, I would recommend one of the MS developer certifications. All I know offhand is MCSD, but there may well be an intermediate certification as well. I suspect MCSD might be difficult to attain for your entire team.

So, I'd probably just get everyone to take the Dreamweaver exam. It will cover some aspects of programming, plus HTML, CSS and JavaScript, and will require decent knowledge of the Dreamweaver interface - which buttons are where, etc.

You should, of course, be aware that this exercise is a waste of time, but it sounds like you already know that.
posted by me & my monkey at 10:05 AM on April 24