Demand for design skills has never been higher, but the competition for design jobs has never been tougher. How do good designers make their work stand out and win gigs? We asked nine of the instructors at Sessions Online School of Design to weigh in.

Two photographers can shoot the exact same situation and get completely different results.  Subtleties such as lighting, perspective, framing, settings, editing and your “eye” are all factors.  And no, you can’t rely on Photoshop for everything. Four published pros provide the details.

Bad news: Animation takes patience and technical skill and you can have plenty of both and still get poor results. Good news: Your creativity and instincts will make you great. Four professional animators explain how to make your animations POP.

What makes Web sites POP? It used to be a flaming logo, but (thankfully) things change fast with new technologies and new tastes. Our four experts advise using emotion, consistency, balance and color for a killer Web design.

With brand savvy and cynical consumers outnumbering the generic brand lovers of the 70s, branding is fun and challenging again. How does your work engage this more sophisticated design eye? Four branding experts share their secrets on visually communicating a brand.

Layouts?  Are they still making those?  Indeed. Print has not died as one might have thought back in '99, but it has evolved thanks to new media's influence. Three print design veterans discuss how to make the oldest medium on the planet look fresh

Chris Georgenes spent six years as Director of Creative Development for Soup2nuts / Scholastic (www.soup2nuts.tv) and art-directed many animated TV shows including Home Movies (Cartoon Network). Chris is currently a freelance artist with clients including Pileated Pictures, Lucas Arts, Universal Records, Plot Developers, AOL and more. He also maintains www.mudbubble.com as his online portfolio. Chris teaches Flash Animation at Sessions.

David Witt is a San Francisco-based award-winning interactive multimedia designer. His current focus is on creating new paradigms in interface design and multimedia applications using Flash and Actionscript. David holds a MFA in Design + Technology from Parsons School of Design. David teaches several Flash classes at Sessions

Gabriela Monroy is an award-winning video artist, editor, and graphic designer. Gabriela and Caspar Stracke work as a collaborative team under the name "mostra" and have taught video and graphic arts at Chicago Art Institute, Media Art Academy Cologne, and City College NY. Gabriela developed the Digital Video Editing course at Sessions.

Jordon Schranz is a painter represented by the Black and White Gallery in New York, New York. He has had solo shows in New York and Chicago and he has participated in several group shows in the USA and internationally. Jordon is Director of Sessions School of Fine Arts and teaches Drawing.

Laura Schwamb is co-founder of Steam Design Group and has worked as a Senior Art Director for L’Oreal’s European Designer Fragrance Division, running brands such as Giorgio Armani, Guy Laroche, and Lanvin. Laura launched the Surface line of men’s skin care by Aramis for Estée Lauder. Laura teaches Packaging Design at Sessions.

John Feld is the editor of The Graphics Report, a resource for graphic and Web designers and digital photographers. John has been involved in the graphics world for over twenty years, as a graphic designer, owner of a large photographic studio, graphics trainer, system integrator of graphics software and networks, and manager of the creative concept and development of graphic software. He has worked at Scitex, MetaCreations, and UCLA and has taught at corporations and movie studios, recording companies, and advertising agencies including Paramount, Disney, Columbia, 20th Century Fox, Warner Bros., Chiat Day, 30sixty design, R.R. Donnelley, Toyota, and TransAmerica Corp.

John started teaching computer graphics with PageMaker 1.0, and QuarkXPress, set up a Quark Authorized Training Center, and has since taught on the Windows, Unix and Macintosh platforms. He co-founded the Adobe User Group in LA and the Digital Prepress Committee for the PIA and co-authored the first industry standards for digital graphics for the printing industry. At UCLA, he created and taught the Digital Prepress curricula. John has lectured and taught at graphic and computer conferences, including AIGA, Comdex, Seybold, MacWord and E3 and has been active in developing on-line

Nomi Altabef has a long career with Sessions as a faculty member and a manager for Education, Student Life and Student Community. Prior to joining Sessions, Ms. Altabef worked in Fashion and Textile design and production management for houses such as Norma Kamali and Vivienne Tam, and in editorial production at French Vogue Magazine. She holds a BFA from Parsons School of Design.

Christopher Schmitt is an award-winning Web designer and developer who has been on the Internet since 1992. In 1997 he graduated with a Fine Arts degree with an emphasis on Graphic Design from Florida State University, where he designed the first incarnation of the department's Web site. He has written for Web Techniques, A List Apart, Digital Web, Web Reference, and contributed four chapters to XML, HTML, XHTML Magic. His latest book, Designing CSS Web Pages, covers contemporary new media design through Cascading Style Sheets, Dynamic HTML, PNG, & SVG. Currently Schmitt resides in Tallahassee, FL where he heads up Heatvision.com while continuing to write about Web design and Web culture.

Tara MacKay is the Director of Curriculum at Sessions. Tara is a Web and multimedia designer who has designed award-winning exhibit sites for the American Museum of Natural History and the Rose Center for Earth and Space. She has worked with design teams at AOL, Yahoo!, and other major online companies on product integrations with Sage Online and iClips.com. Among Tara's interests are Web design, logo design, illustration, and streaming media.

Nathaniel Stein is a modeling supervisor and CG artist at Anzovin Studio. He is credited on titles including Sid Meier’s Railroads and Halo 2, as well as a variety of TV shows and movies. Nathaniel has taught animation at University of Massachusetts at Amherst and co-authored the book Visual Quickstart for Maya 7.0. He teaches Maya at Sessions.

Piper Nilsson is a graphic designer and information architect. She has blueprinted sites for MetLife, Pepsi, ETS, and Citibank. Her current projects include building an e-learning prototype for children with learning disabilities and teaching technology in New York City public schools. She received a degree in graphic design from Pratt Institute. Piper teaches Design and Composition, Dreamweaver I and II, and Color Theory at Sessions.

Stephen Voss is a photojournalist based in Washington, DC. Stephen’s photographs have been featured in The New York Times, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek, The Washington Post, Der Spiegel, and Le Monde. His recent works include water pollution in China, Latino gang violence in Oregon, and outsourcing in India. He is the author of The ImageStation Guide to Improving Your Photography. Stephen teaches Digital Photography I, Digital Art Photography, and Fundamentals of Digital Photography at Sessions.

Thom McKenna is the Owner of FlatironWorks, a design firm based in New York City. Thom has over 14 years experience in graphic and new media design. He has worked on publishing projects in fourteen countries. His current clients include Sports Illustrated, JP Morgan, American Express, AIG, Berlitz International, Citibank, and Merrill Lynch. Thom teaches Print Production, Advanced Graphic Design, Advanced Layout Design, Advanced Logo Design, and InDesign at Sessions.

Matt Kloskowski is a writer, instructor, illustrator, and graphic designer based in Tampa, Florida. Author of Illustrator Most Wanted and Extreme Photoshop, Matt is certified as an Adobe Certified Expert, in Macromedia Flash, and as a Microsoft Certified Solutions Developer (MCSD). An expert in dynamic- and database-driven Web development, Matt writes weekly columns for the National Association of Photoshop Professionals (NAPP) and Mac Design magazine's Web site and features for Create magazine’s Studio column.

Michael Hamm is a freelance designer and Web developer with over a decade of experience in the creative field. Based in Washington state, Michael provides design solutions for clients across the country through his company ClayEdward Design. Prior to working on his own, Michael worked for JPMorgan Chase in Houston, Texas as an interactive designer. His work has been published in various Web design books and magazines and he is a regular contributor to Layers Magazine. In addition, he has served as technical editor on several design books published by Friends of Ed. Michael recently co-authored Introduction to Web Design Using Macromedia Dreamweaver published by Glencoe/McGraw-Hill. Michael is an Adobe Certified Instructor in Adobe Illustrator and is the founder, designer, programmer, and writer of Points&Paths.com, a Web site that grew from his passion for illustration software and all things vector.

Cristin McKee is a character animator at Anzovin Studio, where she has worked on a number of high-profile projects including the features GI Joe: Valor vs Venom and Action Man: X Missions, game cut scenes for Halo 2, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The Da Vinci Code , and Sid Meier's Railroads, as well as a number of television projects and short films. Cristin has spoken about animation on panels at Siggraph and Northampton Film Festival and taught animation at Hampshire College , MA. Cristin is currently co-directing an animated short. Cristin earned her Bachelor of Arts from Hampshire College, MA.

Donald Gambino is a computer artist, consultant, educator, and trainer, since 1983, teaching students of all levels and abilities.  Formerly the Chairperson of the Computer Art Department at the School of Visual Arts in New York City, he has taught innovative computer art courses for over 12 years, and created the BFA program in Computer Art.

Margaret Penney is a teacher, designer, writer and media artist. Margaret teaches Web, print and motion graphic design, multimedia, and JAVA programming at an independent school outside New York City where she designs the Computer Science department curriculum.  As a Web designer and developer, Margaret has created a multi-channel community portal for Hong Kong teenagers; ecommerce for Delias.com girls' clothing; a flash promotional for Nike; and currently she is working on a site for artist Sol Lewitt.

As a new media artist, she has exhibited at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London; the Museo Tamayo in Mexico City; and around NYC.  Her artwork has been reviewed globally online, in print magazines, and included in the book Eye Candy from the Underground: Fresh Styles for Web Designers.  She has lectured on new media art at Purchase College, the School of Visual Arts Annual Conference for Educators, and the Pratt Institute. As a writer, she has been published in New York Arts magazine, Rhizome.org, and the Baltimore City paper.  Margaret has a B.A. from Johns Hopkins University and M.F.A. from Columbia University.