Online Web Design Degree
Associate Degree in Web Design
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Program Overview
The Sessions College Associate of Occupational Studies in Web Design degree online offers an intensive two-year degree for students seeking to enter careers as Web designers with a focus on visual and interactive design. Designed for high school graduates and adult learners, the program offers a strong foundation in visual design and a working knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
Strong graphic design is the foundation of the Web design program. First year studies include type, color theory, composition, digital photography, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Second year classes place an emphasis on responsive design, with training in Bootstrap, flexbox, WordPress, and UX/UI design.
Studying online was definitely worth it. There are many opportunities to interact with your peers and professors. Your college schedule can be organized to fit your lifestyle. You can obtain a degree in a different form, catered to your needs, and still get a great education.
Student Work By: Shawn Bashaw, Jennifer Parlett, Nicole Porata
Truly Affordable Education
Our Fall 2024 tuition is:
50% lower than the average annual cost of tuition at 4-year colleges in the United States.
Significantly more affordable than other online design / digital media colleges.
So affordable that 100% of tuition costs may be covered for eligible students.* Find out today if you qualify.
*Federal student aid and military education benefits available for eligible students.
Studying Online at Sessions
Founded in 1997, Sessions College has delivered accredited and affordable fully online programs for creative professionals for more than 20 years. Earning your Online Web Design Degree at Sessions has never been more accessible. Take a virtual college tour in this video!
What Our Students Say
Associate Degree in Web Design Curriculum
The Associate of Occupational Studies (AOS) in Web Design is a 72-credit program completed in two years. Part-time schedules are available.
First Semester
- DES 121 Photoshop I - 3 credits
- WEB 101 HTML and CSS I - 3 credits
- DES 106 Design Foundations - 3 credits
- GEN 104 English Composition - 3 credits
Second Semester
- DES 204 The Study of Graphic Design - 1.5 credits
- DES 131 Logo Design I - 1.5 credits
- DES 141 Illustrator I - 3 credits
- WEB 213 Bootstrap Using Dreamweaver I - 3 credits
- GEN 105 Computer Technology - 3 credits
Third Semester
- DES 102 Typography II - 3 credits
- DES 151 Digital Photography I - 3 credits
- WEB 214 Bootstrap Using Dreamweaver II - 3 credits
- GEN 106 History of Art - 3 credits
Web Design Major - Year Two
Fourth Semester
- WEB 209 Advanced CSS - 1.5 credits
- DES 222 Photoshop II - 3 credits
- WEB 205 Javascript For Designers I - 3 credits
- WEB 232 Web Typography - 1.5 credits
- GEN 107 General Psychology - 3 credits
Fifth Semester
- WEB 231 Web Design I - 3 credits
- WEB 222 UX/UI Design - 3 credits
- WEB 207 Internet Marketing - 3 credits
- GEN 207 Copywriting - 3 credits
Sixth Semester
- DES 201 InDesign I* - 3 credits
- WEB 241 Wordpress for Designers - 3 credits
- GEN 204 Intro to Marketing - 1.5 credits
- GEN 206 Creative Businesses - 1.5 credits
- WEB 260 Web Design Capstone and Portfolio Review - 3 credits
* Elective course may be replaced by any other 3-credit course in the program, subject to availability and prerequisites.
COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Program highlights for Web Design majors in the AOS in Web Design program.
WEB 101 HTML and CSS I - 3 credits
To create Web pages, a Web designer must have a foundation in HTML and CSS. This course begins with the basics of HTML markup and specifications for standards-compliant Web pages. CSS scripting is examined as a method for positioning page elements and styling typography. Cutting-edge features of HTML5 and CSS3 are also introduced. The emphasis is on the contemporary use of markup and scripting to create effective and attractive Web sites.
WEB 213 Bootstrap Using Dreamweaver I - 3 credits
Bootstrap provides a framework of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to speed up your site development. Working with an expert instructor, you'll learn how to build responsive, mobile-first web sites using Bootstrap 4 and Dreamweaver, Adobe's HTML editor. This course will show you how to design web sites by using CSS to structure and design layouts, ensuring that your designs work on a range of platforms and devices.
WEB 205 Javascript for Designers I - 3 credits
Learn the fundamentals of JavaScript, the programming language that allows you to make things happen when a user interacts with your website. You will learn how to create clean, valid code as you create programs that respond to various kinds of user interaction. Assignments include a range of projects: interactive dialogue boxes, a trivia quiz, a rainbow color picker, a sortable database, and more.
WEB 209 Advanced CSS - 1.5 credits
Take your coding to the next level with flexbox, a new set of CSS properties that swoop in where floats leave off. Flexbox easily adapts to different screen sizes and different sizes of content, providing limitless, robust ways to structure page content, designing navigation, create column based layouts, and add sticky footers. The course also focuses on using scalable vector graphics (SVG). Using SVG, you can create (and animate) images that scale to fit any screensize without loss of image quality. Combined with CSS3 animation, SVG provides performance, consistency, and interactive/creative potential for your Web graphics.
WEB 232 Web Typography - 1.5 credits
Learn how to enhance your Web designs with the latest techniques for styling, typesetting, and embellishing text. Get up to speed on the latest in Web font options and how to use CSS font stacks. You'll take your fonts into the grid, studying a mix of classic and cutting edge techniques to ensure on-screen readability and effective vertical rhythm, and learn how to retain viewer attention by embellishing text with CSS3 effects and building typography-driven information graphics.
WEB 214 Bootstrap Using Dreamweaver II - 3 credits
In this course, Web design students will further their exploration of Bootstrap using Adobe Dreamweaver, focusing on the use of CSS, templates, and library items to design responsive sites. Topics includes using image effects, animated content areas, and interactive navigation, and creating mobile and tablet layouts with CSS3 media queries.
WEB 231 Web Design I - 3 credits
Learn a systematic professional approach to Web design. You’ll use site maps, wireframes, comps, color palettes, usability tests, and other tools and concepts to make sure your responsive designs hit the mark. Students entering this class are expected to have a basic competence in HTML, CSS, and Bootstrap, as well as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator. Building upon those skills, students will complete four portfolio projects that challenge their Web design skills and build an understanding of how to manage Web design projects in a professional context.
WEB 207 Internet Marketing - 3 credits
Learn practical skills for growing your business on the Web. Studying with a professional Internet marketing consultant, you'll learn how develop an entire marketing plan for your online business. Course projects will include target audience analysis, developing a site plan, creating a content development strategy, planning email marketing campaigns, optimizing for search engines, building a Facebook fan page, planning a social media crisis strategy, designing a landing page for an ad, and using site metrics.
WEB 240 Wordpress Development - 3 credits
Explore the world of WordPress development and learn how to develop sites that take advantage of the power, versatility, and community of WordPress. You'll start with the basics of WordPress navigation and interface, then you'll open the hood, learning the anatomy of WordPress themes and how to make your own. From there, you'll explore child themes, functions, hooks, filters, plugins, widgets, custom post types, and more, all with one big goal in mind: learning the techniques and tools essential to developing excellent WordPress sites.
Associate of Occupational Studies (AOS) Faculty
Department Head: Piper Nilsson
Piper Nilsson is a graphic designer and educator. Piper was greatly influenced by studying art history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and learned to apply principles of fine art to graphic design. She has over 10 years of experience teaching at Sessions. Piper has been working with the Web since 1997, when she began her career at a leading Web design agency. Working in various roles as a designer, programmer, and information architect, she blueprinted sites for such global clients as MetLife, Pepsi, ETS, and Citibank. Piper is currently working as a freelancer, based in Valencia, Spain. Her recent projects include a Spanish language podcast and travel app. Piper received a Sessions College outstanding instructor award in December 2011 and won a USDLA Platinum Award Best Practices Awards for Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching in April 2012. Piper holds an Associate's degree in Graphic Design from the Pratt Institute.
INSTRUCTIONAL FACULTY
Get expert feedback in classes taught by our industry-leading faculty.
Andrew Shalat
Andrew Shalat is an author, designer/illustrator, educator, and Mac expert. Since 1985 he has been designing and writing articles about Macintosh, Mac software, and publishing technologies that have appeared in Macworld, maccentral.com and macweek.com (for which he was a columnist writing "Shalat's Web"). He has been a regular speaker/faculty member at Macworld Expo since 2001 and has written three books: How to Do Everything with Online Video (McGraw-Hill, Osborne), Do It Yourself Mac Projects (McGraw-Hill), and MacDesign Out of the Box (Peachpit). Andrew is a regular contributor to design and Macintosh related sites including Inside Mac Radio, InDesign Magazine, and Creativepro.com. His design work covers a large range of media including book, CD and DVD covers, brochures, catalogs, outdoor signage, print ads, artwork, logos, Flash and Web design, and grocery lists. Over the past two decades, Andrew has taught literature, writing, Web design, and print design.
Carolyn Zaikowski
Carolyn Zaikowski is the author of the hybrid novel In Dream, I Dance by Myself, and I Collapse (Civil Coping Mechanisms, 2016). Her fiction, poetry, and essays have appeared in The Washington Post, Denver Quarterly, The Rumpus, PANK, West Branch, Dusie, DIAGRAM, Everyday Feminism, and elsewhere. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Naropa University's Jack Kerouac School of Disembodied Poetics and is currently an English professor and volunteer death doula. You can find her online at www.carolynzaikowski.com.
Jordon Schranz
Jordon Schranz is an audio/visual artist and designer whose work has been exhibited internationally in New York, Chicago, El Paso, Berlin, Bogotá, and Ciudad Juárez. In addition he has performed hundreds of shows across the United States as part of the free jazz trio, "The Eastern Seaboard" and in the avant-rock group "Quivers" with Ninni Morgia, including New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Chicago, Atlanta, and Detroit.
Kevin Hedgpeth
Kevin Hedgpeth is an Arizona native who makes his home in Phoenix, where he actively writes and illustrates in addition to teaching college-level visual arts courses. He is co-author of “Exploring Drawing for Animation” and “Exploring Character Design” for Cengage Learning and illustrated the book, "Raising Unicorns: Your Step-by-Step Guide to Starting and Running a Successful - and Magical! - Unicorn Farm" for Adams Media.
Kristen Becker
Kristen Becker is an educator and a graphic and business designer specializing in e-commerce. She has developed and marketed a niche e-commerce boutique featured in Real Simple, Better Homes & Gardens, and In Style magazines. With over 12 years of experience as an award winning educator, she has developed curriculum and taught courses in graphic design, multimedia, and e-commerce/marketing. Kristen has an Master's degree in Digital Arts From Maryland Institute College of Art.
Michael Hamm
Michael Hamm is a Senior UX Designer for Oracle Corporation, Web developer, and Adobe Illustrator expert with over 20 years of experience in the creative field. Michael's technical writing on design has been published in various design books and magazines and Michael co-authored the Glencoe/McGraw-Hill book Introduction to Web Design Using Dreamweaver. Michael is an Adobe Certified Instructor in Adobe Illustrator and holds a Diploma in Graphic Design from the Art Institute of Houston. Michael has a passion for illustration software and all things vector.
Piper Nilsson
Piper Nilsson is a graphic designer and educator. Piper was greatly influenced by studying art history at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and learned to apply principles of fine art to graphic design. She has over 10 years of experience teaching at Sessions. Piper has been working with the Web since 1997, when she began her career at a leading Web design agency. Working in various roles as a designer, programmer, and information architect, she blueprinted sites for such global clients as MetLife, Pepsi, ETS, and Citibank. Piper is currently working as a freelancer, based in Valencia, Spain. Her recent projects include a Spanish language podcast and travel app. Piper received a Sessions College outstanding instructor award in December 2011 and won a USDLA Platinum Award Best Practices Awards for Excellence in Distance Learning Teaching in April 2012. Piper holds an Associate's degree in Graphic Design from the Pratt Institute.
Taz Tally
Dr. Taz Tally is the president of Taz Tally Seminars, a computer publishing consulting and training company, and Taz Tally Photography. Taz is the author of numerous graphics and print production books including Photoshop Before and After Makeovers, Acrobat and PDF Solutions, Avoiding the Output Blues, and Avoiding the Scanning Blues, and he is a contributing author to The Photoshop World Dream Team Book. Taz has produced numerous instructional videos, CDs, DVDs and online training courses on scanning, prepress and printing, Photoshop, color correction, and font management, including an extensive library on Lynda.com. Taz is a frequent presenter at seminars and trade shows throughout the U.S, including the GraphExpo, the annual Chicago Print show, and is a member of the Photoshop Dream Team at the biannual Photoshop World convention. Taz writes for graphics art publications including Printing Industry of America, The Magazine, Layers Magazine, and Photoshop User. Taz is an adventure author who specializes in black and white landscape photography and whose latest book is 50 Hikes in Alaska's Kenai Peninsula.
Walt Dombrowski
Walt Dombrowski is a web developer and trainer with 20 years of professional experience. Walt has extensive experience in PHP, WordPress, CSS, jQuery, and HTML, and has worked in both front-end and back-end operations with clients from 23 different countries. As the founder of Red Turtle Studios, he has produced multiple MOOCs teaching students globally how to use Wordpress.
View All faculty.
Associate Degree in Web Design Program Outcomes
By completing the program, Associate Degree in Web Design students develop the following competencies:
1. Web Coding/Design
Layout and design responsive websites using standards-compliant HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code, adapting modern frameworks such as Bootstrap and focusing on WordPress.
2. Technology
Create images and design layouts by effectively and efficiently using design software including Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and other industry technologies.
3. Art/Design Principles
Demonstrate the ability to produce visually compelling work by applying knowledge of color, typography, and composition.
4. Web Publishing
Publish sites to the Web, validating and troubleshooting sites to fix errors or cross-browser issues, with a knowledge of accessibility best practices.
5. Marketing
Implement basic techniques for marketing web sites, including SEO, search advertising, and email marketing.
6. Critical Thinking and Writing
Employ critical thinking to generate, support, and convey ideas through writing for academic or professional contexts.
7. Portfolio
Apply creative problem solving and constructive feedback to conceive, produce, and present an impactful body of work that showcases your skills to employers and potential clients.
Outcomes Assessment
To learn more about our outcomes assessment process, visit our Academic Team.
Student Work
Student Work
Program Benefits
Launch your Creative Career
Earn a degree and launch your creative career in our most rigorous 2-year program.
By Creatives, for Creatives
Collaborate with a community of creative learners and industry professionals.
Maximize Your Portfolio
Projects put you through your paces as you build a body of work. Your program culminates with a guided portfolio review.
Structure and Flexibility
Weekly deadlines keep you on track, but with no set login times you can build your studies around your schedule.
Education You Can Afford
Affordable programs with low per credit tuition, and financial aid available for those who qualify.
Convenient Online Application
Fast, convenient, and student-centered application process.
Career Outlook for Web Designers
Web Designers and Web Developers produce web designs, interfaces, and E-Commerce resources for a wide range of organizations to effectively engage with customers, vendors, and other stakeholders. Web industry professionals need to possess technical skills, communication skills, creativity, customer-service skills, attention to detail, and problem-solving skills.
Job Titles
Graduates could be employed as a Back-end Web Developer, Front-end Web Developer, Web and Digital Interface Designer, Webmaster, Content Editor, Graphic Designer, Content Writer, Advertising Sales Representative, Multimedia Specialist, E-commerce Specialist, Computer Programmer, or Marketing Manager.
Median Annual Wage
According to the Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics the median annual wage for web designers and digital designers and was $98,540 as of May 2023.
Median annual wages for the professionals in top industries (in which they work):
| Computer occupations | $104,420 |
| Web and digital interface designers | $98,540 |
| Web developers and digital designers | $92,750 |
| Web developers | $84,960 |
| Total, all occupations | $48,060 |
Largest Areas of Employment
| Web developers | 17% |
| Web developers and digital designers | 16% |
| Web and digital interface designers | 15% |
| Computer occupations | 14% |
| Total, all occupations | 3% |
Job Projections
Employment opportunities for web developers and digital designers are projected to grow 16 percent from 2022 to 2032.
There are about 19,000 openings for web developers and digital designers projected each year over the next decade.
Resources
Based on Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics and Indeed Job Outlook data.
To learn more about resources for web developers, visit the American Webmasters Association or the International Web Association (IWA). For more information about careers in computing, visit the Association for Computing Machinery or the National Center for Women & Information Technology.
Getting Started
Our Online Web Design Degree application process makes getting started easy, fast, and convenient.
How Do I Apply?
To enter the program you are expected to have earned a high school diploma, GED, or state-approved home school equivalent. Any students under 18 years of age will also need to provide the signed permission of a parent or guardian.
We have a convenient and student-friendly online application process.
To apply, simply complete our application form and provide transcripts, an application essay, and 5-10 samples or art/design work or alternative written assignment, and a $75 application fee. Applications are reviewed by our Acceptance Committee and generally returned within a business week. See our complete application guide and credit transfer policy.
You can begin your creative journey by completing our online application today. There is no charge until you submit your application materials and no obligation to enroll.
How Long is the Program?
The Associate of Occupational Studies (AOS) program is a 72 credit program completed in six semesters or two years by a student on a full-time schedule. Students with transfer credit can graduate in under two years and part-time schedules are available.
Will the Program Fit My Schedule?
Weekly deadlines help you stay on track. And with no set login times, you can build your studies around your schedule, wherever you are located. That’s why more than 50% of our degree students complete their programs while working full-time.
What Software or Supplies Do I Need?
To take this program, you’ll need the following:
- Mac or Windows computer with an Internet connection.
- Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver CC.
- Access to a digital camera with manual control over ISO, Aperture, Shutter Speed, and White Balance, that allows for shooting in RAW format.
- MS word or equivalent application
- Your computer must meet software manufacturer requirements.
- Basic drawing and painting supplies including pencils, charcoal, newsprint, and sketch paper.
- A Web hosting account with an ad-free hosting service.
- Webcam, headphones or speaker, VPN connection, and microphone connected to the computer for live proctored exams.
There are no textbook or course material costs to participate in this online program. Student discount on Adobe Creative Cloud software is available to enrolled students.
What are the Program Costs?
Truly Affordable Tuition. Since our founding in 1997, we have been committed to making the highest-quality design and digital media education available at the lowest cost.
Our truly affordable Fall 2024 tuition is:
| Associate of Occupational Studies (AOS) Program - Fall 2024 Tuition |
|---|
| $300 per credit |
| $3,600 per semester |
| $7,200 per academic year |
| $21,600 total program tuition |
Per-credit tuition is the same full-time and part-time students. Federal financial aid available for eligible students. Ask about our $500-$3,000 scholarships for exemplary applicants.
A $200 registration fee is required to process your enrollment in the program. Registration fees are nonrefundable after 5 days from the scheduled beginning of program orientation. See Degree Program Admissions.
Is Financial Aid available?
Federal Student Aid. Federal student aid is available to students who qualify. If you are eligible, you may be able to fund your program using Pell Grants and Federal student loans. Check out our Financial Aid Information pages and ask to set up an interview with our Financial Aid Director.
Military Student Aid. Military servicemembers and their families who are eligible for GI Bill Education Benefits or active service member Tuition Assistance (TA) may also be able to utilize these programs to pay for their education.
Adult Learner Scholarships. Ask about our innovative scholarships for adult learners. The Designed for You Scholarship Program can help you offset your tuition costs.
Accreditations and Approvals
Get Started Today
Take the first step on a rewarding creative journey towards earning an Associate Degree in Web Design.
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