Web design is the design of web pages, websites and web applications using HTML, CSS and images.
Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web published a website in August 1991, making him also the first web designer. His first was to use hypertext with an existing email link.
Early on, websites were written in basic HTML, a markup language giving websites basic structure (headings and paragraphs), and the ability to link using hypertext. This was new and different to existing forms of communication - users could easily open other pages using browsers.
As the Web and web design progressed, the markup language used to make it, known as Hypertext Mark-up Language or HTML, became more complex and flexible. Things like tables, which could be used to display tabular information, were soon subverted for use as invisible layout devices. With the advent of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), table based layout is increasingly regarded as outdated. Database integration technologies such as server-side scripting (see CGI, PHP, , ASP, JSP, and ColdFusion) and design standards like CSS further changed and enhanced the way the Web is made.
The introduction of Macromedia Flash into an already interactivity-ready scene has further changed the face of the Web, giving new power to designers and media creators, and offering new interactivity features to users. Flash is much more restrictive than the open HTML format, though, requiring a proprietary plugin to be seen, and it does not integrate with most web browser UI features like the "Back" button.