Web Design is a huge field with multiple areas of specialization and often the term is used to identify anything from creating viusal design of sites all the way through the sophisticated web applications. Because of this, it's really difficult to summarize which skills sets someone will need to master in order to become a Web Designer. Regardless of which area of Web Design you specialize in, you will need to have a working knowledge of HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
iCode is a website that provides links to web resources on HTML CSS and JavaScript to help college students to keep up with the changes evolving in Web Design. This website provides links to some of my favorite outstanding Web Design online courses, reading materials such as books and web articles on HTML and CSS I usaully read on a daily basis, JavaScript libraries, Graphics software programs for creating web graphics and web fonts for enabling web fonts on your sites.
At the heart of every webpage is HTML. HTML means Hypertext Markup Language. It's the standard markup language for the web. A markup language simply means that you're going to be using tags to identify what type of content the browser should display.
Cascading style sheets in short CSS is used to control the visual presentation of web pages. This includes setting font styles, font sizes, inserting images and even changing the entire look and positioning of things(text, images, menus) on your pages.
JavaScript is a programming language that allows you to send direct commands to web browsers and so it allows you maximum control of your website. Although JavaScript is not required for websites to display, it has evolved into an incredibly important part of the web design process.