Sometimes application development just forces you to know design basics, because an application without a nice GUI its not human friendly, hence the need for graphics and skills to manipulate them. My favourite weapon to accomplish this is Fireworks, very easy and clean software to work with, but when not available, the free solution GIMP is my alternative. When it comes to vector projects, CorelDraw is my choice.
You can find some artwork done with these software's on my portfolio.

For every IT professional that have a career this was most likely his starting point, even if it was only in the computer that used to sit at home, every single one of us has tried at some stage to do more... Now with a bit more responsibilities, networks with several computers, are now the playground, with this comes centralized management and naturally server languages and protocols. My Microsoft MCITP certification helps me every day when problems or necessities arrive. On other hand, the Linux side of things was by me initially not welcomed, but since I started playing with software provided by the university it became clear, this is must know technology, that offers easy and free solutions. Nowadays I work with both environments Windows and Linux depending on the scenario and solution required.

I'm fortunate enough to being part of Cisco world with my CCNA certification, I believe that for an IT engineer to be successful, basic knowledge of networking is a requisite. Only then, he or she can be aware of how the web works and how the information flows. For a professional that administers networks this is a requirement. From single lab tests, to complete network re-installations, you can find projects on my portfolio.