Comments on: Should web designers be able to build their own designs?

By: Understanding your medium « this is rachelandrew.co.uk

Understanding your medium « this is rachelandrew.co.uk — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 18:13:48 +0000

[...] don’t think this works just fine on the modern web. We’ve visited this subject before, and I strongly believe that you cannot design for the web unless you understand your medium. [...]

By: Building Confidence in Children

Building Confidence in Children — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 13:34:57 +0000

Wonderful Web site! I was wondering if I would be able site some of your pages and use a handful of items for a school assignment. Please drop me an email if its ok or not. Thanks

By: John Loudon

John Loudon — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 08:46:01 +0000

A web designer is not a web designer if the can’t code html / CSS. That removes the ‘Web’ part of it, and makes them a “graphic designer” as they are designing a layout for the web not an actual web site. (css) is design its more our side that dev.

Its weird I have went for interviews and had to knock them back because they just wanted me to draw pretty pictures all day. Can’t understand agencies that want someone to draw and someone to build the UI and someone else to build the dynamics… The way we work is we have 34 dev’s that work with JAVA, PERL to build the apps and the 4 web designers can code, design, and advise what’s the best course for the project. That way if its web design that’s required we can build it and test it.

By: prisca

prisca — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 15:07:45 +0000

Rachel,
great post – very interesting to read your views as a developer on this debate. I’m a webdesigner who handcodes, working on mainly smaller sized projects though I do work with developers for any larger scale projects.
And though I also agree with Mark’s view – I think that as a webdesigner, knowing how your design will ultimately be realised is essential. And not only that – the debate ~ from the bits I’ve read anyway ~ has left out how much inspiration can come from knowing your code. It will not only make you a better designer – it will in fact open new avenues, new design angles and make the entire process from design to final site so much more efficient and fun

By: Weekend Links « a work on process

Weekend Links « a work on process — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 13:04:47 +0000

[...] Elliot Jay Stocks kicked things off and I principally noted contributions from Mark Boulton and Rachel Andrew. It seems that the key is that designers need to understand the capabilities and constraints of the [...]

By: Pete B

Pete B — Fri, 19 Feb 2010 08:55:46 +0000

In my experience what I’ve really wanted from designers is not only an appreciation of the constraints (pngs, ie6 etc.) but also usability and accesibility concerns. Jakob Nielsen may be a little divisive but if the designers I work with read one of his books then I wouldn’t have to correct basic usability problems during the build phase of a project

By: Web designers who can’t code | web non-sense : blog on web design, photography, music and jeeps

Thu, 18 Feb 2010 15:03:00 +0000

[...] Rachel Andrew – Should web designers be able to build their own designs? [...]

By: Lance

Lance — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:57:09 +0000

Strong points Rachel. I also think awareness of your fellow specialists is a must, that synergy just can’t be ignored.

To summarize, I think the web design community has two factions. The “just” decorators, and the full-pledged web designer.

Eric Karjaluoto has an interesting post regarding this: http://www.ideasonideas.com/2009/05/drones-at-the-karaoke-lounge-of-design/

By: Paul Cripps

Paul Cripps — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:48:55 +0000

Great post Rachel, I agree with the both the post and Andy Budd’s views.

Here at Nine Four we tend to work in a similar way to you guys with a little more emphasis on Design. A large percentage of our work also comes from other design agencies. We found the best way to handle designs from designers who don’t always have “hands on” experience of XHTML / CSS is to have the designer produce a few design ideas, rather than designing the entire site, think of these designs as a starting point you can build upon.

We then take on the role of designer / UI design / developers and produce the XHTML / CSS and design the site in the browser. This give us a little more freedom to allow the design to grown into a fully functional website, sophisticated website.

Sometimes it takes a while for the designer/agancy to have the confidence to allow us to work this way, but once the relationship has matured it’s a great way or working. Both the designer and ourselves feel they are getting the best from the given job… everyones thoughts are taken on board and I hope we produce greater websites.

Bare in mind it can also go the other way too, some companies / designers supply every PSD and HTML template, whilst this works 90% of the time it can be a little restrictive, and if there are browser bugs to fix once the CMS is bolted on it can be a very frustrating time trawling through someone’s XHTML / Css, even if its written well it will take time to resolve.

Moving forward I’d like to think designers do take more of an interest in technology and gain some hands on experience. If they don’t do this however I think our above way of working provides just a rich end results.

By: Grant Vandersee

Grant Vandersee — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 10:18:56 +0000

Good comments, Rachel.
I think that if you can’t write HTML & CSS, then you aren’t a web designer at all, you are a digital painter. I can’t imagine ever working with someone who called themselves a web designer but didn’t know how to write the code. To me, they are claiming to be a web designer without knowing how to design for the web, which is obviously crazy.