Should Designers Do Their Own HTML/CSS
There is a great debate going on over at 37 Signal’s Signals vs. Noise blog. They flat out say designers should code their own HTML/CSS. I agree for the most part, but there are exceptions to everything.
I work for a very large company and it would be impractical for the visual designers to code all their work. At some point it makes sense to hand the coding responsibility off. I do think their needs to be a close relationship between the designer and the person who is doing the coding. Also the designer should get code approval.
In the end I do believe you will make a better product if the designer codes his/her own work. I love coding in live templates where you can see different instances of the data you are laying out. Makes the end product much more refined.
Like every thing their is not one answer and 37 Signals tends to write articles from there narrow perspective. So take there opinions with a grain of salt.
What say you?
→ Colin @ June 9th, 2008 at 11:31 am
SvN has been making a lot more “Noise” lately. They’re attacking all sides. They don’t think designers should use Photoshop, and they don’t think there’s room for front-end coders who don’t design.
They kind of exist in a world of their own, and I think they like to throw hot potatoes into the crowds of us lowly agency/freelance designers and coders. I’ve never followed SvN but it’s funny to catch their posts when they ripple throughout the webgeekoblogosphere.
→ Ollie Kavanagh @ June 10th, 2008 at 3:34 am
I didn’t agree with 37 signal’s views on the photoshop debate, and I don’t totally agree with their views on the coding either. I originally came from a Graphic Design background and passed the coding off to someone else to do, but I made sure I was learning bit by bit the process and how it was taken from pad to screen. To me if you are a designer passing of the code to be done it is so beneficial to understand the process and how it’s done as I have had to many situations where the designer has no idea how his work is gonna be implemented on the web and the possibilities.
Now I count myself as a pretty good coder after diving headfirst into it for the past two years and I love having the balance between coding and design and being first hand in getting the designs in my sketchbook/photoshop onto screen. But there are still a lot of companies that have both parts and will keep the design completely seperate from the front end coders. Personally I don’t think I could work like this but I understand why its still done.
→ Marcello @ June 15th, 2008 at 1:39 pm
I’m a designer who does my own code (or perhaps a coder who does my own design) and it definitely makes me a more flexible, marketable, and cost-effective worker. My clients and employers are getting some pretty darn good websites at a pretty reasonable price. And personally, I enjoy being able to exercise both sides of my brain!
But let’s face it: if I devoted myself solely to coding I’d probably write better code. If I devoted myself solely to design I’d probably come up with some better designs. Can’t have everything, y’know?
So it really comes down to what the project requires and what the budget will allow. if you want a world-class website and can afford one, then hire one or more coding experts and one or more design experts. If you only need or can only afford a “pretty darn good” website, then hire me :-)
→ Chris @ June 24th, 2008 at 1:14 am
This is a tough one. I’m a web designer and have been hand coding html/css for around 4+ years. It seems that most of the agencies/studios here in NYC use front-end coders. I currently work at a small design shop that strictly does design and I really miss those relaxing days of coding at the day job. I am the only employee with the title Web Designer. Everyone else is an Art Director even though they design websites, emails, and banner ads. I think to carry the title Web Designer you should at least have skills in coding html/css. If you don’t have these skills you are just dabbling in web design.
I know flash and action script 2.0, but I wouldn’t call myself as a Flash Designer or Developer.
I feel that I am a lot different than a Graphic Designer. They know about presses, colors, and random print related things that I don’t. I specialize in issues related to the web such as seo-effective layouts, usability, information architecture, etc…
I just feel like you have to draw the line somewhere and it should be at having the ability to code your own work.
We are all designers but e have expertise in different mediums. :-)
→ Jim Cook @ June 27th, 2008 at 10:16 am
I thought 37signals was maybe a bit extreme in their views… but not incorrect. There are way too many times that I have seen Photoshop comps by people who have no clue about the nuances and, sometimes, limitations of HTML and CSS. The following invariably ensues:
“Why do the fonts look different?”
“Shouldn’t that [element] be three pixels to the left?”
“Why does it take so long to download?”
With all the ways that information is accessed today, the era of “just make it pretty” is most definitely over. A designer needs to have a fundamental knowledge of the medium for which they are designing. Using a WYSIWYG authoring tool is not necessarily a bad thing, certainly a time-saver, as long as you understand (a) what you’ve produced and (b) how to tweak or fix it.
Any designer who is good at what they do, understands the web medium and can work with the development team to produce good, semantic code will not go without a job.
→ Jim Cook @ June 30th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Sorry, I left out my favorite complaint…
“That line in that paragraph should not wrap there. Can’t we make the web page do that?”
→ Steve - Eightyone Design @ July 5th, 2008 at 10:31 am
I have read a lot on this subject lately, everyone seems to be talking about it.
I class myself as a graphic designer. I can however code the front end of websites (something I have forced myself to do over the last two years) and whilst I would say that I am definitely not a programmer, I can get by building standards compliant websites.
For what its worth, my view is that anyone who is designing (visually) a website definitely needs knowledge of code. Too many times I have seen mock ups from non coding designers which are completely impractical (or impossible). We do a lot of work just designing the visuals of website which then get handed to a developer to build the site and I feel we have gotten this work based on the fact that we are aware of what you can and can not do with XHTML and CSS.
I do not think you have to be a master of all things web (php / MySQL / etc) but I do think any designer who is creating work for the web should know the fundamentals of coding.
Steve
→ Brockdin Barr @ July 6th, 2008 at 6:41 am
I code my own designs in valid XHTML/CSS, but really does it matter? Who cares as long as the result is great design and great code.
→ Meredith @ August 26th, 2008 at 8:37 pm
If you’re a web designer you really ought to learn how to code. That’s the whole part of throwing “web” into your title – if you’re just a visual designer and work in a department type where you are able to hand your work off to say, a production designer, whose sole responsibility is to slice your mockups into XHTML/CSS, then it’s likely you won’t need it.
In the end, it just depends on the structure and needs of every team. My title is web desginer and I am the only one on my production team who performs both visual and development tasks; I don’t like handing off my own code because I can’t always control how people will code it. While it’s hard sometimes to check my own work, it does give me much more control over my project and independence within my team. Plus (and this is especially true at the 100-lb corporate gorilla where I work), I can’t force someone else to code with standards (no matter how hard I’ve tried over the last few years), or force them to use tables only for tabular data so this way I can ensure that everything validates. By writing my own code, I can future-proof my designs and really flesh out my portfolio with a myriad of skills.
→ Meredith @ August 26th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
*handing off my own designs. I like doing my own code, is what I meant.
→ John @ August 28th, 2008 at 5:18 pm
What tool do you use to publish this site? WordPress? Nice site btw
→ Rik Catlow @ August 28th, 2008 at 6:08 pm
Thanks John. Yup it’s Wordpress.
→ Leon P @ September 1st, 2008 at 10:27 am
Web pages aren’t posters – they’re documents that should be structured meaningfully. Therefore the people that make them (i.e. designers) should know how to mark documents up — the graphics, javascript, Flash etc. should come after the plain old HTML and serve to emphasise its meaning. I’m guessing what normally happens is the other way round – the poor ‘coders’ have to try and make something out of some Photoshop creation.
→ Daus @ September 8th, 2008 at 12:26 pm
I do design, and not much of doing codes. That is why I hardly call myself a web designer. I feel more comfortable if people just call me designer.
→ D.A. @ January 3rd, 2009 at 1:18 am
As I’ve lived and worked in many different situations from operating equipment to writing PHP functions for mySQL queries, I know it’s better to not have weaknesses that your afraid of. Meaning that your best asset is your ability to use your confidence to accomplish a design that’s better than what the client expects, and know that you can see it through without an ignorance of how it’ll be coded.
Knowing the entire work-flow and having a versatile understanding of the closest processes outside of your own gives you the upper hand, and confidence that makes you valuable.
→ whcs @ January 24th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Well…. I agree that designers should be able to code their own. First off, learning XHTML, CSS, a choice of your server code – PHP or AJAX for example, and Jscript are not by means hard. They were written to be understood easily, and are among the most basic of computer languages. Any respectable designer should be able to do a simple site – portfolio/web forum/blog/etc. Compared to what programming-heavy professions have to go through (real languages: C++, C#, Java, etc.), site and server coding is a piece of cake.
A great (WEB) designer must know both design and… basic coding.
→ Steve D @ March 7th, 2009 at 12:50 pm
I would never expect a developer to understand the ins and outs of typography, just as I wouldn’t expect a web designer to build their own custom CMS.
For a designer, busting headlong into PHP is rarely inspiring, and less often is it productive. I feel that in many cases things like PHP, Content Management and the building of more complex functionality is left to a designer who may not understand the power of the language they are dealing with. Designers can run through a tutorial or use a library like jQuery to add more complex code too, but anything more is going to take experience and expertise.
Likewise I have seen sites designed by developers and the problem is reversed. Sure they can make it work, and sure the coding is great, but visually they tend to leave a lot to be desired. Again this is due to a lack of understanding from the developer about the power of the medium they are dealing with.
The two jobs were always intended to go hand in hand, and it can work. The designer should be able to design, code the front of the site, and concern themselves with any issues that involve user experiences. Any functionality such as complex back end coding, scripting languages or systems should be dealt with by a proper developer.
I think web designer and web developers like to have the “all in one” approach as their customers will get their website with one person/company. However I’d like to see more developer/designer teams springing up to give the clients better and more realized solutions by drawing on the expertise of both.