Do you need to code to be a designer

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  • section_0140

    Designers should learn CSS, HTML, and have a basic understanding of data binding and other bits they'll see in HTML.

    Unless you are generally interested in programming, leave that to the developer. Aside from the view part of Angular, it's no different from the role of a backend developer. It has nothing to do with aesthetics, and everything to do application architecture.

    I've seen some absolutely horrendous Javascript wrote by "Front End Devs" who lacked to basics of good development skills. Nested if statements 6 layers deep, database queries in the controller, 1000+ line scripts that should have been broken down into 5 different services.

    It's no one's fauly per se, but designers should be designing, and not have application development tacked on just because it's in Javascript. "Front End" development is software development. It's programming, just like building a backend api.

  • Continuity2

    My general rule of thumb when I consider a web design candidate (or any designer or art director, really) is if they have a basic understanding of what is or isn't possible on the web. Beyond that, whether or not they can mark up or do back-end coding is utterly irrelevant to me. There are people in this building who get paid to do that all day. I want creatives.

    • This is greatbklyndroobeki
    • your hired!yurimon
    • are you a designer yurimon?monospaced
    • then you're only hiring people based on what they know, equivalent or less than what you would know.omg
    • Instead of hiring smarter people based on what they might be capable of doing in the future.omg
    • that is by hiring people with basic understanding, or what is or isn't possible on the web.omg
    • I think most successful people who designed for the web never knew what was possible on the internet until they tried it.omg
    • Everything is content driven now, design is kinda back seat. few sites express pure design especially if you have multiple contributors to a project.yurimon
    • Didn't the "content is king" theory die in the 2000s?omg
    • I think it died as a marketing slogan. you have content management which is still high on content value just diversified because of diff media and delivery sysyurimon
    • i thought content was meaningless these days compared to aggregation of it. (for example news companies vs twitter and facebook.)omg
    • content is still a base for everything, quality is another conversation, but aggregation cant happen without content. marketing lingo is different.yurimon
    • now everyone designing is a story teller. but facebook to me is user based content may be different category prob fits aggregation areayurimon
    • part of the sharing economy.yurimon
    • lol. someone is trying to keep the upvotes to a minimum.bklyndroobeki
    • passing the buck along isn't efficientdoesnotexist
  • bklyndroobeki0
  • yurimon1

    aren't designers for the web these days more of digital mechanical layout artist? with 20% graphics work for most websites? 80% on layout and user interface functionality considerations?

  • Pupsipu0

    If you design for computer you have to be a capable programmer, not just code HTML/CSS.

    Current computer interface design was largely finished decades ago in the 1968 NLS Mother of All Demos and then XEROX PARC. (Where Steve Jobs got the ideas for Macintosh)

    Almost everyone involved in in those projects programmed. Then they hired a tiny minority of artists to decorate.

    Not much has been "designed" since then. Maybe rearranged for bigger screens. The web industry has been making UX catastrophes for a decade, until the UX discipline separated in like 2010. And that discipline settled on 5 templates for everything. Also small screens helped simplify UIs significantly, just as the original Windows and Mac were simpler on tiny resolution screens.

    A non-programmer can only rearrange the deck chairs so to speak. UX designers can simplify a UI until grandmas can use it by trading off capability. But this approach is necessitated by the mess programmers created by bundling functionality into monolithic apps.

    The next redesign is going to be based around natural language systems like Siri with extra buttons for power users. And as usual 90% of the design will be done by programmers and a few decorators. Then as usual, the industry will find some way to squander the potential of these systems.

    Something like the Wolfram Language Demo mixed with http://whoo.ps/2015/02/23/future… although Wolfram is not all that in practice

    Some more thoughts on actual computer "design" http://pchiusano.github.io/2013-…

    • Of course the average web designer will just be redecorating some templates so this doesn't apply. Do not learn code, go outside.Pupsipu
    • < this is you make crappy shitty products. a disrespect for simplicity, disregard for user experience, decorating rather than designing great ideas.omg
    • BTW- Steve Jobs considered himself an artist and barely touched the computer. His work is still the basis for most if not all mobile/ computer based idea.omg
    • ^ really?fadein11
  • pango0

    Do you even code?

  • 3stripe0

    started a flowchart to make some sense of this...

  • drake-von-drake0

    Why would you ever need "code" to be a designer? It's not a prerequisite per se.

  • mugwart0

    My experience its best if the other "department" can comprehend and grasp the other department.

    I still find it shocking that that developers don't use the software they are building for but "artists" (wacom users) handle it quite aggressively and have no fucking clue about the requests they are asking, "can you just do this and can it be done this after noon", without knowing the extend of requests.
    Us nerds are normally pushed into some god forsaken room as an embarrassment!!

    So to answer your question - its best to understand your industry in its entirety, as an artist you don't have to know how to build a software suite in c++ but trying to compile a hello world via command line will have you respecting the other person a heck of a lot more and via verse.

    My 10 pence!

    • +1, this is definitely worth more than 10p!MrT
  • doesnotexist1

    helps to know how things work if you want to be a designer.

    do you need to know how a car works to design one? maybe not if you're a stylist.