Future of Web Design

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  • tgqt

    The 'future of flash' thread made me want to reply but it was off topic.

    PonyBoy states: Perhaps Flash would be more design-oriented if designers stopped crying and took a moment to learn to script...

    I am starting to run into a number of young talented designers who are also very talented coders. In the past when someone said they could design AND code it often threw up a red flag.

    Reflecting on PonyBoy's comment I think we are already at a point where web design is forking away from just 'design' and designers had better know css, html, and actionscript and how they work....because the new kids coming up have a huge advantage in this area.

    Now I'm not suggesting that the skillset is more important than the design, but Mr. Make The Logo Bigger will.

    thoughts?

  • zenmasterfoo0

    I think there are a great many excellent designers out there who are extremely qualified to design for web, and yet lack substantive skills in translating that design to HTML/CSS.

    There are also a great many coders with design skills who lack the ability to develop good CSS for the work they do.

    I'm tend to be more critical of those without the CSS than of those who choose to not code at all. They chose to work in HTML yet fail to grasp the importance of CSS to the work they create.

    I am, however, less likely to hire any of these designers for any projects I work on. Although more expensive, getting a designer with solid end to end skills is fundamentally a better approach to staffing than breaking the work up into teams.

  • Blue_Balls0

    one word "Zombo"

  • mistermik0

    "zenmasterfoo
    I think there are a great many excellent designers out there who are extremely qualified to design for web, and yet lack substantive skills in translating that design to HTML/CSS.
    There are also a great many coders with design skills who lack the ability to develop good CSS for the work they do.
    I'm tend to be more critical of those without the CSS than of those who choose to not code at all. They chose to work in HTML yet fail to grasp the importance of CSS to the work they create.
    I"

    rubbish.

  • KarlFreeman0

    I think tgqt what might be happening more and more often is that the new kids that aspire to be able to create awesome web sites are starting to learn design and code, hand in hand. The only issue we're going to have as an industry is those red flags might get harder to spot, but in the end its going to be exciting stuff for thoose who excel in one field or the other.

    • yes...I worked with a 20 year old who was incredibly skilled in design and coding recently.tgqt
  • lazerbass0

    yes the 'kids' have advantages in many areas of design beyond web stuff thanks to technology and transmutable ideas. Don't get me wrong but often I find that QBN is full of the 'design is dead' types who can't see beyond their own learned design approach and skill set...we're just going through a much steeper curve than many realize

  • tgqt0

    If I am after pure visual design direction I hire the designer separately from the coder -- hands down. Once that direction is attained I should be good for how long? X Years depending on the vertical.

    Once that direction is decided upon I want people who are multi-skilled to update and work on the site.

  • tgqt0

    I will add that where I work now we have a traditional designer with little skill outside of design. No coding, no css, no html...yet often solves things visually. So i'm not down on pure design skills...they are great.

  • ukit0

    I am one of those designers who feels comfortable learning code as well as design in the traditional sense...and I say it will never hurt to learn that stuff.

    I've worked in jobs where my job title was "user experience designer" and I never ever touched a line of code. My whole role was to work on the usability and visual design and then throw the design over the wall to the dev team. That kind of job title, "UX designer" and also "visual designer" is more and more common at big companies and also at agencies, where in general people are becoming more specialized, not less.

    On the other side of things, I've worked in startups or on freelance projects where I was working along or with a handful of people and had to do everything from HTML and Actionscript, to visual design and branding.

    So I would say both types of jobs are available...but it definitely helps to have a working knowledge of what technologies are out there and best practices even if you never touch a line of code yourself.

    I also think it's a good thing for designers to know these technologies if you are working in the interactive domain because IMHO projects turn out better when the designer handles things from beginning to end:)

  • BattleAxe0

    locally i see to many "agency" websites done in a drupal or joombla ,
    with frameworks in place like jquery and ready out of the box systems like wordpress , IMO is leading many "coders" a stray , going into these and learning what is going on is a great way to get a full grasp of coding html/css/js and a peek into backend stuff like php and mysql

    • good point... my css knowledge started from when i started playing with different publishing tools.tgqt
  • mrdoob0

    What I don't understand is - how a designer can design if they don't know the platform limitations? Specially for HTML/CSS stuff. Aren't those people the ones that keep asking "Is this possible?".

    I think a designer should be able to squeeze the platform (whether is Print or Web) doing things that even the developer didn't know it was possible. Otherwise, it's more a templater than a designer.

    Mmmm... I sound like an old man; repeating the same stories all the time...

    • agreedversion3
    • yeah I agree the print analogy is goodlazerbass
    • I'll have to disagree, I don't do actionscript or html, but I know what can and can't be done when I'm designing.Leigh
  • ukit0

    You could also compare the web technologies today to the skills a designer was expecting to know 30, 40 years ago in terms of print production, type setting etc. People we look back on from that era as the best weren't "pure" visual designers who never had to learn any of the additional skills, for the most part their design work was heavily based around their knowledge of the mechanics of the technology and its limitations.

  • PonyBoy0

  • boobs0

    I don't think most people are really doing much in terms of exploiting the capabilities of the web. Most people just try to make the web as "graphic design with links."

    1) Putting audio on web sites seems nearly anathema to most designers.
    2) Video even more so.

    Most designers seem to focus on the capabilities of the web as it was in late 1990s, before broadband became commonplace. Since then many have added a bit of CSS to their kit, which is of course utterly and completely static.

    Just remember: if you aren't doing something different, you really aren't doing anything at all.

  • ukit0

    Where'd uberdesigner go? I know he'd have some stuff to say about this.

  • must_dash0

    if you're a designer and can't put together web sites then you have to rely on others... simple as that... if you're happy with that then fine... I wouldn't be... but diff'rent strokes etc.

  • Pupsipu0

    CSS and HTML coding is pretty pointless to focus on. The only reason it's even expected from a designer is because there are no serious WYSIWIG editors now. But Flash Catalyst could be one for Flash, and there will be some others for JS/HTML5/CSS along the lines of Google Web Toolkit.

    Most of the coding designers need can be handled by applications. Most coders spend their time handling transition animations, browser inconsistencies, standards compliance, and other trite shit.

    I think that will be over in a few years, and they'll have to find projects along the lines of Google Wave or Digg Stream that improve some fundamental UI problem that designers can't just fix up visually.

  • Leigh0

    Better to be a master of one thing, than a jack of all trades and master of none.

  • studderine0

    if i were hiring a designer, i'd want someone with a broad background. i'd want them to know a little about coding, scripting, programming, prepress and the like. why not?

  • Pupsipu0

    I do coding in AS3 and design and I don't think it's practical for most designers to learn serious programming. I spent months on it. Coding big apps in Java/PHP/AS3 has nothing to do with putting together little HTML sites, even if they have little javascripts in places.

    It's all good to know, but I think you needs to be a certain critical mass of knowledge for it to be useful.

    If you hired a designer who coded as well, and had developers on staff, would you be able to take advantage of that designer's broad set of skills or just keep them in mind and feel better about it?

    It seems like the main advantage the employer gets is being able to hire someone who can be a developer is pay him a designer's salary.

    I think the real advantage of knowing design and programming is the kind of ideas you could come up with for projects.

  • dajaniel0

    I disagree with the 'master of one thing' argument.

    I pretty much feel that at least knowing the basics of CSS and the web is equivalent to knowing the basics of InDesign: I don't think they are necessarily more or less complex than each other, and I'd expect most designers (particularly news grads) to have at least a tiny bit of exposure to CSS etc.

    But also what I reckon is even better than actual web skills is evidence that they have 'had a go' at the CSS stuff, or maybe keen to get stuck in. The same goes for pure dev guys wanting to have a go at design for the web.

    An intern who is a pure typo/print guy we have had in recently redeveloped his site using some nice, subtle, Javascript effects. It isn't the most efficient or well coded stuff but I was dead impressed.