Graphic designers and the unknown medium

As the title indicates this post is specifically targeted at the ongoing discussions that swept twitter yesterday regarding whether or not designers should have a hand in coding their designs.

Initially this was started by Elliot Jay Stocks who tweeted:

Honestly, I’m shocked that in 2010 I’m still coming across ‘web designers’ who can’t code their own designs. No execuse.

Since I spend a lot of time working closely with designers I thought it would be interesting to weigh in on some of the points which have been floating around.

Should designers be able to code their own designs? Yes, no, maybe… I mean actually it has less to do with code and more to do with understanding the medium. In all the time I have worked with designers, the one thing I have found refreshing is to work with designers who actually understand the medium in which they are working. Unlike print, which is a very controlled medium, moving into the web is very much a different experience for designers. Without properly understanding the medium in which they work you are destined for hard to implement designs which do not make use of benefits of the web.

In order to make things pretty on the web designers need to first understand principally what is possible, how their design will work, that what they are designing can actually be implemented without too many browser limitations and that it will look as good on the web as it did in Illustrator when they were making it.

I am not advocating that designers should go out and learn HTML, CSS and Javascript and do it all themselves, unless of course you are a sole-trader, but in understand the medium you will in turn work quicker, smarter and produce designs that are easy to implement, manage and maintain over longer periods.

For those who have come from print backgrounds, this is what you already know, it’s what you have done in print for years. You first learnt the medium, its constraints and how to deal with them. Now you need to learn the new medium you find yourself working in.


 
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  • mike
    Working with the 960 grid and the YUI systems are excellent for this, I agree, but purely working within the constraints isn't the whole story. The complaint seems to go deeper, in that a virtual media which changes based on depth of content is somewhat un-designable. Designing for an ideal environment is a great way to think about it, but the reality of most web solutions is less than ideal and as such is difficult to create a design for it. How does one create a solution for an unidentifiable problem? is more the question, while in print its boundaries are fixed, and in so much is limitations are set. While in web design, and also true of web development, when considering the problem, I'm commonly told "[19/02/10 5:04:50 PM] Andrew Duck: yeh its all possible" - which creates a scope that could be infinitely open and with unlimited ways to maybe develop a scope - where to start. How to design something if everything that it will do is possible. That is where I get hung.

    I can design structures and wireframes for possible things that might happen, and consider 80% of the things that I would consider out of the square, however designing web sites for something that is totally open ended doesn't come that easy. Always willing to try, however I don't consider myself a UI/UX web designer as such, more a graphic designer with some knowledge and understanding of the digital medium.
  • Think of HTML and CSS as your grid system though, it's the stuff that glues it all together. If you can't appreciate the limitations and benefits of working within that system and how it changes across various systems interpreting that data then how can you successfully design within its constraints?
  • Mike
    Just like web there are print standards, we also have blind people, colour blind, visually and mentally impaired. Designing for web from purely the visual aspect is one aspect, which both print and web have some of the same concerns to address. While the information architecture of the print medium and web medium is vastly different, and one of the hardest concepts to get. Css and HTML doesn't really help that aspect, I agree with you on the other parts.
  • Mike
    Excellent choice, now I need to resolve client expectations, seems that design is interchangable. Would I ask an architect to design a brochure, or ask a civil engineer to design a website. I've been told by a client that they could do what I do in 10mins, and that includes making a website. If I too, learn the new medium can I build websites like them in 10mins?
  • It certainly is different - but to design for it you have to at least understand it. That includes understand what is possible within the realm of HTML and CSS to get your pretty design online, as well as what different browsers, and then browsers on specific operating systems/devices, will actually allow you to do.

    Your piece of A4 paper doesn't change size or colour when two different people in your office look at it... but they will on the web.
  • Mike
    The medium is not unknown, it's different. Some girls do, some girls don't. Print is not web, if you are a web designer, you may think print is dead easy, but I've been shocked over the years how indesign and ie just don't play well together. ;)
  • Mike
    What really grinds my gears is how web developed constantly whinge about how graphic designers are not web designers. It's a similar issue to why system admins aren't web designers, it's not the same job title. But web developers seem to ask 2 things of one role and expect to see some miricle take place. Award winning print designers understand their medium.
  • Then award winning print designers really shouldn't be designing for the web if they don't understand the medium. Design is dependent on the medium in which you are working, if you can't work in a given medium because you don't understand it then you have two options... learn it and design for it, or don't.
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