A lot of programmers I’ve talked to lately are worried about Ruby on Rails. They are worried that this framework is going to put a tremendous amount of power in the hands of anyone with a computer and a free weekend. They’re concerned that, just like Frontpage and Dreamweaver did to web design, Rails and frameworks like it are going to let anyone become a programmer.
I think that’s all true. And I think they have absolutely nothing to be worried about.
Today about half of my day was spent sifting through over 400 resumes from people all over the country. They have various backgrounds, various work histories, various talents and skills. They all have one thing in common - they call themselves ‘web designers.’
Out of 400 resumes my colleagues and I managed to whittle the list down to about a dozen. This isn’t a dozen strong candidates, mind you - this is a dozen people who passed the initial screening. I’m sure these people are very bright, energetic, creative, and hard working. I’m sure they have a ton to offer some company out there. Just not for the service they are advertising.
This is the fourth time we’ve done a search like this since I took over the creative department. And the search has yielded 3 people.
Perhaps this is because I’m extremely picky, but I’m becoming more and more convinced that there are web designers, and there are Web Designers.
Web Designers understand that theirs is not a service or a hobby or a skill. It is a craft, as much of a craft as painting or writing poetry or making shoes. They understand that a great Web Designer is not twice as good as everyone else - they’re 10-20 times as good.
Web Designers are obsessed with their code - they abhor tools like Dreamweaver. Their chisel is the text editor, and their code is painstakingly written by hand.
Web Designers are students of design - golden ratios, kerning, letting, color theory and the like. They know that unless they understand design the way a painter or sculptor understands design, their work will suffer.
Web Designers are focused first and last on what the user’s needs are. They don’t use tricks or effects for their own sake, but ground their work in methods that make their user’s lives easier.
Web Designers are constantly looking for ways to improve what they do. They were the first to move from tables to divs, the first to validate, the first to design for multiple browsers and media. They were the first to take advantage of AJAX and unobtrusive Javascript to make their sites more intuitive. They were the first to begin stripping everything out of their pages that wasn’t necessary or beneficial. They’re the ones who are constantly learning, stretching, growing.
There will always be plenty of web designers out there, but Web Designers are few and far between.
4 responses
Hey Sean -
I agree with most of this, but I know quite a few Web Designers (notice the capital letters ;) ) that use tools like Dreamweaver to code with. As far as code editors go, it’s certainly not MS Frontpage!
Then again, I am definitely not a Web Designer. So, who knows…
thanks
s
Noted - my guys have to use Dreamweaver at the office for uploading their files to the server (using RDS for some reason.) Dreamweaver is a perfectly good piece of software.
An aside - it probably is a good idea to make sure your Flickr photos display the way they’re supposed to on all you pages before you decide to write a post on great web design. I’m an idiot. :)
Don’t forget the distinction between GRAPHIC designers and WEB designers.
New medium = new skills.
Print != web.
Just because I’m a painter doesn’t mean I can call myself a sculptor, even though I might paint my sculptures when I’m done.
We run into that more than anything else - print people who think that the web is just a big digital postcard.