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  • Web Design or Graphic Design

    #1
    or indeed is there a difference?

    this may ruffle a few feathers, i apologise for potentially lighting the blue touch paper but her goes.

    having trained in graphic design before the first Mac appeared in our the studio, i fell i have a solid background in the techniques and skills associated with the trade however, i constantly and i mean constantly come up against "web designers" who IMO can be very good at thier web job, think that they are graphics designers......i personally think you can be both, but i also think that those guys that have only ever built sites are not automatically GDer's.

    maybe i have just been exposed to a bad bunch, i wont tell them how to build databases and do loads of boring coding, as long as they dont tell me how to layout page spreads!!!

    you guessed it just had an argument with a web developer on a project that has sparked this thread!!!

    interested to see if i am in the minority with my thoughts here....
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  • #2
    Hi, yeah I can see were you are coming from, I read a book called "How Designers Think" for mt Thesis and it gives some info on this subject... basically you can't 100% define a designer as either Graphic, Web or whatever... its states and I think its true, that no matter what job a designer is in they will dabble in other fields too... so I guess they're just interested in other aspects of design and don't really mean to come across as being the jack of all trades.

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    • #3
      I think solitary freelancers can cross over between the two but usually it seems one specializes in one or the other.

      If hungry for work, most will say they can do anything and clump all graphic design/web design into one all encompassing category.

      I'll generally outsource the web development but I play a big part in the initial design with the client.

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      • #4
        I think some people are just good at some things and not so good at others.

        I find that being mechanically minded and artistic helps me out as a good web designer, I'm not good at creating logos although if i had to i think i could.

        It might all fit under the umbrella of design but there's a lot of grey areas.

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        • #5
          I interviewed Gregg Greenwood, former senior Web designer/programmer for Sony Music Entertainment and who currently teaches Web Design at the School of Visual Arts (SVA), about this issue. Have a read:

          http://blogs.graphicdesignforum.com/...ear_web_d.html

          I think today that companies really need to differentiate between Web developers and Web designers, and even interface designers. While there are those who can do all three or even two of the three, I think competition is fierce enough that specialization may be warranted in some places.

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          • #6
            im glad i wasnt too outspoken on this issue after readign the comments so far.

            what prompted me to start this thread was a conversation with a web devloper who is working alongside myself on a branding project. although i do not create/build websites i have supplied to him various layouts for the web presence to fall in line with the overall new identity, he has drastically changed these on occasion to the point that the new brand identity is compromised but the scary thing is he has no grasp or undersatunding of what impact the changes are making, he sees nothing wrong with it....he is avery knowledgable person in his field yet undetsatnds little about visual design, yet he calls himself a designer!!!

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            • #7
              Originally posted by steve-o

              http://blogs.graphicdesignforum.com/...ear_web_d.html
              thanks steve, interesting reading!!

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              • #8
                I put this on my website some time ago to educate potential clients about this very point, only because I've been approached by lots of clients questioning why thier website works ok but doesn't really look like their corporate material

                You'll find it here http://www.squareonemd.co.uk/web-developer.html

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                • #9
                  twoguns, did you explain to him why his changes compromise the new branding identity?

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                  • #10
                    Originally posted by twogun
                    im glad i wasnt too outspoken on this issue after readign the comments so far.

                    what prompted me to start this thread was a conversation with a web devloper who is working alongside myself on a branding project. although i do not create/build websites i have supplied to him various layouts for the web presence to fall in line with the overall new identity, he has drastically changed these on occasion to the point that the new brand identity is compromised but the scary thing is he has no grasp or undersatunding of what impact the changes are making, he sees nothing wrong with it....he is avery knowledgable person in his field yet undetsatnds little about visual design, yet he calls himself a designer!!!
                    He sounds more like a developer than a designer. And it sounds like you guys have some communication issues to sort out -- has he given you a *reason* for changing things? Perhaps there are technical reasons?

                    Either way, that would irk me. lol Hang in there.

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                    • #11
                      Well there are some issues between the 2. For instance, graphic designers aren't necessarily well versed in user-friendliness issues. They think in terms of asthetics. So you could really split this into 3 categores instead of 2. The designer, whose measuring stick is asthetics, the developer who considers only efficient coding, how to make it "work" reliably, and the GUI specialist, who considers how the user will respond to what is presented to them, and asked of them.

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