Well I guess the title explains a lot, Are designers favored more in the web design community over developers? And does the average salary reflect this. When ever I hear web design companies talking, they always seem to want to hire designers with "creative prowess and ability" and put a massive emphasis on design and hardly ever treat developers with as much pride of place.

A company came into college a few month back to give a speech, seemed to do this too, they demonstrated all their shinny design work. Glossy buttons, fresh clean layouts etc... But when asked about their development methodologies (a blank gaze washed over his face) could hardly reply after the question was re-iterated a little more... simply... His response was "yeah... We have a guy in the back that does all our PHP work and stuff" I thought ******* hell (excuse my language) but WTF! 7-8 designers all drinking bottled water and all the development, the real functionality of the sites placed on one sultry developer's shoulders. That smacks of a bad business model to me.

 

OK so we all know that without good design a web site will noes dive on the ol' hit counter and a lot of people out there base their opinion, trust and acceptance of a site on it's appearance and that's OK, it's human nature, but isn't functionality just as important? isn't there real creativity in developing really powerful web apps or services with clean creative code? I don't want to start an argument on who's more important but should all Web creators endeavor to understand at least the basic fundamentals of all disciplines within the profession ?

If you suck at programming, perhaps a little basic knowledge of JavaScript wouldn't kill you and if your not the artist type at least understanding what a layer is and tinkering with flash,fireworks,photoshop,corel-draw,gimp etc every now and then wouldn't kill you?

So what is your opinion? is their a gap between developers and designers or do the lines blur? Is this particular example I have seen, not reflect the true nature of the industry, and rather a business of a false economy?

 

P.s.

• Avg annual salary for senior PHP Dev
  
• Avg annual salary for PHP Dev
  
• Avg annual salary senior Designer
  
• Avg annual salary Designer
  

Salaries appear about even but still from job searching and general chit chat on the grape vine I have drawn my above query.

I have to say that I have absolutely no skill with design, or creativity per se but manage just nicely to make a living from PHP. I think php developers are the thinkers where as the designers have the flare. You don't need to be creative to develop an app, that's where the idea comes from, but the actual execution of that idea is all about the thinking, and so to be a good developer you need to be smart and be capable of spotting ways of increasing performance in your code

Are designers favored more in the web design community over developers?

[snip]

I hear web design companies talking, they always seem to want to hire designers with "creative prowess and ability" and put a massive emphasis on design

This isn't really surprising if they are Web design agencies you're talking about?! On the other hand, corporate programming houses and Web application development teams appreciate programmers who know their paradigms, patterns and optimisation techniques and have little/no interest in graphics. As you noted, most PHP jobs are found outside design agencies.

 

On a side note, quite a few of the Web design agencies I have approached as a client either wanted to deliver just the HTML/CSS/graphics, or use a CMS (open source or their own bespoke system) simply because they don't routinely develop custom code. Actually, we have our own in-house programmers (from C/C++ and Java to PHP and databases), so this arrangement works well. But if I didn't have these skills at hand, I would be looking for a programming house to do a proper job of the development work too.

 

That smacks of a bad business model to me.

A good business often sticks to one task and does it well - if design agencies are producing fabulously creative content, then they are serving their clearly-defined purpose, without a need to spread themselves into the programming market

Yeah true I forgot about one of the golden rules of business "stick to what you know." Thanks I can see I lost a lot of perspective there and that's kinda grounded me again. thanks

Well im a developer and have noo good design skills really but i really could not say developers deserve more i mean sure they do alot of the heavy lifting and thinking but i've seen some amazing designers out there so idk but good question i But ur right it all boils down to sticking to what you know and i know i'd never trade my Php skills for designing

My job title is designer but i label myself as a hybrid and have spent the last six months learning PHP. From the job vacancies i have looked at, either designer or developer....the developer is always paid more and rightly so!

 

But...more and more agencies are asking for hybrids and the designer v's developer is starting to wear thin. Anyone with a little bit of savvy would look at themselves and learn both! And if your gonna label yourself as a "Designer", it's just an excuse not to invest time in learning to program. Likewise a developer....anyone who say's "I couldn't draw a straight line to save me life" is often used to justify time not spent learning the basics of graphic design. Learn both....do both! You become more marketable and increase your job prospects.

 

There is Sooooo many FREE tutorials out there on both design and development and with a little dedication...anyone can learn both!

My job title is designer but i label myself as a hybrid and have spent the last six months learning PHP. From the job vacancies i have looked at, either designer or developer....the developer is always paid more and rightly so!

 

But...more and more agencies are asking for hybrids and the designer v's developer is starting to wear thin. Anyone with a little bit of savvy would look at themselves and learn both! And if your gonna label yourself as a "Designer", it's just an excuse not to invest time in learning to program. Likewise a developer....anyone who say's "I couldn't draw a straight line to save me life" is often used to justify time not spent learning the basics of graphic design. Learn both....do both! You become more marketable and increase your job prospects.

 

There is Sooooo many FREE tutorials out there on both design and development and with a little dedication...anyone can learn both!

 

I'd class myself as a developer. Have a basic knowledge of Photoshop, and if required could whip up an acceptable design... but nowhere near as good as some peoples work I've seen. I'm good at developing. Self taught myself everything I know, and am still learning.

 

Whilst I think it's great that people can do both, I also still think sticking to your core competency is going to provide the highest quality of work. If you're amazing at both, fair do's, but I couldn't do it.

 

Design work to me seems more diffcult, but then.. I don't know a great deal about it. Have tried using tutorails, and they do help. But I prefer to program.. can't help it. . Guess it's in my blood. .

 

If you're freelance, then learning both is definately going to be good for you. But if you work for a big agency, then I'm sure excelling in one of the areas is perfectly fine, and possibly even preferred.

 

I could never see myself doing any incredible design work. But developing some beast of a platform/application.. is something I can see myself doing. .

I could never see myself doing any incredible design work. But developing some beast of a platform/application.. is something I can see myself doing. .

 

And is.. and will always be a lot difficult to do than design. That's why developers are worth every penny. I did a year learning Photoshop & flash and used what's on the web for inspiration and worked from that. You can't find inspiration like that being a programmer can you? You have to stay inspired or you either get frustrated, confused or bored. If you have the desire....the passion to write a beast of an application? then surely learning Photoshop, fireworks ect would be a breeze???

And is.. and will always be a lot difficult to do than design. That's why developers are worth every penny. I did a year learning Photoshop & flash and used what's on the web for inspiration and worked from that. You can't find inspiration like that being a programmer can you? You have to stay inspired or you either get frustrated, confused or bored. If you have the desire....the passion to write a beast of an application? then surely learning Photoshop, fireworks ect would be a breeze???

 

I am actually in the process of developing my designing skills. But I would never put design before developing, as the developing side of things is obviously my main area of skill.

 

It really depends on the preferences of people. If they enjoy design work aswell, then I'm sure if they wanted to.. they could learn how to do it. If they didn't, then fair enough.. they wouldn't learn it.

 

But if someone can learn how to program, then there is no reason really why they couldn't, as you say, learn how to use PS/Flash.

 

Inspiration in the designing industry is much easier than in programming. It's all there in front of you, and whilst they still need to think outside of the box to produce innovative work.. for a programmer.. its not visually depicted. You can't view other code (PHP), with the exception of HTML/CSS... so you have to think really hard.

 

I don't think design work is easy, but I do think that developing is much more difficult. Designers do deserve to be paid well, as the work that can be produced is frankly outstanding.

I think this is a really intresting topic.

 

I think I am a 50/50. I really like the different work patterns that this grants me. I could be doing design for 4 days then coding for 2 weeks. Its about variety.

 

If I were honest though I would say that I am neither an expert at either discipline. This can be a handicap at times when I need to get a contractor in at busy times.

 

However the phone rings and my portfolio gets larger so someone must like my work.

 

In terms of salary, I think the days of salary by job title have long gone. If you are good and you know it, you will command a good salary.

Personally, I believe that people who focus purely on art OR code are failing to engage with the intrinsic properties of the medium. A craftsman is measured by their skill in working WITH their material of choice. To quote Marshall Mcluhan, the medium IS the message.

 

The web is not a Photoshop file, nor is it server side code. The web is data, content, meaning. Design is not a VISUAL task, although it can be used to solve visual problems. Too many designers approach the task of presenting content as an exercise in leveraging eye candy, too many developers disregard the role of typography and layout in the comprehension of information. If you approach design as an abstract task independent of the medium of execution, visual layout and application architecture have a lot in common. The web would not enjoy it's level of success without the visual component, and wouldn't exist without coders.

 

JFTR - I was an artist in the video games industry for 10 years, now I work full time as a web developer.

Ah. Can I hug you, sunwukung?

We are carpenters, plumbers and electicians building a house. If you can do two or three of these things, good for you; I doubt many people could do all of them really well.

That, to me, is not the most important questions.

 

There are a million ways to define "design" - and graphic design is only one of them.

I am well tired of the "the arty-farty" and the "geek" divide. The sour looks from one side of the divide to the other bores me, and what are you "worth"? What am I "worth"?

 

(I have two apprenticeships in crafts: tactile, tips-of-the-fingers feel and understanding of materials. To intuitively understand your medium, regardless of your title as "graphic designer" or "programmer". It is art.)

 

I have a handful of programming courses, I did well, but now it would take me a week to do the simplest task in programming.

 

On the other hand, I understand how it works and how it is done, this makes me able to communicate efficiently with super-geeks. I am good at seeing concepts, ideas, to see the implications, the interaction, the archtecture, how the queries to the database should be written and used, to draw out and experiment with the big picture, and at the same time take into account the possibillites and limitations the coders will meet. I can spot problems they will meet. I will combine this with a sense of shape, form, typography, textual and visual communication, colour and understanding of users and needs, and an attention to graphic detail.

Certainly, this does not make me a "graphic designer"?

 

As sunwukung says, "The web is data, content, meaning".

 

You could get programmers to open photoshop (if anything, they should open Illustrator/Inkscape...), and you could force me to programme a little. I think it would only be painful. And pointless.

 

Allow me to direct your attention to Hackers and painters: http://www.paulgraham.com/hp.html

Guys, do you remember the term "Web Master"? From 90's when the Internet started to show off :-)

 

I think this term is back !! hahah

 

I am a one person company :-) I don't have choice, I cannot afford to pay an employee, so I have to learn design and programming.

 

To be honest, it's not easy. I am still not good and have a lot to learn ( I just posted a PHP question. Help me please!).

 

But in the end, I believe I am becoming a better professional or at least a more complete one.

 

About salaries, it's not your title that will define how much you earn, but how good you are.

 

Cheers!