It is almost impossible for a

Anna Hussie — Fri, 27 May 2011 05:29:09 +0000

It is almost impossible for a person who do not know the CSS and HTML and even then he want to be good designer .it is not possible ,I am writing this for the readers not for the specific person who made this thread.HTML or the back bone of web design.

They are typically the same

shawnjasper — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 01:22:37 +0000

They are typically the same right? How about Web designers and web developers?

Hi, In my opinion, web

paul wood — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 05:27:00 +0000

Hi,

In my opinion, web designer is more like artistic graphic concepts to do design web page layout using Photoshop/Paint Pro Shop, Illustrator, and any artwork designing. Also incorporate template layout into web page. Very similar to desktop publisher (Microsoft Publisher).

Web developer/programmer is more like advanced technical concept to do code the programming employing actions/behaviors resulting in PHP, HTML, CSS, XML, database, Flash Actionscript, Javascript, ASP, C++, etc on the website. Also parsing any external files such as PDF, Doc, video files, audio file, mp3 into web page and do web designing job as I mention above.

Thanks
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Interesting points. There are

Megan — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 16:12:00 +0000

Interesting points. There are a few things I disagree with here, though. The first is that layout design is not a purely artistic problem. There are many logical problems that need to be incorporated into a good layout, and these things need to be worked out before the prettiness is added. The layout needs to be usable, it needs to work from a marketing perspective, it needs to be accessible, it needs to communicate the desired goals, support the desired content etc.

If someone is just designing layouts all day long (does a job like that exist anywhere??), they could be called a "web graphic designer" or "web layout designer". In reality, someone like that could also be doing print design or multimedia work. Or, as it often works, they would also code HTML and CSS. In reality, to be marketable, someone should be capable of doing more than just designing layouts in Photoshop.

I know there are some people who don't care about the code, but there are also many good designers who do both. I think I said above that CSS is a mark-up language that describes layout, so in that sense it's an important part of layout design.

The second is that web design, integration, and programming are "completely different" things. The way I see it, there is a continuum between the artistic and the technical in web design and development. How you define different roles can really vary depending on the individuals involved, the type of business, and the size of the team.

Let's see if I can draw this:

Artistic/Non-technical                                           Technical
    |------------------------------------------------------------------|
Graphic Design    Usability   Info. Arch.   Mark-up    JavaScript  Backend

You might have a separate front-end developer (or "integration" as you call it) on a three-person or larger team. But if you only have 2, as defined in the original question, where is the line drawn? It could depend on the strengths of the individuals involved (there are many programmers I work with who I would not trust to do mark-up correctly). It might also depend on the amount of work you have in each area. If you're developing applications your designer might need to do pretty much everything to the left of JavaScript. The day-to-day management of a site requires a little bit of everything.

So I agree that there's no need to generalize here about which skills belong where. I think the part I disputed in the original question is that mark-up is programming.

Well, I might be wrong, but I

Flames — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 14:05:44 +0000

Well, I might be wrong, but I still think that if you are writing lines of code in notepad, whether it's html tags or php conditions, you are coding something. To me coding means writing lines of code wich translate into something else than black font on white background once viewed online.

Around me are many people who design web layout every day. They are artistic people who like things that looks good, they know about trends and color matching. They really, but realllllly dont care about coding whatever and how things works. And we call them Web Designers. What else could we be calling them, they design web layouts all day long?

All of you people said it's better for a web designer to know how to code html and css. I totally agree with that, it would be a better world if every web designer would know (and have interests) in web programmation, but it's not the reality. Most artistic people I know are the opposite kind of people than coders.

To me, having a successful web site developpment would means to go trough these steps:

1. Having a web designer create the layout. Someone with the artistic mind that make things looks good and know about web graphic trends.

2. Taking the nice web layout the designer made to a web integrator. Someone who can code markup languages such as HTML and CSS. Someone who know how website works, browser compatibility, w3 validation, seo optimization, jquery integration, etc. Someone whos not a designer and not a programmer, but between the two.

3. The HTML / CSS / Jquery now done, it's time for backend programming and dynamic functions to be added. Now pass the website to a programmer. Whos gonna build the administration tool and the dynamic parts of the site such as news module, events module, etc. etc.

OF COURSE having someone artistic who can design a web layout and ALSO do the web markup is IDEAL. But that's not the case for everyone, let's not generalise...

Web design > Integration > Programmation
Layout > HTML markup > Backend + dynamic coding

3 completly different things to me.

web design includes the HTML,

logodesigns1 — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 09:17:00 +0000

web design includes the HTML, CSS, images, etc., Css Define style of the sites. Having knowledge of html is not a programing knowledge.
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Web Designing is different

sksweb — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 07:47:18 +0000

Web Designing is different from programming. Programming means enabling a process to do a task done. Programmed process to achieve a goal is programming. Designing include CSS sheets and HTML is a language. But if HTML is used for designing purpose then it is totally different from programming.
Designing not only include Style sheets. It includes graphics, animation, Slicing etc......

To me the slicing and dicing

Megan — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 16:56:00 +0000

To me the slicing and dicing went away with tabled layouts. Now that you can layer images on top of each other, and most design images are backgrounds, there's no need to "slice and dice" them. Much of what you used to do with images can now be done with CSS instead.

I know some designers are starting to work in HTML & CSS from the ground up (not doing a mock-up in Photoshop or whatever). I'm really interested in this approach and hope to try it with my next project. I've actually really never understood why people prefer Photoshop for comping. A vector program would more easily replicate what you can do in CSS.

I do wonder if CSS will become more like a programming language as it evolves. There's also a question of where JavaScript fits in. Where do you draw the line? JavaScript is now used to manipulate layouts quite a lot. Whose job is that?

Interesting discussion.

webwiz — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 01:37:09 +0000

Interesting discussion. Thanks all for your perspectives.

As user agents ("browsers") become more capable of effects like drop shadows, translucent backgrounds, rotation, and transitions, I wonder how much longer the main design tool will be Photoshop? There is also a need right now to make site layouts "adapt" to a wide range of window sizes and resolution...

Maybe one day slicing and dicing Photoshop images will go the way of hot metal type?

Web design is purely related

mark spenser — Fri, 02 Apr 2010 05:38:43 +0000

Web design is purely related to design a layout in photoshop and cutting images and do html and css formating.

knowledge of html is not a programming knowledge. if i have knowledge of html then i can not say that i am programmer.

programming means server side scripting & client side scripting.