Web Design is Not Graphic Design!
July 21, 2013
Hi!
Let me start with the point of this article:
The ‘design’ in web design is far less important today, than it was just a few years ago. In fact, the aesthetic aspects in building a website (making it LOOK good) is just a small part of the process of building a website.
This will probably shock your pants off: you can become a crazy talented and successful web designer these days, with little in the way of design skills!
Want to know the details? Read the main article below.
The Old Web vs. the New Web
Once upon a time, web design was something that graphic designers did on the side. Later as web design matured and print design diminished, the field of web design grew and the professional web designer emerged.
Graphic Design in Web Design
For many years, web designers were primarily graphic designers who knew how to transfer their Photoshop created page designs to the Web. The most advanced of these people actually knew HTML and CSS. But as the Web itself matured, the role of the website evolved:
- Websites first started as online brochures.
- Websites then needed to be optimized for search engines – people became aware of that a site needed to be worked for traffic!
- Websites then had to become usable (usability) because websites now needed to be able to provide a function. Sometimes this could be something simple as making it easy for people to find specific information and other times, websites become full fledged web apps.
… Now the Web, web design and web designers are moving into an even more evolved state where usability, functionality and content are much more important than how pretty the site looks. Some of you might be balking at this idea, but consider some of the most successful websites out there:
- Craigslist
- Plenty of Fish (dating site)
This is just a small sample of widely successful websites that are not exactly beautiful when it comes to design.
Is Design Dead in Web Design?
No, and it will never be.
But actual design, now plays a much smaller part in the act of building a website. Yes, you should understand basic design and layout principles and you should know your way around an image editor (like Photoshop or CorelDraw perhaps) … but most of your time will be spent on things like:
- Usability
- Functionality
- Efficient web site structure.
I would argue that these days, you need only a bare minimum of actual traditional design skills (for the reasons I mentioned above) … and add on top of that, there are so many website templates you can leverage in your work – it’s crazy to reinvent the wheel! That applies especially to the design in web design.
Thanks for reading,
Stefan Mischook
how-to-build-websites.com
