Jeff Bridgforth :: Webcraftsman

Crafting Web sites since 1999

I am a Web designer passionate about creating elegant, inspiring, and usable Web experiences that connect with an audience and fulfull business objectives.

Web designer—n.

August 27, 2009

CSS · Design (Web) · Practice of Design

What is a Web designer? Good ques­tion. And depend­ing on who you ask in the Web indus­try, you are bound to get a lot of dif­fer­ent answers. So let me share what I mean when I call myself a Web designer.

First and fore­most, a Web designer is a prob­lem solver. A client comes with a mes­sage they want to com­mu­ni­cate, infor­ma­tion that they want to share, or a prod­uct or prod­ucts that they want to sell. My job is to find an appro­pri­ate visual solu­tion that will tell their story and con­nect peo­ple with the ser­vice they are offer­ing or selling.

I craft a solu­tion by visu­ally orga­niz­ing the text, images and video on the page to com­mu­ni­cate my client’s mes­sage. I also craft a visual per­son­al­ity that helps sup­ports the com­mu­ni­ca­tion of that message.

A Hybrid ???

I have always assumed that a Web designer was one who not only came up with a visual design but also had the skills to build that design. My think­ing is shaped by the fact that I first got into Web design by learn­ing HTML so that I could cre­ate a Web page. This was back in the late 1990’s and visual design on the Web was in its infancy. Slow con­nec­tions meant that you had to be cre­ative to add graph­ics to a page and make it effi­cient to down­load. So I learned to code in HTML and later in CSS so that I could bring my cre­ations to life.

Hence, I have always thought that it served a Web designer well to know how to build his or her cre­ation (read a recent post on the sub­ject.) There are many times when I will not even do a design comp but jump right into writ­ing HTML and CSS and cre­ate as I build. I know what graph­ics I want to cre­ate and I pre­fer doing that in Fire­works. As I code, I begin to craft the design and start adding in details that make the design really come to life.

It is only recently that I have come to real­ize that many con­sider me unique. Hybrid is one of the words that some­one used to describe my skills. I never thought of myself that way because most of the design­ers that I fol­low code their designs.

What are your thoughts? What word or words do you use to describe the work you do?

1 Comment

  1. Jason Weaver

    September 3rd, 2009

    I totally agree with you Jeff. I myself came into Web design learn­ing HTML and CSS and I’m con­fused when peo­ple call them­selves web design­ers but have no idea how to code. To me, it just goes together. The more you under­stand about “the how”, the more you’re able to cre­ate a great web expe­ri­ence for your users.

    I often work at a co-working office in down­town Bryan, Texas and I’ll over­hear graphic design­ers hav­ing a dif­fi­cult time con­vey­ing their orig­i­nal mes­sage to a devel­oper. Think of the time wasted. I don’t see how peo­ple work like that.