Website Designer vs. Web Developer —what’s the difference?
When I first started learning how to code in the early 90s, the term web developer and web designer were vastly different and had very different roles.
Generally, those who were visually creative, had a great design sense and knew how to use Adobe Photoshop to create mockups were called the web designers.
And those who knew how to transform those designs into a fully functioning website were called the web developers.
Basically, the web designers would come up with a design. Next, they pass it along to the web developers who would then animate those designs into a working, functioning website.
In the beginning, it was easy to label web developers as the logical, practical engineering “left brain” coders and the web designers as the creative, free-spirited “right brain” artists.
But, as the internet and the way we consume data evolved, it became clear that this left brain-right brain labeling of these roles wasn’t being fair to either the web designer or the web developer.
Now, both web designers and web developers have to adapt and learn more about the other’s skillsets in order to stay in business.
Learning skills from an adjacent profession also gave us the tools to give you, our clients, a better, more robust service.
Any web designer will tell you that they can greatly benefit from learning some basic code.
Nowadays, you cannot be a successful web designer without knowing at least some basic HTML, PHP and CSS code.
Web developers, however, don’t really need to know how to use Adobe Photoshop or Adobe Illustrator to build a website.
But, since web developers will be working with either a designer’s mockup, or a WordPress theme, it would highly benefit web developers to get familiar with these programs should they need to tweak some design elements to make the website function and work as it should.
I know I can say from experience, that it definitely helps my web development team to be proficient in Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.
Not only does it make life easier to be able to take an image and edit it to our needs, it also comes in handy when a client’s logo or background picture just doesn’t behave like it should and needs to be resized or reformatted.
So, which one should you hire --web designer or web developer?
Think of it this way:
Which would you prefer to renovate your house? The interior designer who only has a few basic home improvement skills (like using a screwdriver or hammering a nail) --or the contractor who has a good sense of style?
If you want to build a website, especially a website for your business, it would be a better idea for you to choose a web developer with design capabilities instead of a web designer with some coding knowledge.
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