Web designers should do their own HTML/CSS

http://www.37signals.com/svn/posts/1066-web-designers-should-do-their-own-htmlcss

by terpua • 18 years ago

18 17 18 years ago

37signals.com

terpua• 18 years ago

Good background here (in case you missed it)...

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=208152

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=209991

josefresco2• 18 years ago

Yeah could we get another 37signals post on HN today? Maybe a few more dups too and I'll be complete.

josefresco2• 18 years ago

"I’ve worked with many web designers in the past who only did abstractions and then handed over pictures to be chopped and implemented by “HTML monkeys”."

Are there actually designers who don't have to get their hands dirty with HTML/CSS? I've never met 1 in my 8 years of designing and building sites. Sounds like a nice gig.

scorxn• 18 years ago

I've worked with many at various design and ad shops. However, they design for other media as well and aren't expected to know HTML/CSS. I've been handed "web" layouts in Quark before. It surprises me that the same would happen in dedicated web shops. Sound like bad hires to me.

iron_ball• 18 years ago

Our graphic designer -- correction, art director -- does visual design and hands it off to production artists who turn it into HTML using Dreamweaver, or break it into Flash chunks. Want to know how big our art department is, including her? Three people.

antiform• 18 years ago

Converting mockups from "the layout guy" into HTML/CSS was my first non-food-service job in high school, but this was about six years ago, at a small advertising firm that did more print work than web work.

I think the confusion comes from referring to the person who does the mockups as a "web designer." I have yet to meet a person with that title who does not know HTML or CSS. The people who don't get their hands dirty with the coding are usually referred to as just graphic designers.

GavinB2• 18 years ago

37Signals: We do it this way. People who do things differently are wrong.

kirubakaran• 18 years ago

> People who do things differently are wrong.

They are just stating why they are doing what they are doing. Good information if you want to make use of it.

GavinB2• 18 years ago

I appreciate a lot of things about 37signals products. The coding is much more solid than a lot of similar products, and they absolutely know what they're doing.

Their blog posts just come across as a bit partisan and dismissive on a lot of issues. Even when they're making good points, as in this post.

crashmoriarty• 18 years ago

I just don't understand the 37Signals hate. Lots of entities on the internet share their experiences and opinions in a definitive voice, but 37Signals is the one that gets the flak for that approach.

extantproject• 18 years ago

envy

radley• 18 years ago

Ah... designers vs. coders link bait.

jacobbijani• 18 years ago

Andddd I'm not clicking 37singals links anymore.

jawngee• 18 years ago

I wrote up a blog post about it:

http://interfacelab.com/?p=16

In summary, I find 37signals to be full of shit.

jamesjyu• 18 years ago

Argh, yet another controversial 37signals post. What's with these? I think DHH has a narrow view on web design.

If you're handing your HTML/CSS to a "HTML monkey" and they don't get the "it" stuff right (as opposed to the "around" stuff), then they are a BAD HTML/CSS coder. Period.

The baseline HTML/CSS coder, in my mind, should be able to get pixel perfect (or very close to pixel perfect) designs implemented with cross browser compatilibity (at least IE6 and Mozilla).

HTML/CSS coding is in most cases a solved problem. If you have the man power to segment design from the actual implementation, then all the power to you. It'll probably be more efficient that way. Where I work, we don't have that luxury, and we all have to do a bit of everything.

wenbert• 18 years ago

37signals is not a "graphics" or "design" company. I wonder why they post these kinds of articles. They can basically outsource a bunch of icons and logos then start building from there.

Web designers should do their own HTML/CSS

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