The new web designer.
To anyone who claims to be a web designer and only knows how to use the clone tool in Photoshop, but not how to use a <fieldset> in HTML: get with the program.
It’s 2010, and we as web designers, need to know (at least) basic HTML, CSS, PHP or ASP, JavaScript, and a bit about databases. We can’t just do everything in Photoshop, hand it off to a developer and expect to get steady work. Nor should we.
Knowing a bit about these things is not difficult at all, there are literally thousands of websites dedicated to sharing the love and how-to’s for all of these and more. We just need to take the time learn this stuff.
I was a printmaking fine art major in school, and while it was fun and creative, I knew I didn’t have the moxie to do that for a living. So I started playing around with some HTML and CSS, and then grew from there. Granted there is a learning curve, and some of the sites I built early on would be scoffed at by the community now (and for good reason), each and every time I code a new site I learn something new and how better to do it in the future.
Besides needing to know how to do basic programming, by learning these skills, it helps you become a better designer. I say this because you can do almost anything in the web, but the optimal word is almost. The worst is designing a beautiful page / site in Photoshop, then when it comes to the real thing, you realize that you can’t make it look quite the same, and having to explain that to a client–they don’t like to hear that sort of thing. You start to be able to anticipate what is possible and what is not.
Two other skills that we need to have nowadays are basic SEO principals and social media involvement.
With SEO, you don’t need to be an expert, in fact I’m not sure it’s possible to be a great web designer and an expert SEO, it just takes so much time and involvement to stay up-to-date on both. But, you do need to know how to code and setup a site to start off on the right for SEO-wise. You need to be able to tell the clients what they need to be looking for, and how to update their site as needed to try to optimize it the best they can.
And with social media, if you aren’t actively involved in it yet, do it now. It’s fun, easy, great for networking, you can get WOM business, you can share your ideas, and you learn. A lot. Twitter is where I started, and I find a ton of value with this day in and day out. I was hesitant to get on facebook b/c of running into people I didn’t intend to, but it’s okay. 300+ million people on here–you can’t beat that potential. Learn FBML, or how to add static HTML to facebook, it’s not hard, and it increases your value even more. Try to get on dribbble, and if not there, get on other sites where you can post what you’re working on for other designers to view and critique.
It’s all about being more than Photoshop–it’s not that hard, it’s actually fun (at least I think so), and it makes you so much more marketable to current clients and to new clients.
Are you a new-age web designer, or are you afraid of the HTML-dark?
