If you are having a new website built and want a genuinely terrific hunting one then there is a temptation to combine graphic and webdesign skills from separate people. But who should lead the project? For the best apt end result, you should permit the website designer to lead the way, writes Keith Lunt
Website design and graphic design are two totally different worlds. Loads of graphic designers sell themselves also since website designers, but I don’t know of anyone who has started life since a website designer who then sells themselves for the reason that a graphic designer.
I have no problem with graphic designers who design the styles of sites. When worked alongside an experienced website designer, or where the graphic designer in truth has masses of website design experience, the results may possibly be spectacular, as particular of our website design Southport portfolio will attest to. The problems I have encountered is when graphic designers decide that they may perhaps design a website and I ought to then build it for them.
Oh boy, the problems I have experienced there! One graphic designer designed his own site and asked me to code it. Great, but it didn’t if truth be told work. He wasn’t used to the idea of there being navigation buttons to stumble on between screens. He was used to people simply turning over the pages. He also had stipulated that a few parts of the screen be set sizes, but that the screen fill the full width. What sized screen I asked him?
He looked blankly at me since there is no concept in paper graphic design or variable width media. You go for A4, A3, A5 etc and begin out with that. Did he want it to fill a normal screen or a widescreen. What about the fixed width elements – how are they to be padded? The questions were just met with ‘Whatever looks best’, so I did. When he saw the result on the screen it wasn’t what he imagined. The same happened with about another 3 versions off the drawing board. It is a totally different familiarity designing for a screen or designing for paper.
I was working with another graphic designer on a site and we sat down to pencil out the basic layout. He had his A4 sheet in portrait mode, so I flicked it around 90 degrees into landscape. The thanks I got was a smarmy smile and a ‘Don’t you realise that designs are better in portrait layout. Long and narrow posters guide the eye down the text better’ and a smug look. So I asked him if he turned his monitor because of 90 degrees to also make that portrait when he was browsing websites.
A bad start, but when designing a screen you begin with a screen shape. Even if the to [spin]start with|to begin with|primarily|formerly[/spin] step is to draw a rectangle in portrait shape, at least that reminds you to fill the background with something suitable.
I’m always happy to work with graphic designers in my Southport website design work and I’m constructing up a list of contacts that are wonderful to work with. But when designing a website, the website designer, not the graphic designer, would lead the way!
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