What does a web designer do?

10 March, 2010

Web design is hard to sum up in a few words. It is a highly skilled and undervalued profession that brings a client's requirements and target audience's needs together in a beautiful and effective way. So what do we do?

We know a fair bit.

A web designer doesn't just throw together a bunch of colours, images, and text willy nilly to make a rocking website.

Behind each little design decision there is hours of study and practice with eons old design principles and constantly evolving trends and fashions.

Most of us have sat through years of schooling in colour theory, typography theory, web standards, accessibility issues, browser compatibilities, blah, blah, blah. The list is endless.

We do loads of stuff.

Web design is often thought to be a matter of just knocking up something quickly in photoshop. Not true.

We need to know how to read and interpret a brief. How to get inside the mind of the target audience and turn that into an effective design all while adhering to and maintaining what the client wants as well.

We need to sketch our thoughts onto paper, master complex and powerful computer programs to turn those sketches into reality, but it doesn't stop there. We also need to turn what is essentially an image into a working, functioning site through use of coding and development in a content management system.

We make a difference.

Ours is often a relatively thankless task of bringing a bunch of words from a brief to life through our imagination, creativity, and highly refined skills.

The work a good designer produces is what gets people through the door, it's what keeps them there, and when they leave it's what makes them want to come back again tomorrow.

The work a fine designer does is far from the "cruisiest" or most simple task in bringing something worthwhile to the web. Quite the contrary, it is the hardest, and the one most laced with touches of brilliance.

Blog post written by Ismail Koci of Feedia - Web Design Brisbane