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Web Develoment Versus Web Design

Since this is a Web design blog I have to school everyone on something. Many people out there do not understand or even know that web development and web design are two completely different skill sets. To the lay-person a webmaster is the person that will design and build out their website(s). But in reality not all webmasters, or web developers, are good at design. In fact good designers are hardly ever great developers.

A good web developer will understand site architecture, SEO ranking factors, and some light programming. They will know how to access hosting, use cpanel, etc. They will know how to create valid CSS and XHTML. Good developers will know how to work with databases too.

But a good designer will have a mastery of Web design software like photoshop, fireworks, etc. A good designer will that certain elements need to be in a homepage, like a call to action. Designers will understand what types of colors go together and what types of moods they can elicit. A great designer will know how to design a site so that it not only looks good but will be search engine friendly as well.

Now I am not saying that there are not any competent designers and developers out there because there are. But they are few and far between. What I am saying is that in general designers and developers should be two different people. In web companies, or agencies, there is someone that creates designs and someone else that builds it out. So next time you set out to build a site please try to understand that if you want quality work done then you are most likely going to need to hire someone (or an agency) to create your design and another person to build it out to spec.

Thoughts

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