Web Designer

What websites these days do you think are setting the standard for design?

Asked by Michael N. over 12 years ago

That's a tricky one! Design is very much opinion based. My idea of good design clean, modern and fairly simple layouts that use great typography. Others might call this type of design 'sterile' and accuse it of lacking character. Each to their own! This is a site I came across recently that I thought was fantastic: https://www.simple.com/ The design is great, but the interaction when users hover over certain elements and scroll down the page is also really super. This site is similar to the above: https://squareup.com I also really like the site for our recent Olympic team here: http://www.teamgb.com/ It takes a refreshing step away from rounded corners, drop shadows and gradients (which in my opinion are all overused these days) - but it still looks and feels great. Another 'standard setting' type of design is 'responsive' web design - more of a technicality than a design thing, but impressive nonetheless. Responsive design refers to the website responding, resizing and reacting to the size of the viewport (large desktop, laptop, tablet, mobile phone etc). Our website actually uses it too: www.web93.co.uk - try clicking on the right hand edge of your browser window and making it narrower and narrower - it will respond to different sizes, changing its layout so its always viewable. A great site for a gallery of cutting edge responsive sites is: http://mediaqueri.es/ - you'll find many other great looking responsive sites in here. Here are a few other sites I use for inspiration and to view the latest and greatest in web design - they all include some really interesting sites and great designs: http://www.awwwards.com/ http://www.thebestdesigns.com http://cssremix.com/ Another great site for design (not necessarily web design) is www.dribbble.com - some really talented designers upload their work here.

What's the difference between a a designer and a developer?

Asked by morepieplz over 12 years ago

Good question! This is one I get asked a lot and there isn't really a full proof answer! The chances are if someone calls them self a web 'designer', they basically work on anything the user can see or interact with. This includes the actual design of the site (typography, colour scheme, layout etc) and then the coding of the design into HTML/CSS - this is the code that your web browser takes and displays to you as a website. If you can see it, then its been designed by a web designer. If someone refers to them self as a web 'developer' the chances are they aren't capable (or very good!) at design! Developers usually work with graphic designers (or web designers who don't write code) to take web designs (in their image format) and code them up into functioning websites so they can be viewed in the browser and interacted with. Some developers might only deal with how the website looks in the browser (usually referred to as 'front end developers') - they write HTML/CSS/jQuery - this makes things move, change colour on hover, slide from side to side and so on. Other developers only deal in the stuff that users can't see (usually referred to as 'back end developers') - this might include content management systems for website owners to manage their sites through an admin panel, connecting forms to payment gateways, storing data in databases, generating a password for your new account and so on - this is all the stuff that happens behind the scenes and really drives complex dynamic websites. The bottom line is designers care about how things look, whereas developers are more concerned with functionality whilst often not having a clue what good design looks like! Of course this varies massively and with many designers/developers the roles overlap hugely - some people do design and development, some call themselves designers but actually do development too, some developers also design - you get the picture, there isn't a concrete definition! Most commonly this is dependant on how they've learnt their trade - if they studied Computer Sciences at university and also happen to have a good eye for design, they may be capable of it all. If they're self taught (like myself) they may have a more limited skill set that only focuses on one area of design or development. Every designer/developer is different in the skills they possess! I hope that has explained something and not just added to the confusion of who does what!

What's a reasonable hourly rate for a quality designer? If my start-up is on a budget, do you think I can get decent design work done for under $2,000?

Asked by axel over 12 years ago

It really depends what kind of website you need and what you mean by 'design'. If by 'design' you mean the deliverable you are seeking is literally just a design (an image) then yes $2,000 should get you some quality branding and design - again it really depends how many page templates you require and so on. If by design you are also referring to the build of the website itself with all the functionality you need, then maybe $2,000 won't be enough - it really just depends what you are building. If its just a simple information site explaining what you do then your budget would be fine. If on the other hand you are trying to build the next Facebook then $2,000 will just about buy your development team their first round of coffees! In terms of hourly rates it varies a lot geographically - my rates working in London are greater than someone in a small countryside village. This doesn't necessarily reflect the quality of work, but also costs of living, operating costs etc. As a guide somewhere around the $40 USD per hour mark would be a good minimum estimate, although I would urge you to make a shortlist of designers with the quality of their portfolio as your number one factor. Only then go into rates and see who offers the most competitive or appropriate rate for what you require.

Well thanks for the kind words about Jobstr:) Alright, how about if I *make* you take a critical eye: what aspect of our design do you think needs the most work?

Asked by Jobstr Dan over 12 years ago

I've really tried hard to find some design flaws but I'm struggling! I see you've recently changed the buttons to go to the next/previous question, as this was something I spotted as displaying incorrectly in my browser so they're much better now! It might be nice to integrate a more complex text editor for responses - maybe what we refer to as a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get) - this allows simple formatting of text, insertion of links, maybe insertion of images - it would make typing responses nicer. At the moment the box I'm typing in is a fixed height of 5 rows tall - it would be good to be able to click the bottom right hand corner and drag to make this bigger, as for longer answers its hard to read back over what you are typing. Also making inserted links 'clickable' would be handy - in one of my earlier responses I posted a few links that users would have to copy and paste to view currently, as opposed to just clicking. I tried using tags to make them clickable but it didn't work either, it just printed the HTML. I hope that helps!

Do notice any significant differences between UK and US designers and how they approach web design projects? Is one flashier, more minimalist, etc?

Asked by 1 more coffeeeee.... over 12 years ago

Please detail an average day for one in your field and how to get there!

Asked by Björg almost 12 years ago