Step up and let us see the URL for your company website. Your post leaves us wanting to see more.

Billy B

Maybe my firm is different because we are considered “Premium”, but never has anyone ever written a site in tables, without a stylesheet or ignored webstandards with their code. SEO and W3C is part of the package.

We’ve never hired a print designer for the creative team. We have fired a lot of creative for being terrible. Oh and we have a creative team, which is a bunch of designers who for the love of all things, are not allowed to touch code. 2 times a month we meet with them and explain new web conventions, of what we can now do with javascript that they can think about when they make their design, but they don’t have to actually learn anything other than what a grid system is. (& I’ve noticed when we outsource to design only firms.. most of them don’t know what a grid is)

IDevs are the ones who code everything and are the jack of all trades. We also do user testing, information architecture, and sometimes creative on smaller projects only if the iDev has a creative background.

For anyone who is thinking about working for a design firm, don’t be discouraged by this article. Do your research on the firm you’re applying to first. If their portfolio is full of boring crap and ugly code, don’t apply there.

Everyone please read this article before proceeding to invest in, design, develop or market a web site….

‘We’ll get your site done in 48 hours and for only $300′ works a lot better.

Hope my point comes across more clear now

@spazticus: Off course there are exceptions. There are some exceptional people who are extraordinary designers as well as developers. Take Shaun Inman for example. They are a rare breed.

You are correct that students won’t be up to the task, but I’ve worked with amazing designers who eventually master CSS and PHP. It’s really not that hard – code is poetry, after all.

If you look at a population of seasoned professionals who have been working in our field for more than a decade, you are likely to find the exception to your statement that people can’t be great at both. They can. And I’ve met some great hybrid designer/developers. They are smart, savvy, motivated and talented.

Even though I’m a standards advocate myself I think what we’re trying to sell isn’t deemed relevant by 99% of the clients. And it’s getting worse. I blogged about these issues a while ago in my article The Death of Web Development and Design, and what to do next.

Finally, I see myself as kind of a Jack of all Trades guy and I like to think my stuff doesn’t suck in any department…

I’m a developer who’s also a product photographer, I went to art school but I’m loathe to do design work that has to get past lots of committees, that burned me out years ago and made me into a developer. Once upon a time I was a CS major before art school, so that came in handy.

The PSD to HTML issue is a good way to start speaking about how the waterfall methodology should drown a painful death. Why? The marketing driven process that’s inherited from the print world is a major problem even if nobody thinks it is.

OLD WAY:
1. marketing people talk
2. needs are decided
3. photoshop comps designed (maybe some feedback, but not much)
4. client signs off on photoshop comps, expecting site to look exactly like that.
5. PSD files given to developer who gasps and says “wait, this won’t work here” or “AJAX won’t get you from here to there” or whatever
6. Designer and developer go over things, account people wonder what’s taking so damn long, everyone tries to paper over things without calling the client.
7. client wonders what’s taking so long, calls
8. UH OH! meeting called, client, developer, account people all sit around and prove how they live on different planets