Web Designers Aren’t IT Guys
I work in the IT department at TerraCycle, I know how to code, and I’m generally comfortable around computers. So of course it’s no surprise that most people would consider me to be an IT guy. As an IT guy I can often be left out of aesthetic and graphic design decisions. People ask me questions about Excel or email problems. Online branding, traffic building and social media strategies are seen as secondary, and my main role is just to code. I don’t think of myself that way, and it can be frustrating to be seen in that light.
Web designers aren’t an easy fit
Being able to code website doesn’t make me an IT guy, and just focusing on my coding ability means I don’t get to fully utilize my other skills. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a damn good coder. Give me a blank page and ask me to create something with HTML5, CSS3 and jQuery, I’m great. Ask me to integrate PHP or Ruby on Rails functionality into a website, no problem.
Putting the web design guy into the IT department is a convenient fit. Other companies might put their web designer into the Graphics team, equally legitimate. Social media and online branding skills are best suited to the PR or Marketing department. Depending on their spread of skills, a web designer fits into any…or all…of those teams. Which is why it can be tough to make full use of my skills in a business environment; I always find that the focus is on the direct coding side of things.
Coding after concept
Thing is, coding a website is the last part of the task of putting an overall web strategy together, and leaving the web designer (or web design team) out of the earlier concept development can cause problems. A web designer wants to work with graphic artists to help them create artwork that’s well suited to integration into a website structure, or concept drawings that take into account online user behavior research. Engaging with the PR and marketing team allows the web designer to give insights into online branding, social media usage and traffic building that less digitally focused staff may not have taken into account.
That’s not to say that I’m looking for the web designer to be in charge of everything. More a case that it’s really beneficial to involve a web designer as early in the process as possible. I know that I work better when I’ve been engaged from concept to completion, rather than being given a relatively finalized proposal and either having to integrate aspects unsuited to a web platform, or argue to change decisions that have already been made.
I’m more into the art than the IT
It’s something of a running joke in TerraCycle’s IT department that if they’re rolling out an email change, or a phone system update or whatever, that they test it out on me first. If I understand it then they’re confident they’ll be able to explain it to the rest of the company! I’ve no problem with that; I’m supremely confident in my skills in my chosen disciplines.
Web design is art, and code is a tool with which to create that art. I love coding, but mainly because I love what it allows me to do on the screen. Far more than back-end coding, web design lets me create concepts and gain relatively immediate feedback on screen as I start to put the code into place. The most important magazines I read aren’t coding magazines or tech ones, they’re magazines like Vogue. The design process is similar regardless of medium and technical skills, while an important part of that process, are a means to an end in making imagination into functional reality.
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