In the early 1990s, the world hadn’t yet realized the economic and social potential available to them through the web. People weren’t buying things online. Web designers (in the sense that we know them today) did not exist.
Most of the hired talent were regarded as binary clerical workers, employed by department heads of large organizations, doomed (as I imagine/remember) to windowless, server-filled basements where, as webmasters, they sat waiting for their supervisors to storm down and bark out the next site update.
Then the internet exploded. When organizations realized that customers wanted to be served online, demand for websites and web designers grew.
In a few short years, we went from building static sites for desktop browsers to dynamic web applications for any device in existence. We not only build things people view like brochures, but things that people use.
Like it or not, we are all ambassadors for our field, and it’s our duty as such to have a dialogue with clients about the how and why, not just the what. When we quietly deliver code and pixels with no discussion of objective or strategy, we’re asking to be treated like we belong back in that server-filled basement. But we’re worth more than that.
Trent Walton.
Even though the industry has matured, there’s a reason he’s still our mascot: the low barrier of entry. The web is chock-full of free resources for anyone looking to learn HTML; this open access is one of my favorite things about the web. However, with so many people operating under the moniker of web designer the span of capability becomes incredibly broad.
Case in point: every time I drive into Austin, I pass a plywood sign propped up by two milk crates in someone’s front yard. Spray-painted on the sign is «Need a website? Call 555-555-5555 for web design services.» This person may be talented, but the absence of a url on his billboard has me thinking we’re entering GoDaddy Site Builder® territory. This guy is a web designer. He shares a job title with Josh Brewer and Naz Hamid. How can this be?
Anyone, even Mr. Spray Paint, can become a web designer. And, in some ways, that’s a good thing. Some of the best designers I know are self-taught. The problem arises, however, when there are more adolescents and spray paint guys representing our field than there are Josh Brewers and Naz Hamids.
Trent Walton.
Bad design hurts, good design hurts less. John Maeda.
… it’s hard to say but one senses design ‹eating itself.› It seems very difficult today for young designers to sort the worthwhile from the worthless and to establish their own values, when everything is presented in such multifarious and unmediated ways with little reference to context or provenance. Thank goodness the same preponderance of easily accessible design references wasn’t around when we started our careers. Hamish Muir.
I prefer working with type over image or other media because of its direct connection to language, it’s an extension of writing and in that sense one can give things voice and tone in a direct way without the layered meanings that using image introduces. Hamish Muir.
I like type for two particular reasons—firstly because of the dual codes it communicates: the constant, beautiful friction between its function as a carrier of language and as a system of differentiated signs; secondly because type and typography at a certain level are as close as design can get to pure abstraction with no values, messages or intentions. I’m interested in exploring ways of testing the connection between type, text and language and have a body of unfinished work which I hope to develop further. Paul McNeil.
No, web design isn’t dead. Generic solutions are dead. 11 Soulless theming and quick skinning are dead. Our solutions have to be better and smarter. Fewer templates, frameworks and trends, and more storytelling, personality and character.
The web will get better and it’s our job to make it better. It won’t be easy, … We might not end up with a perfect solution every time, but we’ll have a great solution still; and more often than not it’ll be much, much better than the solution our client came to us for in the first place.
Vitaly Friedman.
… it’d be wrong to think print media is dying—it’s the only current media format that doesn’t require a constant connection, or even a charged battery, to engage with. Sometimes we forget that. Ed Fairman.
Writing demonstrates more than just an ability to put words on a page—it shows dedication, project management and marketing. It can be a point of professional differentiation. Jon Westenberg.
Writing can change lives, and there are lives that need to be changed. Jon Westenberg.