Attention Designers: Must Have Development Experience
What Are Employers Looking For These Days?
I run into recent college grads every now and then. They’re excited. Passionate. A bit naïve. But willing to roll up their sleeves and enter adulthood.
I love their optimism. As I get older, I find myself saying “That’ll never work” too many times throughout the week (at least I recognize it). They enter the work world with fresh eyes, new ideas, and a healthy sense of entitlement that only Gen-Yers can pull off.
But I see — too many times — an “I can” spirit with an “I don’t have the right skills” set of credentials. I’m not talking about just work-world experience. Granted, too many big firms today attempt (expect?) to hire newly-minted college alumni and at the same time, expect each one to possess a portfolio of a 10-year veteran.
No, I’m talkin bout skillz. Game. That thing that tells an employer, “Yes, this guy (or girl) has it.“ It’s that right balance of designer, developer, project manager, theoretical, user-centered IT.
Consider this recent job posting…
Fieldglass, Inc, the leading provider of services procurement software, is seeking a Web Designer-Developer to maintain and broaden the Fieldglass identity in corporate Web mediums as well as some offline creative materials. The position involves the back end programming and front end design and implementation to create an exceptional user experience.
And this one…
Cyclingnews is looking for a talented web designer to work across our group of cycling websites. We’re looking for a designer/ developer with substantial work in user experience, interaction design and wireframing, and a current portfolio that demonstrates a strong understanding of online design. With solid experience of using Photoshop, you will have an appreciation and flair for design and branding. A good knowledge of HTML, JavaScript and CSS is essential, as well as some experience of PHP sites.
Notice something?
Take a look again. New role. Designer-developer.
Yet, many traditional higher-ed institutions offer a focus in one or the other. Graphic design vs. computer science. Art vs. code. Liberal arts vs. bachelors of science. Too many interviewees have one, or the other. Rarely both.
Some of the more successful institutions offer graduate degrees that combine the artistic with the technical. My alma mater, Florida State, used to offer a concentration in Interactive and New Communication Technologies. It combined graphic arts with code. It has since been incorporated into a media production-focused program, but word has it that it’s about to be distinctive yet again.
That’s a good thing. If these job postings are any indication, the wave of the future for web-focused graduates is to combine the best of both worlds: the touchy-feely with the analytical programming. As ad agencies shrink to stay efficient and big companies churn out more with less, the name of the game is know it all. Be more well-rounded. Vary your skillz.
The days of the interaction designer who can only wire frame, the visual designer who can only work in Photoshop, and the editor who can only write, are over. Long live the designer-developer….
Too true. My company won’t even look at a resume with just design, or just development. You must possess some combination of both.
I had to comment on this article. my stance is in opposition to this stream of thought.
as a hiring manager for an in-house ecommerce department (i lead a team of web designers responsible for the design, usability and content of our ecommerce websites), i do expect my designers and potential candidates to be sound in design applications and front-end code/mark-up such as html, css and javascript (jQuery). however, those are not ‘developing’ skills.
there is a hard line that should be drawn between designer and developer. with knowing the differences in my experience, a developer delves into the ‘back-end’ and works with the sites root web language (java, asp, php, etc.) to build web applications, communicate to legacy systems, query databases, build template frameworks, and create page variables that interface with the front-end design. too many times i’ve witnessed developers spending time with styling out my pages and i cringe. something that would take them two days to figure out (and still not get it to look optimal) one of my designers or myself could get to the polished end-result in minutes.
when i’m looking for a designer for my team and i see applicants that possess these ‘developer’ skills but are replying to a ‘web designer’ ad i immediately dismiss them. but that’s not a stance against web designers possessing technical skills. on the contrary, web design is obviously technical by nature so it’s required. but that skill-set should be relegated to ‘front-end’ technical skills. sure a designer needs to know what those web languages are doing on the page and also need to be able to move things around a bit on the page after the developer places them there. but they are not the ones creating java classes, servlets and jar files.
designers have an advantage over developers because a creative person can learn code, but an analytical person can not learn to be creative, at least not to the professional degree that is required for a strong branding presence on the web. as a designer i’ve built many content sites from end-to-end but i didn’t need know java, asp or even php. how would a developer accomplish the same result? what kind of photoshop skills would they have, would they have an eye for color, layout and composition, or the user-experience as a whole?
my advice to employers is to find a rock-star web designer and a rock-star developer and never-the-tween-shall-meet. else you’ll come up short on both ends.
my advice to designers and developers is to focus on one or the other but understand what the other is doing since you’ll be working together to accomplish a common goal in the end…
…and more advice to web design students, make sure you are taking some fine-art courses. i’ve met web designers who don’t know how to draw or paint. yikes! crawl before you run.
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