I agree with Christine and most of the others. Even if I take a billion art classes and devote the rest of my life to honing art skills, I will still be horrible compared to a slew of others whose design is immaculate but whose technical side is lacking. You can teach people HTML or CSS. It may take a while, but they'll catch on eventually. Teaching people art however is much harder. You're either good at design or you aren't. A person with combined skills is nice to have, but in most cases unless your studio is comprised of yourself and one other person who sleeps during their work shift, mostly not needed.
Hire artists for artistic talent, not for tech. When you need a developer vice-versa that and follow again. Dual-talent is great for a one-man team.
You'll accomplish more stylish pages by working to each other's weaknesses. I relate this to hiring a video game programmer and then telling that person on top of all their languages, they have to conceptualize and flesh out their own game characters. Art is best left to people that have a knack for it. But again, anyone can learn to program.
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Ryan Christie [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.theward.net
Universal Head wrote:
Warning: rant.
The very fact that this is even in question with any designer is an indication of how degraded the title has become since computers hit the industry. Design was and has always been about communication and functionality - my degree in 84-88 was 'Visual Communications', not 'web design' or 'making things look cool'.
Another reason - excuse the plug - why the tagline of my company is 'Design That Works'.
It annoys and frustrates me that the reputation and integrity of the design industry has been so ruined in the eyes of clients by the media (endless images of frustrated business people trying to contact their designers who are out skateboarding), software developers ("buy this app and you'll instantly become a designer! No need to pay design agencies ever again!"), the greed of the dot-com boom ("I've been renovating bathrooms for ten years but I think I'll be a designer cause they make lots of money and you can work from home"), fly-by-night colleges ("Complete our two-week course and you'll be a web designer!") and the whole image of design being a cool and easy thing to do.
End of rant!
Peter
On 01/04/2004, at 9:36 AM, Mark Stanton wrote:
To the key character of a good web designer (apart from artistic talent) is that they respect their medium and their audience. If a designer shows any sign of getting upset about having their artist whims challenged by "browser limitations" or accessibility - don't hire them.
*Universal Head* Design That Works.
7/43 Bridge Rd Stanmore NSW 2048 Australia T (+612) 9517 1466 F (+612) 9565 4747 E [EMAIL PROTECTED] W www.universalhead.com
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