[thelist] Designer vs. Coder

Niklaus Haldimann n.haldimann at derbund.ch
Tue Feb 27 04:36:37 CST 2001


bsugrue at Automationdirect.com wrote:
>I think we tend to make this more complicated than it really is or will be.
>To remove some of the confusing designer/coder issues, I like to use a "low
>tech" model that is hundreds of years old AND actually profitable in some
>cases - the humble newspaper.

Hey. That's *my* favourite analogy. ;-) I've been working for a newspaper's
online department a year now. The entire newspaper staff is like 300
people. The New Media department has 11 people right now and 3 of them do
nothing but cut and paste the newspaper content to the CMS. As The Web
Publisher I am the only really web-savvy person in here, I did everything -
concepts, design and (HTML) code. I'm good at all these things, but I'm no
expert in any field (yet). I've always tried to convince my bosses to hire
more people (i.e. a better graphic designer) by comparing me to someone
who'd do the writing, layout and printing of the newspaper ...
Unfortunately the newspaper world seems to be quite short-sighted. In the
long such large-scale projects can only be handled by a team of specialists.

But when I was looking for a new job it proved really useful that I have
skills in very different fields of web development. There's not only a need
for kick-ass artsy designers and geeky coders - you need people who can
understand them both and combine their powers. Two weeks from now I'll be
working as a "production manager" (low-level technical direction) at a web
agency doing exactly that. And I'm a really happy camper now since I can do
things in both fields, design and code ...

--
http://eBund.ch http://eGames.ch





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