Comments on: Are we Designers or Developers? – My Answer is…

By: Andrew Pryde

Andrew Pryde — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 21:29:04 +0000

I would consider myself to be a developer becuase I came from a programing background but not most of the work I end up doing is design work as small businesses rarely need a fully functional web application designed they either don’t use one or just instruct me to implement an open source one. I think this is a shame becuase it is getting things to work and knowing why they work that interests me. Having said this I am a realist and realise that I do what I do and that its not going to change so I have grown to enjoy the design aspect as well

Andrew

By: Thejesh GN

Thejesh GN — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 05:35:09 +0000

Thanks for writing this. I use coder most of the time. Coding is what I like to do. Being coder doesn’t mean I don’t design.Probably Developer is one word which combines both of these. I will try to use “Developer” next time.

By: Golgotha

Golgotha — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:47:10 +0000

@Peter: I hear you and fully agree. Some developers are not designers, no matter what they say and some designers are not developers . But, that’s another article. Great comment!

By: peter

peter — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:21:34 +0000

I have a very strong opinion about this, so please forgive me, and understand that my experience is anecdotal and may not reflect your experience. I am a designer. I have two degrees in design, one in Graphic Design (Fine Art) and the other in Graphic Communication (Technical Design for Production Environments). Trust me, I feel you, just having to explain the difference between those is a headache enough in itself. I am also a self-taught hand-coding XHTML/CSS/PHP web developer. I did not learn these things in school because when I was in school the latter did not exist. I am now a professional web designer. So, what do I refer to myself as? A Designer without hesitation. This is because I have met many developers who come from programming backgrounds and like to fancy themselves designers just because they know how to use Photoshop and can skin a website. However, I feel that this really robs true designers of their deserved title. I spent years learning not only the software but also principles of design, visual communication, composition, color theory, history of design, etc. It really takes a certain type of eye, discipline, and a high degree of anality to be a (good) designer. This goes both ways of course, because I never regard myself as a developer for respect of my colleagues who are far more adept and have a much deeper understanding of programming languages, scripting, databases, and AJAX. Don’t get me wrong, I also know a few developers who are fantastic designers, some people are just born with it (read: attention to detail), but I just think that there are enough people out there who give themselves a little too much credit and I think as long as a little respect is paid where due then we will all appreciate each others’ skills and trade to the fullest. Thanks for the topic, great article!

By: ses5909

ses5909 — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 21:21:03 +0000

I am a developer all the way!

By: John

John — Fri, 17 Aug 2007 02:23:20 +0000

I cut my own hair so I never have anyone ask me what I do.

By: cpradio

cpradio — Thu, 16 Aug 2007 22:12:39 +0000

I am a Programmer with Design experience Primarily I use the term programmer, as I prefer doing backend work versus the frontend and it clearly states I prefer writing code than HTML/CSS. GUIs are nice, but the real work is on the server-side in my opinion.

Writing connections to talk to the mainframe, sql server, mysql, oracle, other sites, etc. That is my turn-on in an average day of work.