Code vs. Art: The Designer's Tightrope

After reading several posts, many in the design and feedback areas, my mind came around to this topic. A Web designer, or any designer really, walks a line between making stuff that is beautiful, and making stuff that is technically precise.

As this is a forum for designers with all ranges of coding and artistic experience, I would like to start a discussion about art/design know-how vs. coding know-how in the world of digital and Web design.

I personally am more artist than coder; however I understand that knowing technical aspects are important. Web (or digital) design is different from other designs because user-friendliness and supported technology are a necessary part of the design, and a part of what can make a website attractive.

However, both basic and complex websites can be attractive in their own ways. Should it, therefore, be a direct reflection on a person's overall design knowledge if they don't create very high-tech sites? Or vice versa, create technically well-done sites with few artistic principles applied?

These are some of the questions I have had, and I would like to know others' views. This is a topic for open discussion, not debate or critique. I am not looking for suggestions, I'm looking for what other people think; please keep that in mind as you offer your ideas.

I was thinking about this the other day, more on the lines of the purpose of the "graphic" designer. Is their purpose to beautify the web?

To beautify the web? Perhaps not. But think about how often visual content is used on web pages these days. Whether it's good or bad content, someone has to make it.

Graphic design, if I recall correctly, is equally about making layouts for printed material (i.e. magazines, books, etc.), as it is for anything. However, things like logos, icons, and custom buttons used on webpages, would still fall under the aegis of graphic design.

So I suppose the basic question one could ask, is: "How necessary is graphic content to Web pages?"

"How necessary is graphic content to Web pages?"

As long as the web has a visual component, graphic content will be important. I don't feel a designer's sole responsibility falls under the scope of making things 'attractive' but more along the lines of enhancing the user's experience. Engaging the visual senses to encourage interaction. Depending on the particular site's premise, graphics or typography are either major components of a site or simply supportive.

From what I have seen, there are three types of thinkers:

1. Scientists: They are generally good at math, good at programming and bad at design. They specialize in making good web applications work.

2. Artists: Not usually exceptional at math or programming, but can make beautiful web designs that make those functional pages worth going to.

3. Both: Those gifted few are are like ambidextrous people, they have the rare gift of being able to make good designs and program efficiently. They are the envy of most everyone else.

The scientists and artist must work together or the web would either be a functional blank (or really ugly) application, or a beautiful design that doesnt really do anything.

Originally Posted by Village Idiot From what I have seen, there are three types of thinkers: 1. Scientists: They are generally good at math, good at programming and bad at design. They specialize in making good web applications work. 2. Artists: Not usually exceptional at math or programming, but can make beautiful web designs that make those functional pages worth going to. 3. Both: Those gifted few are are like ambidextrous people, they have the rare gift of being able to make good designs and program efficiently. They are the envy of most everyone else. The scientists and artist must work together or the web would either be a functional blank (or really ugly) application, or a beautiful design that doesnt really do anything.

Heh, reminds me of my one portfolio class (the purpose of which was to design a portfolio website, natch, along with resumes, business cards, "leave behinds", etc), which was half Web Design students and half Graphic Design students. The GD students often had beautiful conceptual art for different sorts of sites, they just usually ran into one major problem - there was often no way to include funtionality, i.e. navigation tools and such, without either "pasting something on" as an obvious afterthought, or completely overhauling their entire layout. The WD students didn't have anything nearly so esoteric-looking, but they never forgot to add in navigation buttons, etc... But hey, that's why we were all taking the class, to fix those little weak points, right?

Unfortunately, the prof displayed an obvious and distinct bias in favor of the GD students and their "high art" concepts, so a lot of the WD students fell behind because she wouldn't help them improve the visual appeal the way she insisted they needed to (she was too busy helping the GD students add funtionality I suppose). At the end of the course, all the GD students were still there, and most got high grades and achievement awards. Most of the WD students had stopped coming to class, and of the few that remained, all but one of them had C's or worse. In the panel review, when we had to present our final portfolio sites, resumes, et al, to a set of judges, most of the GD students still had some minor functionality/ease-of-use issues with their sites, while most of the WD students still had some visual appeal issues with their sites, business cards, etc.

Amusingly enough, the only WD student to get an A also got an award, despite the fact that she'd openly defied the prof's frequent, heavy-handed "advice" (read: pressure) to change her logo, "branding identity", etc (and therefore the entire look of her site), because she "didn't use her real name" for it. She was also the only one in the class, of either major, to recieve no criticisms on her portfolio site at the panel review, (heh, though the panel judges did kinda floor her with a totally unexpected question about something on her resume).

In some ways, StormCat, your example emphasizes Village Idiot's point that being able to think in both directions is a rare thing.

I'm both, I always want my designs to look stunning, but while I design I'm also thinking about the markup and semantics, how I will code various parts, what can be done in php and if I can completely replace parts of the design with css.

Originally Posted by chaka42 Engaging the visual senses to encourage interaction.

Absolutely. Well said.

RJ

Originally Posted by Coyotes_Childe So I suppose the basic question one could ask, is: "How necessary is graphic content to Web pages?"

incredibly necessary.

@above; apparently i count as a "both" case. a university co-op starte this week, working under me for the summer semester (who's my age), and he's absolutely baffled at all the different responsibilities i take on by myself and how easily i handle them.