Drawar

I attended a MS Silverlight event recently, that had two tracks, one aimed specifically at 'developers', the other more broadly at 'designers' and 'creatives' – but the distinction was clearly one between the guys who made it look good, and the guys (or gals) who made it work. One word that kept popping up throughout the day, however, was the term 'devigners' — a contraction, obviously, of developer and designer.

Maybe we started out with the two types of people being the same (like you, coding and photoshopping in the 90s), then things became so complex everyone had to specialize and choose one of the two, whereas now — through better apps and integration — we can get the best out of both worlds again?

Obviously, that still leaves the true artist out of the loop, as before. And perhaps that's for the best, so they can do what they do best: dream up stuff that moves us?

Nils I can certainly agree with that. (True) designers and true developers tend to do different things, but there are certainly tasks where the two overlap.

Interface design is one instance where the designer needs some development knowledge to know how people are going to end up using their work. They can't go all-out on the creative because people might not understand how to use it.

Similarly developers need some idea of the creative process so they can realistically mock things and help designers get the most from an interface.

But I think in a one vs t'other argument, designers definitely have the advantage. You can learn how to develop. You might not have the skills or patience to be a great programmer, but you can cover most of the important bases quite thoroughly.

Conversely, you can't learn to be creative. Your capacity for creativity is quite innate. Again, you can get some of the basic concepts, but developers need designers a lot more than designers need developers...

That's heightened by the bar-to-entry constantly being lowered for developing. WYSIWYG tools, simple, yet powerful scripting languages like those of Flash and even Silverlight are making it increasingly easy to take a design interactive.

Developers will always have their place, but I think as time goes on, we (developers) are going to get pushed further and further away from interface design, where the arty-types that can program will take our places.

you can't learn to be creative

I certainly agree with that bit. You should see some of the art work people send me which they've done "so I don't have to". Well-intended but no use.

I think Nils and Ollie have it mostly right, but I disagree with the idea that developers can't learn to be creative. It's merely a matter of if they want to be. If they want to be, they most certainly can learn how (Or did all of us designers start out with perfect graphic design? It's not a stagnant you "either know it or you don't" sort of thing.); there are some pretty solid rules in design, too, which would cater quite well to a more analytical person's initial learning.

I also disagree that developers need designers more, as an offshoot of what I was saying before; I think we need each other pretty equally and will for some time to come. If we're going to generalize, we might also do so by saying that designers are creative, therefore, they're not as likely to find the logic-based rules of more complex programming languages as easily understandable to their right-brained thinking, so they'll need developers to do that for them. Mind you, I think this is where most of us begin (and sometimes stay and continue with), in what we naturally understand and probably enjoy.

Ollie and I are different creatures, roaming the same city with the same first name, but we spell our nickname different. Not trying to be rude - just pointing it out =)

But to go back to what you said, yeah I can see that you can learn the technical side of creativity and that's fine, but all that does is tell you how to apply your creativeness -- how to express what you're imagining.

I suck hard when it comes to being creative. I can follow tutorials and use an existing design as "inspiration", but when it comes down to me getting creative (coming up with a new idea), the result is somewhere between poor and appalling 90% of the time.

Regarding logic, as I was saying, you don't need much with the latest waves of WYSIWYG editors and it won't be long before you can define everything without writing a line of code.

hahaha, sorry for the name mixup! I was in a rush to write that!

I get where you're coming from, Oli. I think we're a long way off from WYSIWYG editors doing a good enough job, though. Looking at the code that's produced by Dreamweaver CS3, which I think is pretty advanced, at an Adobe conference last year, I was pretty disgusted. It will be a long time before WYSIWYG editors can differentiate well and consistently between stylized texts, detail elements and header tags, which are so vital for anyone reading without CSS on (mobile, in many cases or screenreaders, not to mention search bots).

Currently, with tools like that, people can make a website. That's been happening since Frontpage. The problem is that I think they're rarely good sites and won't get those people as far as one that was developed properly. Also, with the constant drive for sites to become more interactive, developers are needed for things like that, as that's usually beyond designers' capacity.

An interesting thing on the side, I'd say, is how people are perceived. I think developers are generally better regarded (in terms of their work) than designers. There are still a lot of people out there who think bright red looks awesome on purple backgrounds, and so they don't think designers have to work hard to create good things. Meanwhile, I think there are more people who know they don't understand how to create complex, database-driven systems, and so feel developers are pretty valuable and savvy folks.

I've especially seen this since living with my boyfriend, who's a web developer; I think he gets a lot more respect for his work than I do. I have to go on and on with clients about the most basic things, because they often think they know at least a little about design, whereas they know they are at a loss when it comes to programming. There is the occasional client that's a know-it-all to us both, and there are some like that to developers, but I think designers get that more, which is annoying for me.

Anyone else encountered that?

It is interesting to see people's thoughts on the ability of an individual to "learn" creativity. I think we all have our own type of creativity and that some people are able to bring that out in the open more easily than others. If these types can apply it properly to design then they have a great chance of success.

If you are simply breaking down the definition of an artist vs. designer than to me an artist is simply making real his vision while a designer is solving a problem visually.

I've always felt that they were two different skillsets... Mostly because art is subjective. You may see a painting and think its art, someone else thinks its crap. I've heard lots of discussion in the past about digital art as well. So just because I may see it, that doesn't mean everyone sees art in pixels.

That being said, Knowing and understanding design can certainly lead to the creation of visual art. And if we're talking about "web design", which to me is the proper execution of code in an effective and efficient manner to produce the desired visual outcome - that can be an art unto itself!

I think we all have our own type of creativity and that some people are able to bring that out in the open more easily than others.

Well-put. Creativity isn't all about just the 'art' or design aspect of things. We tend to forget that. Just like intellect isn't about knowing a lot of stuff or being able to do math or whatever. Creativity is also about dealing with problems and solving them well I suppose.

Brett Bernstein's thoughts on "The Artist vs. The Designer"

Taking it in a slightly different direction …

When The Artist finishes their work, it is done. It gets consumed by different people visually and that consumption is a 1-way street. (eg looking at wireframe mockups for a given web-site).

On the flip side, when The Designer finishes their work, it is consumed by different people interactively in more of an emperical manner (eg there are many different ways to consume it).

They are different skill sets, and those who have worked with both know+understand+appreciate the differences. At least, I do. :)