The Switch

Without a doubt, one of my single largest frustrations is communicating with print designers who are suddenly webdesigners. Not to say that all who have crossed the digital chasm are so difficult to deal with but there have been some terribly blinding cases in which the designers in question, truly had no grasp on what they were trying to accomplish.

Admittedly we come from the soup. We started out with table layouts and bad coloring and then moved our way through all of these fossil technologies into the glory of grid based, CSS design. And I give much praise to the foundations of design which are most certainly rooted in print. But many times these designers think that some how the mediums are joined at the hip. Not the case.

So, instead of going on and on about how much I dislike the efforts of print designers in the web space let me give out some advice and direction.

If you are thinking about transitioning to the web do your homework.

What do I mena by this? I am suggesting that you go to where all the hip designers are hanging out and see what they are into. By studying the style of today you will have a good barometer for whether or not you are able to design at the same level.

Also, read about the current best practices for technology. The page at a time web design is not really as effective as it once was and has been replaced by database driven websites. For good resources you should check out Smashing Magazine or Webdesign Ledger

For heavens sake, don’t use a thousand different gradients! The web needs to be lightweight as well as engaging. This can be a challenge for anyone who really likes to take advantage of the tools in Photoshop. Think about your end user. In most cases they will not care as much about the aesthetic as they will the over-all functionality of a site. This form follows function mentality will help you when determining the sizes for text, placement of navigation and ergonomics for guided calls to action.

Also. please watch your fonts. A lot of print designers are totally married to many different fancy fonts. At the moment the web cannot render most of them natively. They require special treatment. So, please save your poor development team the brain damage and use the fonts that come on every computer. A great place to do that is at TypeChart. Believe me, I love type as much as the next guy, but the web doesn’t seem to show love quite the same way back.

Use exact measurements in your layouts. Don’t leave little one or two pixel lines over hang out anywhere. This is a nightmare for anyone trying to take your design and turn it into a theme. You may not have any reason to worry about it, but the developers don’t know whether it is an accident or not. Specificity is really important. Also, using a web standard grid such as the one you will find at 960.gs will help you organize your design in a way that is easier on your development team.

Study some code. This is one of the biggest things that can help you as a designer understand what you team can and can’t do before they throw a design back at you and say “NO!” We are not looking for mastery here, but a clear understanding of reasonable functionality. If you walk up to your team and ask them about it, I am sure they will emphatically bombard you with information.

In general, if you are making the transition, please try to respect the effort and team work that designers and technologists have been fostering by making the internet a place that has both visual and vicerel interactivity.

Sincerely

Zach