I do agree that there isn’t a “right way” to do this, but only whatever is most comfortable / fastest for the team / project.
I think this isn’t helped by employers who are constantly looking for “unicorns” — you know, we’ve all seen those ads looking for “someone who can rock Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, HTML, XML, XSLT, CSS, PHP, Java, C++, MySQL, DSP assembler code, and can present Flash prototypes…” In their race to find the cheapest human resource to cover what rightly ought to be multiple positions, they’ve ended up creating divisions in the web development community.
Now there is a constant game of one-upmanship between pure visual designers and pure coders, because it’s rare to find someone who’s equally strong in both skillsets and each side is afraid of being eclipsed by the other.
Articles that say “Real web people only design in such-and-such a way” don’t help.
Personally, I stick to my own strengths and take the time to find people who complement my own skills for each project. I don’t code, but I know enough about code and standards that I don’t go designing things that can’t be achieved with HTML, CSS and JS.
I do agree that there isn’t a “right way” to do this, but only whatever is most comfortable / fastest for the team / project.
I think this isn’t helped by employers who are constantly looking for “unicorns” — you know, we’ve all seen those ads looking for “someone who can rock Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, HTML, XML, XSLT, CSS, PHP, Java, C++, MySQL, DSP assembler code, and can present Flash prototypes…” In their race to find the cheapest human resource to cover what rightly ought to be multiple positions, they’ve ended up creating divisions in the web development community.
Now there is a constant game of one-upmanship between pure visual designers and pure coders, because it’s rare to find someone who’s equally strong in both skillsets and each side is afraid of being eclipsed by the other.
Articles that say “Real web people only design in such-and-such a way” don’t help.
Personally, I stick to my own strengths and take the time to find people who complement my own skills for each project. I don’t code, but I know enough about code and standards that I don’t go designing things that can’t be achieved with HTML, CSS and JS.