Why it is better for a designer to know code (and vice versa)

Written By Mattia Compagnucci

I was an engineer before becoming designer and for a long time I hated writing code, but now I feel so lucky because I finally understand that a designer and a coder can live safely in the same soul, and this stuff is very important as never before.

You (Designer) have ever listened something like this from your developer:

Why did you do this block of 18px instead of 20px?

or (Developer) by your designer:

Why is this text aligned to the left? I made it justified.

I think a lot of working issues when we deal on a web project because, overall, designers think that a great part of developers are weird and, similarly, developers think that designers are dreamers that play with colors and shapes, although luckily there are some exceptions.

Designers are afraid of Html as developers are afraid of Photoshop.

What could happen if we will discover some basics of each world?

In the times were the media is fluid and anything could change in a second, is important to maintain an open flexible mind and to satisfy our curiosity.

Designers could know what is possible to do in web (almost anything now) and developers could understand more deeply what we are coding, but more widely, known more about other fields, like user experience and user interface, make us a better freelancer.

As a designer when I work with a developer I tend to collaborate with someone that know the basic of design and, when I can, I tend to do both, design and develop because I’m sure that the final result fits perfectly with the design process.


 

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Mattia Compagnucci
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