by Pete Partin

Created on: April 23, 2008   Last Updated: May 08, 2011

There is a common misconception that web designers are the creative ones and web developers are the "techies". It is a true statement to say that both web design and web development involves aspects of both - web designers have to be creative and at least a little bit technical. Web developers have to be technically savvy and creative as well. Web designers create and maintain the pages within a website. Web developers are more involved in the entire process - in planning the site, creating navigation, overall theme, and are also involved in the more technical aspects of the web such as setting up web hosting servers, merchant accounts, payment gateways, back-end databases, and can sometimes even be involved in the more die-hard web programming.

Although web designers may plan page layout and how an individual page may look, they generally are not involved in the more technical aspects of the web - and for those wanting to disagree - I do not consider HTML/working with images technical. It requires some learning and creativity, but is nothing compared to learning PHP and mySQL or Ajax, for instance.

To put it in even more general terms, a web developer would be the one that comes up with the plans and blueprints for a house, while the web designer does the interior design, painting, and picks the furniture and art. The developer would actually create the plan for the entire street, neighborhood, and city, while the designer is responsible for filling in all of the "artsy" details. If there is anything technical that needs done (i.e. running the electric or plumbing), the developer would either do it or contract another professional (i.e. a web programmer) to do it.

Is it fair to say that web designers use one side of their brains (the creative side), while developers use the opposite side (analytical, technical, organized)? Absolutely not. Both designers and developers both have to be more "middle-brained" and use elements from both sides of their brains in order to be successful on the web.

The honest truth is that the lines between designer and developer used to be a lot more clear-cut. These days, those lines are becoming a little more blurred. The line in the sand that was drawn has been blown by the wind and is now barely visible.

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