I’m a web designer
Posted in daily
Tags :I love this blog post, discovered through my RSS feed via zeldman.com.
Front-end development’s identity crisis by Elly Loel.
What Elly describes resonates with me in the sense that I lived through the multiplication of job titles and labels.
I’m a web designer
Why do I think that this is the best title? Here’s why. I’m designing for the web. The infinitely flexible web. The web that doesn’t have one screen size, one browser, one operating system, or one device. The web that can be used by anyone, anywhere, on any internet connection, on any device, on any operating system, on any browser, with any screen size. I’m designing with the web. Using the web platform (HTML, CSS, JS, ARIA, etc.), not a bloated harmful abstraction. I have a deep understanding of HTML and its semantics. I love CSS, I know how and when to utilise its many features, and I keep up-to-date as more are added. I have a strong understanding of modern JavaScript and most importantly I know when not to use it.
Circa 2010, my slide deck intro was a list a mumbo jumbo of titles and labels, finishing with « I make websites », in an attempt to illustrate an inclusive approach of the web, rather than an alignement of narrow speciality silos.
Like Elly, I very much « design for the web » despite having no formal training in arts or graphical design.
I also share a deep love for HTML, CSS and the user experience (incl. typography, accessibility and performance). Designing the best web experience possible has always been my goal to this day. granted, the context and tooling have evolved and changed, but at the end of the day, it’s still people who are going to use our websites and applications.
I adapt my job title according to the context and to whom I’m speaking to, but most often it defaults to freelance web designer.
Read and share Elly’s post, and check-out Jeffrey’s for a collection of links to other relevant articles.