Graphic Designer or Web Designer?

MuGeN

MuGeN

MuGeN

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How do :)

So, I'm soon to start looking for a graphic designer, but good knowledge of css/html would be very useful...

With current uni courses etc... am I more likely to get who I want by advertising a "Web Designer" role who should have course have decent design skills anyway but may not have much experience with print etc, or a "Graphic Designer" who may not have web experience?

Basically I'm asking if with current education, do these two go very much hand in hand these days?

Not sure if I'm allowed to ask this, but I suppose if anyone on here is looking for such a job (we're located in Cannock, Staffordshire) - maybe you could drop me a trust message? I'm always partial to folks who are of a helpful nature like those you find on these forums :) (in fact, 2 of my 3 employees I found through OcUK - you can get a good grasp on skills / personality before you even talk about CVs or interviews :))
 
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Graphic Designer is typically graphic design only and can include web and print design.

Web Designer would be more geared towards front end developers (css/html/js) who may also have design skills.

Web Developer would be more for people who do backend stuff. (php, c#/.net)

I think you're looking for a Front End Developer. In my opinion, any decent Front End Developer would also be a designer.
A Front End Developer who does not do design is more than likely an amateur.
 
I'd agree with the above.

'Front End Developer' I firmly believe covers the design aspects and also XHTML/CSS development. If you were after skills such as PHP or ASP it'd be a Back End Developer you were after.
 
Are there any other employers on here that have recruited recently? I'm wondering what you feel is the best way to find the person I need?

The fastest way is probably an agency but even if I was willing to pay the extra costs, I wouldn't know which one to trust...

Any ideas?
 
I'm the Front End Developer for my company but when we've brought on new Back End Devs, we've found them through industry connections but considering you're posting on here asking these questions, I'm guessing you've had no luck there.


I would simply look for:
A Front End Developer who loves nothing more than creating beautiful, cross-browser sites with validating XHTML/CSS/JS/(insert your js library of choice) and has a portfolio which reflects this.

I wouldn't worry too much about experience and I'd worry even less about education because IMO, a top notch portfolio is far more important.

Someone can have years of experience and an amazing education but if they have a crap portfolio, you can expect to receive more of the same.
 
That is very good advice... in fact I might got for that exact phrase :D

So... where to advertise this for best results that is the dilemma...

EDIT: maybe this is my phrase:

"A Graphic Designer / Front End Developer who loves nothing more than creating beautifully designed, cross-browser web sites with validating XHTML/CSS and has a portfolio which reflects this."

They don't need JQuery experience I quite like my back-end dev doing that, but I might just add "Graphic Designer" into the description to try and put a bit more emphasis on the design side... end of the day we can brush up on their HTML/CSS you can't really teach design flair...
 
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Here you go look, heres the ad from our site:

http://www.sssmedia.co.uk/blog/vacancies

Let me know if you think this would snag the right (calibre) of person?

On top of advertising on our site, which of the many job sites do you thing would yield the best results?

(asking the other web company owners here now obviously :))
 
You may find with UI developers that they don't know diddly about design, and will only be able to cut/convert an existing design from a PSD to a UI. :)
 
As a graphic designer / web designer / (weak) web developer I would say it's fairly tough to find someone with the experience you would like. Web designers rarely have a clue about crafting for print as the applications they use shelter them from or simply don't need the nuances. Vice versa, graphic designers may enjoy their outlines, vectors, bleeds and pantones but rarely venture into tags and cascading styles. Overarching on that, will you also want someone who understands business and marketing and can help develop a campaign that won't insult the masses! I should know, I was a web designer 2 years ago when I joined my current company. I've been rather fortunate in that a) I've kept my job and b) I'm the only one now, so idea creation/design/print/web development (front and back end) has been thrown my way.

Unfortunately there's no easy way round it, but I would say go for someone with a strong design flair (with Photoshop) and the front end skills you require. They will pick up illustrator and designing for print no problem. It will be harder to teach them marketing sense, but if you have strong role models for campaign development it won't be impossible to influence your new employee and give them good experience on projects.

And no, education doesn't solve this problem. Infact, I find people are more specialised by their degrees than anything. Designers still design, developers still develop.
 
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If i was hiring I would rather go for self taught people like myself, you usually find they are more passionate about thier work and want to create because they enjoy it and they didn't study just one aspect of design, print or graphics etc.

Make sure you look at a portfolio first though as some self taught people are dillusional maybe im one of them lol :D

see sig :p
 
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MuGeN said:
[...] Let me know if you think this would snag the right (calibre) of person?[...]
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Having had the insight of being a designer on the receiving end of CV submissions, in my experience I think you'll have to put up with some frustration in your quest to find someone equally apt for both media types.

Not that there's anything particularly wrong with your advert's wording - it's just that it's a hell of a lot like nearly all designer job adverts out there. It's not that remarkable... and that's the type of designer it'll most attract. Anyone can go through the checklist of Adobe products/obvious requirements and justify to themselves that they can rightfully tick those boxes.

The place where I used to work - an online marketing agency with a small team of in-house designers [read: "you'll have to do web, print and even the signs on the doors"] - put an advert very much like this up about a year ago.

Applications came in from: the newly-graduated; the desparate for salary; the deluded; the desperate to relocate [including a subcategory: the desperate to escape their subcontinent :eek:]; the grizzled ex-printshop veterans ["10 years experience of Quark and a permanently depressed air"].

Some were pretty good at one discipline. One or two showed what I would consider the fruit of decent graphic design education, and could just about get by doing web design by using Dreamweaver [and Flash. Always Flash...].

Not one had what I considered very good skill/passion/experience in both disciplines. No-one fanatical to the point of OCD about clean markup and user interfaces, whilst also able to argue the case for their five favoured print fonts. Lots of applicants thinking that design is just about 'sitting in front of Photoshop all day - and getting paid for it LOL'. Erm, no.

If it were me advertising for an all-rounder:

- I'd be more conversational in tone when writing the advert. I'd be as human as possible, to gain the trust of experienced designers who've already had their tablets burnt at the hands of larger, more corporate agencies.

- I'd drop in some names of industry-respected figures ["We're after the sort of designers that are reading Zeldman and Rutledge's blogs when everyone else is on Facebook"] to catch the eye of those who keep up to date with the latest web design machinations.

- I'd tell/warn them that they'd be expected to bring in an example of a design from the real world that they think is inspirational, and expect them to talk passionately about why they think it's so good... to the point where you almost have to tell them to shut up about it.

- That's on top of being able to demonstrate that they can hand-code elegant markup. That'd be a given.

But that's just me, and the sort of designer I'd be looking for to help my business grow to the next level [whatever that is].

On top of advertising on our site, which of the many job sites do you thing would yield the best results?
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I presume that there must be a Cannocky equivalent of Orchard Recruitment, who specialise in design/media jobs in North-west and Yorkshire. Those specialist agencies would be the first place I'd investigate.

Sure, you'll have to pay fees, but they'll save you time by filtering out the chaff and get you someone you'll be happy to pay tens of thousands a year to :D.


EDIT: After all that pessimism, I ought to point out that there are plenty of good designers out there, so who knows! Good luck with your search :)
 
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How're things going with your designer search, MuGeN?

To follow up my lengthy thread-halting reply, I saw these postings on 37signals' job board, and they struck me as good examples of what I was on about:

http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/6805
http://jobs.37signals.com/jobs/6806

Note, amongst other things, that there are no software lists; it's probably a given that suitable applicants will already be au fait with the usual suspects.

Having said that, I hope you've already managed to find someone perfect for your business :)
 
Christ I have no idea how but I missed your ma-hoosive post first time round... thanks for this great advice I'll read and re-read and mull it over :)

Cheers bud :)
 
He's too busy doing php and jquery...

Have a few interviews lined up with some promising candidates... must have done something right :)
 
Wish my boss would hire a designer. I have to do all the design, html, css, javascript, coding and db management myself.

I actually find design to be the "fun" part of a project. I'm not creative enough to do full-on graphic-heavy designs though.
 
We find it a lot easier and cheaper to outsource the HTML/CSS build to other companies. It leaves the developers and designers more time to get on with the really interesting and productive stuff that can easily be missed out on if you have to spend 3 hours a day trying to figure out why your design won't look right in IE6.
 
I agree but I guess my boss would rather something take longer than have to pay someone else too. He's also under the impression IT types can do everything IT related.
 
yeah, outsourcing the html/css is definitely an interesting option, I have often considered using that PSD2HTML service... can anyone vouch for them or recommend someone similar?

Its a good option to have :)
 
Can't be that expensive to contract someone to cut psd into html. It's a pretty mindless job. My suggestion would be to try a few people out until you find someone you like so e.g. if you got 5 small jobs, find 5 different people to do them. Keep doing that until you've got at least 3 good people you can contact for future work.

You'll need 3 because people aren't always available at short-notice which is the main problem I find with outsourcing.

Using a service means it will be a mixed bag of results each time unless you can request the same person does it.

I've gone into an IRC chat room a few times and hired people to do design work for my own clients sometimes - has worked out well so far.
 
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