What Is A Web Developer?
Before we go through the difference between web developers and graphic designers, we should first know what each of them does what their occupation actually consists of.
A web developer is a person who develops the functional structure of a website, the many different characteristics that belong to the technical infrastructure. He makes sure the content is presented as it should, placed in the correct spot, in other others, the defining traits of the content.
The web developer is mainly interested in creating a website, the lovely texture, and the excellent design.
The work behind the curtains, complex code lines, and protocols are necessary for the website to run correctly. We will need this information further when we get to the main difference between web developers and graphic designers.
These programmers work in many different fields and for diverse corporations, small and large, doing odd jobs (working as a freelancer), or having a long-term commitment to one such employer.
Although their educational status doesn’t present any requirements, some employers prefer them to have a history of computer-related academic upbringing.
If you’re looking to extend your business to the digital world, you need one such web developer to help build your website.
That is unless you plan on doing it yourself, but let’s presume you’re looking for the easy way out. You can expect a programmer to build your website from scratch until it works efficiently and autonomously, or even have him maintain it, although that would require further negotiation.
To correctly appreciate whether a web developer is good enough or has the skills you require, it would be good to know what you’re looking for.
Do you want the website done from scratch, or do you already have a framework? Maybe someone else has already done it, and you need the databases to be maintained? These questions are fundamental to answer because they will significantly reduce the risks involved.
Web developers should have an advanced understanding of multiple programming languages, like HTML, PHP, CSS, JavaScript, Microsoft Silverlight, Python, Java, C, JQuery, Flash, and extensive knowledge about the applications used for the process.
Although there is a significant difference between web developers and graphic designers, you will see that they can work together quite fluidly.
What Is A Graphic Designer?
First of all, I have to say that a graphic designer is not the same thing as a web designer. The latter is just a branch, a potential direction toward which the former can head.
While the web designer deals explicitly with the visual representation and artistic overview of a website, thus being tied to the digital market first and foremost, a graphic designer can work outside of the cyber world as well.
They create billboards, posters, political propaganda, satirical illustrations, book covers, and many more such visual elements.
They can devise the overall look of brochures and magazines the precise layout of TV advertisements. Basically, anything with a particular flair for visual art was probably done with a graphic designer’s help.
The sheer potential and diversity that a graphic designer can astound most people because you can see them cropping photos, drawing up portraits for magazines, designing the margins of certain brochure pages, and anything in-between.
Knowing the difference between web development and graphic design is paramount in understanding how this fits.
What makes a graphics designer good is his ability to develop visually attractive ideas. These eye-catching visual indicators attract your attention and never let it go.
Impressionability, spontaneity, a well-developed artistic sense that makes it easier to combine desirable colors, images, and other visual elements, are the essential traits of a good graphics designer.
They also have to be very open-minded individuals, flexible enough to understand what the client needs, and actually base their work on what he’s asked to do.
If the client has a plan, stick to it. Come up with innovative ideas that could work well alongside the required visual project or present other separate ideas of your own.
Difference Between Web Developer And Graphic Designer
Now that you know what each of them does for a living and what you should expect from both when you want to hire someone to do your job, it’s time to present the main between a web developer and graphic designer.
Mainly, it is evident from the two presentations above, but this needs to be emphasized more clearly, as there are many people out there who don’t see it.
This would help you significantly consider what type of person you need for your graphic design. Suppose you want someone to build you a website from the ground up. In that case, you need a web developer to devise its structure, functionality, development, and content maintenance.
He’s the one who puts all the elements together, fitting all the pieces into the rightful place, seamlessly creating the structural integrity of the website.
Everything that you see on a website is the result of a web developer, but only in the sense of its arrangement, functionality, and development.
When talking about the visual part, the dynamics, the special effects that greet you, everything that makes life more beautiful, that’s the job of the graphics designer. And he could just as well make you a brochure, a physical one that is, or create a design for a digital one.
Even web design is one of their many strengths, although only at visual representation. They don’t have anything to do with a website’s structural integrity.
The difference between a web developer and a graphic designer becomes apparent if we look at things in this way.
You go to a graphics designer to make your products or services more desirable, more accessible, and attractive to the general public.
A logo, the cover of a magazine, the pictures inside it, the digital dynamics of a website, these are all falling in the job description of this guy.
Also, the very best in this business can express the most complex ideas in the simplest forms. With just an image or a few words, they can fully transmit and reflect the core principles of a specific business.
Simplicity, professionalism, imagination, innovative drive, a little unrestraint, and boldness are all traits that the ideal graphics designer should have.
Now that we’ve seen the main difference between web developers and graphic designers, we can also get to the part where both have a role to play together, where one’s work is made whole through that of the others.
What do I mean by this? Simple! When a graphics designer is asked to produce digital design, those visual elements must be correctly implemented in the target website for a seamless transition and for the website’s overall functionality.
This is something that only the web developer can do. He takes the visual information from the graphics designer and systematically introduces it into the website’s framework.
As you can see, even though these two are pretty different when it comes to the job they do, at some point, they come together to deliver the final product.
