Web Designer vs Web Developer: What’s the Difference?

What is website design?

Website design is concerned with both the site’s usability and its aesthetic. The layout and color scheme, for instance, are two facets of the website’s appearance where the web designer would concentrate. Their goal? To create a website that’s visually appealing and digestible.

Ultimately, good website design seeks to score high points for user experience. A site with successful web design offers aesthetically pleasing features, is easy to navigate, feels intrinsic to the brand, and fits the customer base.

Because web design is so focused on the visual aspects of the user interface and experience, web designers traditionally produce or work with deliverables such as storyboards, logo design, format, UI & UX design, and color palettes.

What is website development?

On the contrary, website development centers on the mechanisms that allow the site to work correctly. A web developer is responsible for making your web designer’s ideas come to life and making the site functional through coding. Keep in mind that there are two categories of website developers: front-end and back-end.

A front-end developer concentrates on writing code that determines how the website displays the web designer’s concepts. However, the back-end developer must correctly manage the data within your site’s database and enable that data to display on the website’s front-end.

Web Design vs. Web Development: Differences

Although they share some skills, web designers and web developers must master specific competencies in their respective fields. Web design emphasizes aesthetics, so designers must have greater knowledge of what makes a website visually appealing and logical to users. They need to master design applications such as Adobe Dreamweaver, JavaScript, and scripting frameworks for multi-feature front-end applications. Furthermore, they must make sure the products they create fit a business’s brand, from logos to color schemes.

Web developers, on the other hand, build the functional aspects of the website within the aesthetic parameters set forth by web designers. With their advanced programming skills, they ensure the product envisioned by the web designer comes to fruition. Web developers must master more extensive programming skills and software languages, such as Structured Query Language (SQL), Python, Java server development, machine learning, the development of APIs for interacting with objects, database tools and server architecture, and agile systems analysis.

Getting Started as a Web Designer or Web Developer

While they may sound similar, web designers and web developers have very different roles and distinct responsibilities. Designers focus on the front-end and visual aspects of a site, which influences its usability and overall UX. Developers, on the other hand, are responsible for taking the concepts and ideas laid out by designers and coding them into fully-functioning websites.

When considering whether you’d like to become a web designer vs. a web developer, keep in mind the different specializations and required skill sets involved. If you’re drawn to the pragmatic, technical side of projects, a web developer is a sensible career option. However, if you’re more interested in color theory, branding, and the creative element of building websites, a web designer is likely a more practical career choice.

Do you have questions about how to dip your toes into the world of web design and development? Ask us in the comments section below!

Difference between Web Designer and Web Developer

S. No.	Web Designer	Web Developer
1.	Web Designers are very creative.	Web Developers are more technical.
2.	Web designers are the aesthetic element.	Web development refers to building user-friendly websites based on clients’ specifications.
3.	They transform the ideas into visually appealing designs.	They transform designs into fully functional websites.
4.	Web designers refer to how the website looks and feels on the outside.	Web development refers to the functionality of the website on how it works.
5.	Web designers create the idea and style of a website, creating a mockup based on visual, UX, and UI features.	Web developers decide whether the concept is financially and technically feasible, and then only starts with further step of coding the site..
6.	The function of a web designer is concerned with the website’s visual and creative aspects and less concerned with technicality.	Web developers must be technically savvy. This includes comprehending sophisticated programming languages and frameworks.
7.	Types of Web Designers-User Experience (UX)User Interface (UI)Visual/Graphic Designer	Types of Web Developers-Front-endBack-endFull-stack
8.	The hiring cost of a web designer is comparatively less than a web developer.	The hiring cost of a web developer is more than a web developer.
9.	Most web designers learn about typography and the visual features of a website.	These are responsible for converting those designs into real websites. They use web tools and programming languages to create the design and functionality of a website.
10.	The main role of Web designers is to manage design and layout of a website that implies the graphical components of a website. A web designer is responsible for keeping a balance between a website’s visual components and its usefulness.,	The main role of a developer is to keep check on the functioning of a website and to see how it works. Web developers manage these aspects of a website-developing, coding, and modifying websites.
11.	Web designing tools include Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Dreamweaver, Sketch etc.	Languages used are HTML, PHP, JavaScript, CSS, Python, Ruby, jQuery etc.

What is web design?

Web design governs everything involved with the visual aesthetics and usability of a website—color scheme, layout, information flow, and everything else related to the visual aspects of the UI/UX (user interface and user experience). Some common skills and tools that distinguish the web designer from the web developer are:

Adobe Creative Suite (e.g., Photoshop, Illustrator) or other design software
Graphic design
UI design
UX design
Logo design
Layout/format
Placing call-to-action buttons
Branding
Wireframes, mock-ups, and storyboards
Color palettes
Typography

Web design is concerned with what the user actually sees on their computer screen or mobile device, and less so about the mechanisms beneath the surface that make it all work. Through the use of color, images, typography and layout, they bring a digital experience to life.

That said, many web designers are also familiar with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript—it helps to be able to create living mock-ups of a web app when trying to pitch an idea to the team or fine-tune the UI/UX of an app. Web designers also often work with templating services like WordPress or Joomla!, which allow you to create websites using themes and widgets without writing a single line of code.

What is web development?

Web development governs all the code that makes a website tick. It can be split into two categories—front-end and back-end. The front-end or client-side of an application is the code responsible for determining how the website will actually display the designs mocked up by a designer. The back-end or server-side of an application is responsible for managing data within the database and serving that data to the front-end to be displayed. As you may have guessed, it’s the front-end developer’s job that tends to share the most overlap with the web designer. Some common skills and tools traditionally viewed as unique to the front-end developer are listed below:

HTML/CSS/JavaScript
CSS preprocessors (i.e., LESS or Sass)
Frameworks (i.e., AngularJS, ReactJS, Ember)
Web template design
Libraries (i.e., jQuery)
Git and GitHub
On-site search engine optimization (SEO)

Front-end web developers don’t usually create mock-ups, select typography, or pick color palettes—these are usually provided by the designer. It’s the developer’s job to bring those mock-ups to life. That said, understanding what the designer wants requires some knowledge of best practices in UI/UX design so that the developer is able to choose the right technology to deliver the desired look and feel and experience in the final product.

Back-end developers handle the business logic and data management on the back-end of an application. They write the APIs and routing that allow data to flow between the front and back end of an application. Programming languages and tools unique to back-end developers are listed below:

Server-side programming languages (e.g., PHP, Python, Java, C#)
Server-side web development frameworks (e.g., Ruby on Rails, Symfony, .NET)
Database management systems (e.g., MySQL, MongoDB, PostgreSQL)
RESTful APIs
Authentication and security (e.g., OAuth, PassportJS)
Servers (e.g., Linux, Apache, Express)

Web developers who possess a working knowledge across the frontend and backend of a technology stack are called full-stack developers.

The difference between a web developer and a web designer is bigger than you think. A web designer brings a brand’s idea into an on-screen reality, and knows exactly what the specific audience will enjoy. A web developer builds the site’s core structure, using coding languages to construct logical, programmatic websites.

However, just like mustard and ketchup on a hot dog, sometimes you need both to get the best experience. When building a website from nothing, you need a web developer to build the foundation, and web designers to make it look and feel the way you and – more importantly – your users want.

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Web Design vs Web Development: What’s the Difference?