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Comment by _johnny | Hacker News Reader

I'm a frontend developer and I think some of these expectations make little sense. Giving a name to every layer is a lot of work and I don't care about it that much. I'll do my work with layers like "Layer 0 copy copy" as long as they're grouped. Having designer rename all the layers is a lot of work that would be better spent creatively. (Does your boss want to pay the designer for it?)

Another example: "#34 Be familiar with browser compatibility" - this is just your, developer's job. I cannot imagine expecting a designer to know about IE6 limitations (and tons of hacks and techniques to overcome them).

That said, I agree with many points, like naming files properly (which costs almost nothing) or careful use of blending modes (which are a lot of pain for the developer). Or careful use of gradients, especially over repeating patterns (#22).

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Designer turned coder, here.

Going back and renaming every layer isn't supposed to happen. Instead, the designer should name them when he creates them, preferably with a consistent naming scheme that makes sense with regard to the final medium. I did it for years (and still do it) and it works very well and isn't a waste of time, at all.

> this is just your, developer's job

Part of my daily job ,halas, consists in coding HTML emails. No matter how many times we repeat (face to face, in meetings, in internal documents…) to the designers that image backgrounds are a NO-NO behind HTML text or that emails destined to be turned into .OFTs should be as simple as possible or that there must be more HTML text than images… we always receive comps with textured backgrounds or shadowed HTML text, unnamed layers, impossible font sizes (12,72px) or whatever. When I receive such comps, I usually only have a couple of hours to do the job, or less, and I spend a large part of it arguing with the AM about impossible graphic details, undoing many silly effects and trying to find my way though a jungle of Layer 256, Copy of Layer 456…

Just like the print designer MUST know how printing works, the web designer MUST know as much as possible about HTML and CSS.

"this is just your, developer's job"

Shockingly, it's not. Most places I know of are moving away from a the designer and frontend developer positions. It's a big cost savings, not just in salary but in cycle time as well. Our designer sends us his designs in HTML. There is no bickering over fonts, no pixel perfection, no stupid photoshop-isms -filters, drop shadows, embossing, etc. I'm pretty sure he doesn't even have photoshop.

If you're a web designer and you can't do this, it's time to learn. You're a theoretical web designer drawing pictures of websites.

But then such designer is not a target for this "Manifesto".

BTW, I see value in having one person create designs as HTML files, but I also know a lot of designers who create beautiful, graphics-rich designs and don't know much about code. I suppose it's much harder to find people who can do both as good as separate people.

Graphics rich designs that don't come with the markup, aren't beautiful. Any designer that can't code his own markup isn't a designer worth having, and certainly isn't a web designer. He's a print designer who doesn't know he's obsolete.

If you can't build me a complete cross browser HTML template, a skin, for a website, you aren't a web designer. That means you must know HTML, CSS, browser idiosyncrocies, and possibly some very light JavaScript. Developers should never even see a PSD file or worry about what it looks like in IE. That's a designers job.

> If you can't build me a complete cross browser HTML template, a skin, for a website, you aren't a web designer.

If you've found such people - great. In places I've worked it was different. And designers did exceptionally beautiful things which I really appreciate. I'm proud that I've worked with them, even if they left some mess to be cleaned.

There is some knowledge and experience needed in dealing with IE6, having CSS well organized, images optimized, adding even light JavaScript.

If I was hiring (I do not), I'd totally prefer to have two people who can together build something great, than look for one person and receive worse results.

And I'd prefer my people to do what they do best. The skillset required in designing rich graphics is different than coding.

Hate to tell you bub, but none of that is coding. It's all simple markup, and a designer that can't do his own markup just isn't qualified, there are far too many available candidates that can to even bother talking to one who can't.

If all someone knows is making pretty images in photoshop, they simply aren't web designers, they're print designers who dabble in the web, amateurs.

> they're print designers who dabble in the web, amateurs

They're print designers but definitely not amateurs.

In the end, what really matters is that the client receives very high quality work and it is cost effective for the company. I understand that not every company works this way, but I have worked for and know some that do exactly this.

I don't really want to discuss it anymore, I feel we're repeating the same arguments over and over.

Most places I know of are moving away from a the designer and frontend developer positions.

Is just in regards to bare HTML/CSS or JavaScript interaction as well? I’d think most companies would be hard-pressed to find a designer that could write in the full HTML/CSS/JS stack needed for webapps these days and be equally competent in interaction or visual design – as ironic as that sounds – in which case FEDs are still very important in the process.

You'd think that, but I've met some very good designers that can work that full stack. The world is changing and people need to upskill or get left behind.

HTML/CSS is not that difficult. Even jQuery is pretty simple. Good jQuery is hard. Good Javascript harder still.

I also think developers are getting much savvier about design, and the tools helping developers with design are getting better and better. So the person who winds up doing all the design/html/css/js may not be the person who started out as the designer. So designers, by all means, harvest that fear and push yourself to learn some new skills.

Really? Most agencies I know in NYC/London/SF have a clear separation of roles.

"If you're a web designer and you can't do this, it's time to learn. You're a theoretical web designer drawing pictures of websites."

I couldn't agree more. At this point, if you're still designing the same way you would for print (and honestly, most designers I've worked with still do), you are going to be replaced.

I couldn't disagree more. Good HTML/CSS/JS code is not easy. It's hard work to make it look right for all browsers.. and these days you use actual programming languages (i.e. less/Sass) instead of CSS, anyway. It's hard work involving programming expertise to implement all JavaScript bells and whistles a modern website is expected to have. So it requires a good front end PROGRAMMER to do.

On other hand, a good designer is a creative person. They're not coders and shouldn't be expected to muck around with code. They're artists, who draw beautiful designs from blank page. The need for separation of roles couldn't be clearer to me, and I run a company that makes websites.

Totally agree with you, it was the same in places I've worked.

Right off I wanted to disagree about the preprocessor use for CSS. I just can't see that something like those has taken off so much that it's on the same level as something like jQuery.

But then it made me curious, I can't say that since I have no numbers and it's just an assumption. Are there any indicators of how popular tools like less or sass have become as opposed to regular CSS?

Another example: "#34 Be familiar with browser compatibility" - this is just your, developer's job. I cannot imagine expecting a designer to know about IE6 limitations (and tons of hacks and techniques to overcome them).

This might be overstated. How about "know your medium?" If you, as a print designer, were tasked to design a bag for dog food, would you Photoshop your ideas, then tell the production guy it's his job to make it work? Probably not.

As a designer, you probably don't need to know every limitation of every browser, but at a minimum, you might want to work with the programmer and understand what browsers need to be supported, and whether certain designs would require three days of CSS hacks to work in a single browser.

OK, you (and other commenters) are right. It was an overstatement. I agree with your last paragraph.

No, the designer has to know the medium he or she designs for.

If you don't understand the medium, you basically create pretty pictures. That's about it.

It's no different from designing newspapers, brochures, fashion.

I'll do my work with layers like "Layer 0 copy copy" as long as they're grouped.

That's shocking. That's like me as a developer naming my variables var1, var2, var3 etc. I'll get shot if I did that and would rightly do the same to anyone else that did that.

I do some Photoshop work, mainly for personal purposes and naming those layers makes it easier for me when I need to revisit those files. Stop thinking here and now and start thinking about your follow colleague that needs to take your pile of junk on.

It's different than code. First of all, if the designer gets the job done without renaming layers, then it's his business. (In my experience, a lot of them don't need to name layers). Unless he hands over the design to someone else. I'm not sure how often it happens. Code is very often handed to different people. I doubt graphics need the same level of maintainability.

But anyway, that's a thing between designers, and we're talking about designer vs. developers.

The other difference is that in Photoshop you can easily find layer by using Move tool and CMD+clicking on the picture. And you can find text layers with Text tool.

You don't rename anything, you name them correctly when you first create them. He's right, your behavior is shocking, and worse, you're trying to defend such bad practices.

Sorry to be shocking :)

I defend them because they're paid to do beautiful work and lack of layer names was never really an issue for me. Maybe just a couple of times. If the mess they left would be too big for me, then I'd complain. As long as I can deal with it, it's their decision whether they name layers or not. I definitely don't need every layer to have a name.

You say this now, but unless you have crystal ball you can't look into the future. I've worked in many places where something is designed, shelved, resurrected several months later, design tweeked, shelved, budget approved, resurrected...

Anyway, we're not talking about a thing between designers alone, we're talking about the fact that a lot of designs are passed on to developers to then code in html. You yourself highlight the fact that designers may not be familiar with browser incompatibility. We they can't factor these into the design then IMO it's pointless having them create the html.

That said, I agree with many points, like naming files properly (which costs almost nothing)

So naming files costs almost nothing nothing, but naming a layer correctly in the first place is a pain in the arse/takes up too much time... not much consistency to your logic here. As I recall, hitting F2 will take you into rename mode.

As gnaritas says, name it properly in the first place then there is no need to rename!

> not much consistency to your logic here

It is logical, because there are often hundreds of layers and presumably even more during the design process. Naming each one is a lot of work.

There are much less files in the end so it's totally different.

I don't find it shocking at all. That's what groups are for. Unless there are dozens of layers then a proper group name is all you really need. It's inefficient to name every layer of a group when there's only a handful of layers. Especially when sometimes the thumbnail of the layer gives an indication of the contents.

Look at it in terms of arrays; sometimes you use an associative array and sometimes you just go with simple index numbering.

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