Graphic Designers & Website Designers are Different

I myself am both a graphic designer and a website designer. I am a design geek and a code geek. This is rarer than you think.  It is usually thought that all graphic designers are web designers and vise versa. INCORRECT! And to add even more to that, not all website coders are website designers!

The requirements and specs for a graphic design to be printed are extremely different than those for a web designer.  Unfortunately a lot of designers don't realize the differences and they think they can do both. What ends up happening is a graphic designer creates a design that is not search engine friendly and is difficult to build because they didn't keep in mind that the web world works in boxes, and a web designer creates print materials lacking the correct much higher resolutions, doesn't know about bleeds and usually uses a none print friendly program.

So if you are in the market for both printed materials and website materials, and you want them done by the same company to keep your materials as cohesive as possible, interview your prospective company choices for both.  Also, feel free to get references. A past/present client is the best way to get the dirt! If you don't want to ask directly, they should have a portfolio on their website that you can pull from.

Things you can ask a graphic designer...

Where did you get you graphic design degree?
The college they name doesn't really matter. Design talent comes from within and there are plenty of top notch designers that came from little colleges, as well as plenty of crap designers that came from high profile colleges.  The main thing that matters with this question is that they have a degree IN graphic design. There are thousands of people who call themselves designers but they are not. They want to work from home, or they did a flier once and now they think their a designer.  To date in my experience have never seen a good graphic designer without a degree.  But I have seen tons of crap designers with no degree.

What local print shop have you worked with?
If they can't quickly tell you at least one print shop, there may be an issue of lack of experience. Only when you've worked with printers do get to know the ins and outs of what they need.

What is the standard size of a business card?
2 x 3.5 - Business cards are one of the most common designs created, any graphic designer should know the dimensions by heart.

What is a bleed?
A bleed is when you want the color of a design to go all the way to the edges, so you add color past the edges of the design.  A print machine has to cut the edges of the paper to size after printing. Most print machines have a small margin of movement between cuts. In order to be sure that the color goes to the edge with no gaps due to the movement, we add extra color around the edges.

If a designer can answer these questions quickly without having to look it up, your probably on the right path!

Things you can ask a website designer...


What is the resolution for a website?
72 or 96 dpi.  To date, most computer screens can only see 72 dpi (dots per inch). (Print on the other hand is 300 dpi.)

Can you code in html, css, php, or asp?
Website's can be a combo of one or multiple coding languages. The point of this question isn't which they do, there all acceptable, it's just that they do it. Any web designer should be able to code in something. It's the only way to effectively know the ins and outs, dos and don'ts of what you can create.

What is the standard computer monitor size?
1024. Todays monitors are on average 1024 or higher.  Websites can be built in any size, it's important that a web designer know what website width will fit on the majority of monitors.

What browsers do you code for?
There are 5 most common browsers and a few more minor browsers. Unfortunately for coders, they don't all interpret  code the exact same. It's important that when building a website, the coder checks how it looks in the most common browsers to make sure it's coming across as it's intended. The 5 most common browsers are; Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, Chrome and Opera.

If a designer can answer these questions quickly without having to look it up, your probably on the right path!

If a designer can answer one set of questions easier than the other, they may be better suited for the one they did well in. Happy Hunting!