Should Web Designers Know Code?

There was once a day when a designer could pass along his PSD’s to a developer, and get a well coded website that worked as the designer intended and followed the best of web standards.  Nowadays, with new developments like css3, web-fonts and responsive design, those days are far behind us.  Can a web designer thrive, or even call themselves a web designer if they don’t understand html or css?

How about web developers? Can web developers do their jobs to the best of their abilities without design skills? Can you trust a web developer to implement web-fonts when they don’t know the meaning of the word “kerning”?  Do we really want to put more design power with css3 into the hands of a developer who doesn’t know the basics of design theory?  Let’s not even begin to talk about transitions and motion!

What is expected of web designers and developers is rapidly changing.  Tonight, we’ll have an open panel discussion to find out what the prevailing opinions are and find out just want a web designer and developer should learn about in order to have a long lasting career.

Joining us on our panel will be:

Nate Bishop
Designer at MAYA Design
@natebishop
natebishop.com

Rob Stinogle
Manager of Web Development, American Eagle Outfitters
@stinogle
stinogle.com

Nathan Peretic
Co-founder of Full Stop
Front-end developer, writer, jack-of-all-trades.
@nathanperetic
nathanperetic.com

James Acklin
Front-end Developer at Smith Bros. Agency
Illustrator / designer-turned-developer
@acklindesign
acklindesign.com

Josh Sager
Program Director for Multimedia Technologies at PTI
@joshsager
joshsagermedia.com

Submit Questions

Help us prepare for the panel by submitting some questions in advance.  You can add them as a comment to this post, or send an email to info@refreshpittsburgh.org.

As always, please RSVP with an email to info@refreshpittsburgh.org or, let us know on the Facebook event page!

The topic for our next discussion? “Should Designers Know Code?”

Web design and development is rapidly evolving.  These days, a designer needs to understand not only the web, but also mobile platforms, tablets, and even devices we don’t have yet!  Responsive design is  a fantastic tool – but if your designer doesn’t understand the underlying code can they properly design for the medium?

This seems to be a hot topic in the industry these days, and we think it would be a great time to get the group together to discuss the ideas and see what the opinion is.

We’re looking for panelists!  We have a few people in mind, but it would be great to get some new people involved.  If you are interested or have some suggestions, please email us at info@refreshpittsburgh.org.  Spread the word.  As soon as we finalize our panelists, we’ll get this scheduled!

This year’s line up includes:

• Jason Beaird, Sitepoint Author & UX Designer at Mailchimp
• Brett Harned, Senior Project Manager at Happy Cog
• Val Head, Independent Designer at Northmaple Studio
• Matt Griffin Designer & Co-founder of Bearded Studio
• Jenn Lukas, Interactive Development Director at Happy Cog
• Samantha Warren, Senior Designer at Phase II Technologies
• Brad Frost, Mobile Developer at R/GA

You can learn more about Web Design Day at webdesignday.com

We’re currently finalizing our speakers and have a few more slots to fill. If you are interested in presenting this year, submit a session at our website.

We hope to have our final speakers announced soon. If you are on the Web Design Day mailing list, you’ll be the first people to know when registrations open!

Developments over the last few years have completely changed the way we build websites. For those too busy to read specs and approach it academically, we’ll spend a good portion of the day together, learning how to build a modern website in a practical, efficient way. If you can already hack your way through HTML and CSS, this workshop will be perfect for taking those skills to the next level.

We’ll cover new HTML5 tags and their semantics, learn a few new key CSS3 features, implement some non-standard fonts with and without Typekit, try out transitions and translations with with CSS and JavaScript (using jQuery), and pick up a few best practices along the way.

At the end of the day, we’ll have built a fully functioning site you’ll wish you could put on your mantelpiece.

Registration opens on Monday, April 18th at noon and there are only 30 seats available.

Check out our workshop page for complete event details!

Presentations

First, Jon Dascola will be presenting one of the better presentation titles we have seen:

If You’re in the Shit Up to Your Neck, the Only Thing You Can Do is Sing

Inevitably, the projects we work on get bogged down by tight deadlines, watered down by client demands and wrought down by our own frustrations. We need to remember to keep our excitement high and our perseverance higher. If we’re not excited about what we’re making, why should we expect anyone else to be? We’ll talk about how to keep our work fresh and to find awesomeness in the details.

Jon Dascola is currently an Interactive Designer at Elliance, Inc, where he designs to forge connections between visual design, technology and human computer interaction for clients in higher education, non-profit, manufacturing and business services.

He previously worked at sunKING creating award winning work for global brands like the Coca-Cola Company, Heinz, Transitions Lenses and Bath & Body Works. Prior to that, he worked as a Designer for American Eagle Outfitters. A native Pittsburgher, Jon graduated from La Roche College with a degree in Graphic and Communication Design.

You can follow jon on twitter @dascola.

Next, Jay Fanelli of Full Stop Interactive will be talking client relations with his presentation:

Stop Hating Your Clients

Do you hate your clients? Probably, right? Guess what…it’s all your fault. OK, maybe it’s not all your fault, but there are certainly things you can do to make the relationship better. Whether you’re a freelancer, a shop owner, or working at a larger agency, Jay shows you ways to make your client interactions a little more bearable.

Jay Fanelli is the co-founder and designer at Full Stop, a Pittsburgh web design and development shop. You can also find him on twitter @jayfanelli.

Left Field is location directly across the street from PNC Park. There is plenty of street and garage parking. Get directions here! A very big thank you goes out to Smith Brothers Agency for supporting Refresh and allowing us to use this awesome space!

’’ll be starting promptly at 6:30pm. When you get to our building, simply walk into the larger glass doors that say “Smith Brothers Agency” and take the elevator to the 4th floor. Please be on time as the front doors will be on automatic lock for 7:00!

As always, please RSVP by sending an email to info@refreshpittsburgh.org or just let us know you are coming on the Facebook event page so we can plan accordingly!

This month, we will be meeting at Left Field Meeting Space on the North Shore. Left Field is location directly across the street from PNC Park. There is plenty of street and garage parking. Get directions here! A very big thank you goes out to Smith Brothers Agency for supporting Refresh and allowing us to use this awesome space!

We’ll be starting promptly at 6:30pm. When you get to our building, simply walk into the larger glass doors that say “Smith Brothers Agency” and take the elevator to the 4th floor. The from doors will be on automatic lock for 6:45!

As always, please RSVP by sending an email to info@refreshpittsburgh.org or just let us know you are coming on the Facebook event page so we can plan accordingly!

Presentations

First, Val Head will be giving us a sneak preview of her upcoming SXSW talk.

“My Title is Web Designer, Now What?

As our industry has matured, the role of the web designer has become more nuanced. The skill sets of people who call themselves web designers can vary greatly from one to the next. One may never touch code; the other may have their hands in every step of building out their designs. And there’s even more to it than that.

What sorts of things should we know how to do as web designers? what skills should we look to pick up next? Can we really be expected to be experts in all of these things? And how will this affect our future careers?

Val will discuss these questions and more in an effort to help clarify what the heck a web designer does these day. Caution: This talk contains opinions, and we want to hear yours too.

Val loves design, code, and crafty things. She is currently the Sr Designer/Developer at Agency 1903. She likes to keep things interesting by organizing two local conferences, Flashpitt and Web Design Day, and co-managing the LoopPittsburgh user group. Val blogs at thisisportable.com, tweets at @vlh, and aspires to one day have more twitter followers than her cat, @thedignan.

Next, Geoff Barnes will be making his long anticipated return to the Refresh Pittsburgh podium!

Become a UX STAR: Simulate, Test, Adjust, Repeat

Q: When are best practices not?
A: When there are real users involved.

When you get right down to it, the only person you really know how to design for is yourself. If you’re going to design for anyone else, sooner or later, you’re going to need validate a whole mess of assumptions you’ve been carrying around in your back pocket with your creative license since god knows when. Using a no-bull case study, I’ll paint a vivid picture of how iterative user experience design can take you to the promised land – and ensure you’re good and crazy when you arrive.

Geoff Barnes is currently Senior Information Architect at Elliance, Inc, a Pittsburgh E-Marketing company where he works to articulate the inevitable intersection of content strategy, information architecture, and interaction design for an array of clients from higher education, non-profits, community banks, and the manufacturing sector. He was previously the lead UI designer for Collaborative Fusion, Inc, Professor of Painting at The Savannah College of Art and Design, and co-founder of San Francisco web services firm Trendmedia. Geoff moved to Pittsburgh in 2001 to help create and launch the BFA of Media Arts Web Design program at Robert Morris University.

Our website was in need of a, well, refresh, for quite some time. In fact, our previous design was thrown together in a matter of a few days in anticipation of our first Refresh Pittsburgh meet-up almost 3 years ago. We’ve been adding to it with some digital duct-tape since then – spending more time on our meet-ups and other Refresh projects and badly neglecting our own website.

The new design/identity is courtesy of Gage Salzano. He did an amazing job. You can read more about his thought process and what else he came up with for us on a post at his own website. Gage recently moved to Chicago, but he’s going to continue helping us with additional identity work. Including some t-shirts and a 1 inch buttons!

There is still some fine-tuning to be done in some of the nooks & crannies of the new site, especially going over the old posts to make sure they fit. But we’re happy with how it turned out. If you run into any problems, feel free to shoot us an email and let us know.

Margot Bloomstein
Be a Greedy Bastard: Do More with Content Strategy!

• @mbloomstein
• Appropriate, Inc.
• Slides

Christopher Cashdollar
More Than Cheesesteaks: Can a Web Design Process Reinvent Philadelphia?

• @ccashdollar
• chriscashdollar.com
• Happy Cog
• Slides

Jon Dascola
The Designer’s Duty

• @dascola
• jondascola.com
• Elliance
• Slides

Matt Griffin & Michael Heillein
Making Websites is Easy – Bearded Studio & Maki App!

• @elefontpress
• @themichaek
• @beardedstudio
• beardeds.com
• Maki App
• Slides & Other Goodies!

Kevin Hoffman
You F*cked Up. Now What?

• @kevinmhoffman
• Happy Cog
• Slides

Elliott Munoz
Staying Alive: Finding and Keeping your Creative Motivation

• @elliottmunoz
• Website
• The Washington Post
• Slides

Zack Naylor
Helping your Company Adopt a User-centered Process

• @zacknaylor
• zacknaylor.com
• pikimal.com
• Slides

Josh Sager
The Freelance Dating Game: How to Prevent the Nasty Break-up

• @joshsager
• joshsagermedia.com
• Slides

Registrations are $75 for the day, strictly limited to 90 people. Last year’s registrations sold old very quickly. We keep the registrations limited to ensure a comfortable as well as intimate event where you can network not only with other attendees, but also our speakers!

Registrations for Web Design day, 2010 are now open. You can register at our website: webdesignday.com !

This year’s lineup includes:

• Geoff Barnes, Director of User Experience for Elliance
• Margot Bloomstein, Brand & Content Strategy Consultant at Appropriate, Inc.
• Chris Cashdollar, Creative Director for Happy Cog
• Jon Dascola, Interactive Designer for Elliance
• Matt Griffin & Michael Hellein, Co-founders of Bearded Studio
• Kevin Hoffman, User Experience Director for Happy Cog
• Elliott Munoz, Sr, Web Designer for The Washington Post
• Zack Naylor, User Experience Manager at Pikimal

We’re really excited to put on an event of this caliber, and are psyched for our speaker lineup this year.

Registrations are capped at 90 attendees, so register as soon as you can to avoid the waiting list!

Register at our website: webdesignday.com !