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.
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.
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.
HTML/CSS is not that difficult. Even jQuery is pretty simple. Good jQuery is hard. Good Javascript harder still.
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.
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'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.
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 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.
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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
Look at it in terms of arrays; sometimes you use an associative array and sometimes you just go with simple index numbering.
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).