The Ugly Truth About Website Designers You Need To Know

You probably know that the aesthetic of a web design is just as important as its content. After all, how many times have you found yourself on an ugly website and thought it looked sketchy, deciding to go elsewhere?

This is actually a very common occurrence. And that’s why when someone is looking for ideas on how to renovate -or create- their website the first thing they instantly google for are website designers.

After all, their job title contains all the relevant keywords you are looking for: website and designer.

What could go wrong?

Well, for starters, we are happy that you are here. In these next paragraphs, we’ll reveal to you the ugly truth about website designers you totally need to know before hiring one to create your brand new platform.

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What Is A Website Designer? And What’s Wrong With Them?

Let’s start by saying that, as the name suggests, a website designer is a highly skilled marketing professional who knows how to tell a story through a well-realised image. And they are essential in the realisation of a website that’s catchy and engaging. Well, they’re just as essential as anyone else in a marketing agency, but still, they deserve special praise for making everything look professional and on brand.

A good website designer will be able to take your idea and turn it into a website that matches the spirit of your business, and you couldn’t, actually, do without one.

But let’s take a closer look at a web designer’s job spec:

They must be able to create a website design.
Must be able to provide sample pages.
Must know how to deal with clients and how to help them choose the right solution for their needs.
Must be up to date with the latest software and coding languages, so that they can create functional websites.
Must be able to create user-friendly design experiences.
Must be familiar with Java and HTML.
They must be able to edit images and photos through specific programs.

As you can see, it’s pretty upfront. A website designer must be able to set a website in motion. Of course, there are several areas in which a web designer could choose to specialise in: such as UX which is a type of design that aims at making the visual experience user friendly, or UI which focuses on optimising user interactions, but many web designers will be able to use both. And that’s why you might feel tempted to ask for their help when realising yours.

Yet, there’s something that you should carefully consider.

Let’s take a dumb example with another popular area of marketing: I’m a copywriter and I know my way around words. I can make your products look amazing and sell them with my words.

I am familiar with Java and HTML but they are not my main, day to day, tasks. You might ask me to build your website, I could try and write killer content for it but that wouldn’t change the harsh truth: it wouldn’t work. After a bit, your customers would drift elsewhere, disgusted with the awful user experience they found on your main platform.

And they would be right!

A website designer is, simply put, a designer. Sure, it will make your platform look sickening but there’s no guarantee that they’ll be able to make it work as much as you would want it to.

Let’s look at another example: you are building a proper shop in the centre of your town. Instead of asking a team of architects and builders to work on the project to make sure that it won’t collapse over your head and that it’s up to security requirements and similar staff, you decide to give the whole job to an interior designer. After all, you want your shop to be visibly appealing, right?

And this is the ugly truth about website designers: they’re not website developers. As a matter of fact, they’re different jobs that couldn’t exist without each other.

You want a bedazzling website that is also able to handle traffic, clients’ demands and won’t fall down miserably in the matter of a few clicks.

Now, have you ever seen an amazing website you absolutely couldn’t wrap your head about? With a brilliant graphic, amazing copy but incredibly slow and difficult to use? Well, this is discouraging for clients and, particularly when dealing with B2C Marketing, it might drive them away completely. And for good. Boom. Lost. So much for a beautiful website, right?

What Is A Website Developer? And How Are They Different To Web Designers?

We completely understand the confusion: it’s inevitable, especially when searching on the internet. Quite often developers and designers fall under the same search terms and you might not notice their deep difference until you try them both separately. Or until you hire them to do the wrong job, of course! But, since we are here, we hope you don’t!

So what’s a website developer, in a nutshell?

Quite simply, they’re in charge of building the structure of a functioning website through adequate programming and coding language. An important part of their job consists in taking a web designer’s idea and graphic templates and turning them into a functional website. If the role of a designer is pointedly artistic, involving a lot of planning and designing a website that’s accessible and visually appealing to users, the role of a developer is more technical. Developers, just like designers, can have different roles. For example, front-end developers are in charge of coding the actual website through JavaScript, CSS and the CMS of your choice. For this specific task, there has to be a significant amount of collaboration between developers and designers, since it mainly involves putting together the website as it’s experienced by the users.

As there are front-end developers, there are back-end developers, who are mainly in charge of managing the behind-the-scenes of your website. Through other programming and coding languages, such as SQL, Ruby, Java take care of the server-side of the website and have to make sure to protect your data more than the website that your users are interacting with.

Now, you might be wondering why not simply hire a web developer to do the job. After all, you might think that the aesthetics of a website can be overlooked, favouring the functionality of your platform over anything else. But that would be just as bad as having a web designer in charge of the whole thing!

The best web developer probably can be appreciative of a certain designer from a user’s perspective, but don’t know how to realise something similar. Let’s put it out quite bluntly: there’s nothing in a web developer’s job spec that even remotely hints at being able to do graphics and designs.

Sure, you would probably end up with a perfectly functioning and safe website, but your customers might not appreciate the stern – or, even, ugly – appearance of your main platform.

There’s nothing complicated about this: you need both of them!

Do you want to know more about the crucial differences between web designers and web developers?

Designers focus on what the users might enjoy interacting with. Developers focus on functionality.
Designers elaborate the concept of what they think would graphically fit the brand they’re designing for, creating mock-ups. Developers are in charge of seeing if the idea is realisable, and if so how to make it functional and within budget.
Designers are highly skilled in using editing and design software, such as Photoshop and Illustrator. Developers have specific training in coding, programming and debugging using different languages.

Now you should be able to fully appreciate the magnificent differences between these two equally important professions and know who to call to set your wonderful website in motion! Are you curious to see more of what a team of experts can do? Luckily for you, we have amazing first-hand examples to show you!

So How Do You Make Sure Your Website Is Perfect?

A website is not a one-man job. As a matter of fact, the best website is the one you get through a team effort. Not only will you need an amazing designer and developer, but you will also need someone to take care of your SEO optimisation and, of course, of your copywriting. And yes, even if in these last few paragraphs we tackled the design and development aspect only, there’s no doubt that you will need more than that to be able to attract, engage and delight your customer base.

And that’s what we did for these amazing clients.

Kids’ Country

Kids’ Country is one of our cutest clients ever. As the name suggests, they are a Cheshire-based Day Nursery that privileges a close connection with nature from a very young age. For the website, we developed a comprehensive project including all the elements that the ideal buyer’s persona would look for in a day nursery. It’s a very pleasant and soothing user experience, but it’s also perfectly functional.

As you can see, we prioritised reviews and direct experiences that could help explain the nature of the school better than us.

As you can see, nothing is left to chance and every detail is thoroughly analysed and used coherently to the brand we are building a website for.

Kentra Training

Kentra is one of our clients that offers professional training in Agriculture, Construction, and Industry. The website design perfectly embodies the practicality of the brand, making sure that the content is immediately understandable and usable. Each of the sections is made so that if you move the cursor over it you will get a thorough explanation of what the company has to offer.

Yet, as you can imagine, an idea as cool as this requires one hell of a developer that’s able to make it all perfectly fast and functional.

Luckily, we have one!

Hough Construction

Hough Construction is a Middlewich-based company specialising in the construction and renovation of high-end commercial and residential properties. And this is another project that, graphically, doesn’t require any frock and frills! And yet, it still needs to have the perfect colour and typography choices that will fit in with the brand and its customers.

As you can see, this is a pretty straightforward job, compatible with the fact that someone who’s looking for a construction company probably doesn’t care about many other things.

Could you imagine having to frantically look up a solution for your dripping roof and being invested by a long series of information and finding a “get in touch option” just at the very end of it all?

Yeah, we wouldn’t wish that on our worst enemy!

BBS Engineering

At BBS Engineering, they focus on replacing and supplying ballscrews, linear bearings, and more in that specific area. Being components the main part of their business, we decided to incorporate this in the homepage’s graphic.

As you can see, the graphic is classy and just as complicated as an actual ballscrew! We truly had fun realising this. The more complicated and communicative a graphic is, the more a web developer needs to work to make a designer’s vision work without having to cut too much.

The Belgian Beer Company

Now, The Belgian Beer Company’s website is a work of art. And if we dare say so… I mean: just look at it! Our favourite thing about this site is the cast of original characters we created to represent their various categories of Belgian beer. We didn’t just build a website when we did this one, we also did a full rebrand. Those characters are not only on their stunningly designed, bespoke website, they’re also on custom beer mats, custom packaging, and – yes, really! – a beer barrel table and stool set!

Every little detail was meticulously hand-illustrated and planned designed by our design teamer and then our web developer made it a fully functional and perfectly optimised reality. It’s bright, and funny, and great to interact with, without it being slowed down by the heavy graphics.

It’s just the perfect example of what you can achieve through the collaboration of a team of experts!

Do You Need A Hand?

Here at Acrylic Digital, we like cooperation and all that this entails. We are a team of experts that specialise in different areas and are committed to our tasks. Here you can find both one hell of a website designer and the best website developer -along with two amazing copywriters. If you think your website needs to be jazzed up, feel free to give us a call: our first consultation is free!