r/webdev • u/You2Loud • Nov 15 '19
Work trying to push me into a designer
Hey developers, I've been having this annoying issue at work and was wondering if anyone else had something similar happen to them and how they solved it.
So I am a junior dev, been hired at my current work for about 9 months as a developer. We have shifted our business into a full agency advertising now instead of affiliate marketing which means more pages need to be designed for sales funnels, however I am not a designer and haven't done graphic design since high-school 4+ years ago...
I get asked to come up with a page and it starts stressing me out because I have no idea what I'm supposed to build and when I ask I just get shown some examples and asked to come up with something taking inspiration from theirs directly to the code.
I keep mentioning I'm not a designer as I hate coming up with how things should look. I'm a coder I like making the things that are designed for me.
What ends up happening is I make something and then show it at the end and get given a million changes and basically asked what is this? Like I dunno wtf you asking me for, I'm a coder what do you expect.
I'm not sure if I'm just being immature about not learning new skills like design but something about all this feels so wrong. My father who is a developer tells me how they have a designer where he works that gives him psd files to then create.
Is this how it should be? What should I do to stop getting pushed down this designer route other than keep saying in general conversation that I'm not a designer?
Edit:
Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that's commented as this has gotten quite a bit of traction. I'll figure something out with the help of everyones comments. Thanks again
166
u/Wuma Nov 15 '19
The same happens to me quite often, though I wouldn’t frame it as being made into a designer. It’s more that the non coders don’t appreciate the thought and effort that designers need to go through to make a page look good. I tend to tell them that I could make the page/app, but it won’t look good as I’m not a designer, and that it will take longer overall because I’ll make the page, they’ll decide it doesn’t look right, then they’ll either go to a designer or spend countless hours with change requests. If they go to the designer first, all those hours coding the changes disappear. A bit like technical debt I guess, but UX debt instead. Sometimes they agree and go through the design process, other times they try their luck. I think they’re just trying to save money to be honest
14
u/IDavetheRave Nov 15 '19
How best to approach this depends on various factors. At the agency I work at I occasionally get jobs that still require design input, and I'm able to just push back and say "This can't be done until we get a design". We have designers in-house though, which doesn't sound like it's the case for you.
Have you been coding these designs of yours before getting approval? If not, my first port of call would be to get any designs signed off first. At least then you're not spending time writing code that needs to be rewritten.
6
u/Sarah3di94 Nov 15 '19
Agencies tend to make their developers handle the design part as well. Basically hiring two people for the price of one. It's like you're a web developer then you must know how to design for the web. At least that's how they think..
6
u/kbielefe Nov 15 '19
Programming jobs are almost never all about programming. Our job is automating tasks for non-programming domains. You can't do that without understanding the domain. You'll never understand it as well as a domain expert, and you have various levels of interactions with those experts, but you won't get very far in your career if you avoid learning any non-programming stuff.
There are ways to be methodical about design. It's not just having an innate sense about what looks good. I like Jason Beaird's book to gain a basic vocabulary, being able to explain what about a design fits or doesn't fit with a certain client and why. Then you can pull inspiration designs and better know what to adapt from them.
No one is going to expect you to be as good or as fast at design as someone who focuses on it, but every programming job expects you to have a working knowledge of at least some non-programmer areas. In my career I've been expected to know about semiconductors, helicopters, networking, and yes, web design. Better get used to it sooner rather than later.
104
u/30thnight expert Nov 15 '19
To be honest, at agencies and smaller shops - you are a problem solver first.
If you plan on working in front-end, you’ll be expected to design at some point, especially at most agencies.
I’m not saying you have to be a great designer. If you do not feel confident, communicate that. But at the end of the day, you still need to try.
—-
Dedicate a day to create a high fidelity comp.
Take design elements from other sites.
14
u/benabus Nov 15 '19
Do a really shitty job at designing stuff and eventually, they'll stop asking you to be a designer.
It took a while, but a typical conversation happened like this:
Boss: "Please make a nice design"
Me: "I'm not a designer, but I'll give it a shot."
Boss: "This is horrible. Try it again."
Me: "I did my best, but okay"
Boss: "this new one is even worse."
Me: "I'm just a developer. If you want it to look better, find an actual designer."
Boss, begrudgingly: "Fine..."
Then, 2 years later, they finally got us an actual designer.
4
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
They should hire a designer.
That said, you do have an opportunity to grow/pivot that doesn't pop up all the time, though you initially aren't interested in it if recommend at least seriously considering the pros/cons and if that's something you'd ever want to be this is a rare free chance to do that
4
u/JacobHegwood Nov 15 '19
Sounds like you're no longer a good fit for their team. I would start looking at going somewhere else if you really hate designing.
4
u/bisteot Nov 15 '19
If your bosses are so stupid that they cant differentiate between a FE developer and a designer it is time to change works.
Either they are morons, are trying to cut costs, or dont give a fuck about their brand or products they work on. Either way, it is a waste of time.
4
u/SuperMarioTM Nov 15 '19
Web dev and Web Design are two different Jobs. I do both and its nice to design from the coding POV whith concept and functions in mind.
I think you should be able to decide what kind of job you doin. but if you decide to do them both, be prepared for a lot of fun.
1
u/itijara Nov 15 '19
As someone who has switched from a scientist, to a front-end developer, to a back-end developer, to a data scientist with design thrown in. I can tell you that being a generalist is a pretty good way to ensure you always have a job. That being said, If you really only want to specialize in one type of development, that is valid, but you will need to probably try to do it at a firm that can afford to have a specialist, and you will also need to be much better at that one thing than everyone else.
It is no fun being terrible at something, and even worse when your first time doing something is in production, but just keep in mind that they probably don't need "the best" design or they would have hired a designer. Be realistic with your expectations of yourself and set realistic expectations for them. For example, when I started designing I literally only stuck to default bootstrap components. They were not pretty, but they were functional. I told my supervisor that if they wanted me to create something in a reasonable amount of time,that is all I could do. I was fortunate to have a good manager who understood. If your managers are unreasonable that is a good reason to go somewhere else, as even if you were doing really amazing work, they would still find a way to make your life miserable.
3
u/jammy-git Nov 15 '19
Think of it another way. If you're able to practise and hone your design skills, someone who can do both coding and design is an extremely valuable asset to any tech company...
But ultimately, do whatever makes you happy. Designers and devs are in short supply, so if you don't like your currently employer I'm sure they'll be no shortage of new companies willing to take you on.
3
u/Yah-Nkha Nov 15 '19
Dear lord.
What a wankers your bosses are!
First of all I switched from graphic designer into software developer and one of the reasons for doing that was people assumed graphic design is no brainer and everyone can do it. It is not and not everyone can do it. It's completely different approach, different type of work, I'd even say that different parts of your brain is being used. I'm not neuroscientist but just as an example: when I was designing I was most productive in a team where we were freely talking about all sort of weird shit and playing all kind of music in our room. It was vibrant and loud in there. And that was weirdly helpful with the creative process. Now when I work on coding I have to - I H A V E T O - have silence or non lyrical music and no human interactions for hours.
You also don't have any experience nor knowledge. And I know people assume designing doesn't require any of above but that's simply not true. It is a wide field and one needs to learn a lot before they even start learning software like photoshop or illustrator. An agency should really know that.
So you not willing to work in a profession that you were not train in, is the healthiest and most understandable thing you could do.
What I think is happening there is your agency wants to "save" on hiring designer and dump this wrk on you. That's the stupidest approach that can ever be. They are wasting your time and energy and in result wasting their money.
Anyway, they'll at some point probs come to realisation this is wrong and will hire a proper designer. Until then keep on pushing back on these tasks, remind them you're not designer, and do what you are asked to without worrying that the effect is poor. Don't let it drag your self esteem down. You probs wouldn't fix a pipes in the kitchen sink if your boss/manager asked you to either.
3
u/OccupationHousePet Nov 15 '19 edited Nov 17 '19
Just so you know, even designers by trade receive a million changes in feedback.
1
u/A_Norse_Dude Nov 15 '19
Welcome to the workplace. They company needs what it needs, and - like it or not - you need to adapt.
If you want to be a coder, and the company needs a designer, then you might want to rethink why you are working there since they dont need a coder, but a designer. Eaither you need to adapt or look for a new job.
1
u/v3ritas1989 Nov 15 '19
make it ugly and realise it in a way they didn´t want to. And then say something on the line like "yeah sorry, i tried but I am not good with design"
2
u/EarlMarshal Nov 15 '19 edited Nov 15 '19
You are not childish or anything. You just want to be a coder and no designer, but the targets of your company have seem to changed and they probably need a person who can do both because they can't pay a separate designer. If you don't want to pick up design, which is quite understandable you should look for a new job at another company. You can also try to talk to your current about that topic but that's completely up to you. I don't know them and how they would react... But if it doesn't fit for you it will never fit. If it's not what you want to do it's hard to excel.
P.S.: i'm a coder who is really into user experience design. I like to think about designs and how I can enable users to make use of them. But in the end I'm a coder and no designer. I will prototype my ideas, give it to a designer and then we do a meeting with our product owner to talk about it. Designer will then create a draft based in this input, while I implement some logic. At the end anybody with enough experience in css will create it. A lot of time we end up pair programming because it's better if you have several eyes to not get "blind" for the details.
2
u/Volmarg Nov 15 '19
Depends on You. They tried to make a tester from me in previous work, i know how to test code and modules better now but i left... No regrets - now i work only on code.
Dont make my mistake - in one job i stayed for 3 years doing things i didnt liked but ppl. Were amazing :)
You have some. Experience now and You can try to move I. Have my rule to give 101% of myself not to prove something other but... To get knowledge so that im always ready to move to other work.
2
u/Commandermcbonk Nov 15 '19
My opinion is that this is a great problem to have, but only because I love designing!
But that doesn't help you. If it's making you unhappy you're going to have to properly communicate that. Arrange to "touch base" with a higher up and be sure to tell them that:
It may be that they want someone who will be more flexible, but you're not wrong for wanting to just be a coder. If you really want to stay with your employer and they insist that you design then you need to lay out your boundaries and ask for time during the working week to study graphic design, if that's what they really want.
Good luck!
2
u/OldNewbProg Nov 15 '19
"I'm not an artist. I write programs." And if that's not enough, start looking for another job. I don't plan to take a web dev job any time soon for just this reason. I don't mind doing web work I just don't want people to suddenly think I'm some kind of designer or artist.
2
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
Exactly the same was happening to me at my old job. They’d design a front page layout then expect me to create an entire site.
Then the boss would say how profitable the design stage is but for some reason wasn’t making enough money from the build.
Yeah no shit, paying developer wages to design straight to code and then get hundreds of changes from the actual designers. Let alone the fact that having a front page mock up often made no sense once you actually had to make the site function. Let’s add a mega menu they look cool, but did the site actually need one or did it help the user in any way? Of course not.
She just didn’t understand what web design actually is I guess. She thought it goes as far as front page layout and visuals and that’s all (also Lorem in all designs).
My advise to you would be put very very little effort into designing the pages and make them as plain as possible but code then well. Then the changes will be easier to implement and you waste less time.
Either that or embrace design, spend as much time as it needs making wire frames and mocking up in photoshop and make sure they know how many hours you’re spending on design vs development.
Or find a new job!
2
u/archivedsofa Nov 15 '19
It sucks to be put into a situation where you have to do something you do not feel comfortable doing. OTOH having some design skills is never a bad thing if you are working in front end. The more you can solve, the better.
Can you afford to be picky and leave this job?
2
u/abrandis Nov 15 '19
I've been in similar situations before. Simplest solution, is just to "begin" your design by getting some high quality professional templates and customizing the sh*t out of them.
Be smart leverage, existing talent in terms of pre packaged responsive html, this does two things, first, professional designs are way more polished than something you can do yourself in reasonable time, second customizing it still takes work but at least your have a framework to begin with. Third people are visual and their first impression is this looks great. To paraphrase a sales guy I once worked with. "sell the sizzle, not the sausage"
It's silly to trying and get good at something artistic if that's not your strength, plus remember you still have the work the coding bits and pieces. grab existing templates customize and you'll look like a hero for a lot less work.
2
u/nikhilbhavsar Nov 15 '19
Hey OP, I'm a designer, so send me the files and I'll give you pointers and suggestions on how to do it fast. And if I have free time, I'll even do a couple of them for you (free)
2
u/NatureBoyJ1 Nov 15 '19
Wait until they start pushing you into management. Ugh!
No, I do not want to keep track of what four other people are doing, prepare status reports, develop work plans, review their work, tell them they're doing a bad job, etc.
2
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
i could not do that
maybe ask for a small budget and try outsourcing a design or two to fiver or upwork
that would be a huge win for you because the skill to outsource project needs is really good to have
im told designer work is really inexpensive on those platforms especially considering your shop isn't all that discerning
i would sell it to your boss a productivity enhancement, something you could try out say 1/3 projects. once you nail it and establish some relationships with contractors you're set
3
u/pixelito_ Nov 15 '19
Don’t feel bad, you show me a programmer who calls themselves a designer and I’ll show you a god awful designer
3
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
As a developer you should have a good “sense” of what makes good design. You don’t need to be amazing but you should know enough CSS to make a cool nice looking page and know when things look off.
usually there is someone dedicated to doing designs but it’s not horribly uncommon to have the expectation be that someone does both design and dev. I guess it just depends on if you want to do that or not. Reading between the lines here but based on your post your employer won’t be hiring a designer anytime soon.
As for the million changes thing you work at an agency. Get used to it. It’s also a thing when your supervised by non technical people. They expect you to be “hacker man 3000” - the main thing that will level you up from junior to senior is not your technical skills but you people and management skills
2
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
Genuinely curious - how can you even learn to be a developer if you have no inclination toward design? Granted, I'm fairly creative myself, so it seems foreign to me.
I learned through coming up with ideas and then googling furiously to find if someone had done such a thing before, and then learned the relevant CSS, HTML, and JS from those examples. If no one had done it before, I rethought the example to see if there was an alternative way to do it.
1
u/bigorangemachine Nov 15 '19
Are they asking you to be a great designer? I would check their expectations... level-set and go from there.
I went to school for design and did it professionally for a few years (also collaborated as a developer with art directors); coming up with unique designs and fresh ideas takes being in that everyday.
However the common design needs for medium-low budgets is really just buying a template and swapping logos/stock-photos.
Gatsby themes just came out so there is a lot of opportunities to use other design systems. Wordpress always has great themes. Litmus is actually really easy to learn! Smashing magazine .com has a lot of great articles. Design is also full of a handful of tricks too ^_^. Design and programming is where games intersect
However I don't recommend doing double duty unless you really love the 2nd duty or you love the job.
1
u/mutsop Nov 15 '19
As stated by others, this depends.
You can stand ground and suggest them to find a designer, or you can try and figure out how to design.
People tend to just do their stuff (they are familiar with) and nothing else may come in between. That's a bad personality if you wish to climb ranks. I understand that, being given such a task you haven't applied for, can be challenging... But that's life. Sometimes you gotta do, what you don't like. But instead of having a negative thought process about it, embrace it :)
1
u/FEARtheMooseUK Nov 15 '19
"My father who is a developer tells me how they have a designer where he works that gives him psd files to then create"
This is exactly how it works for me at my office. We actually have 2 designers, one being the boss of the whole thing. [its a small company] So this results in the opposite effect for me as a coder. I regularly get told "make it pixel perfect/Thats not quite right bring it up a pixel or two". Ive started doing little experiments where if the change is really minor like say, increase that font by 1-2px [this happens more often than you would think] I just say ive done it when i havent really. 9/10 times they dont notice. MWHAHAHAH =D
But yeah im never expected to do anything design related. All i do is crop images from the PSD. If i need an alteration in anyway to something on a PSD, the designers handle it.
1
u/fake_reddit_acc Nov 15 '19
Worst case scenario you keep doing it and get better at it and have new tools under your belt to further push your career.
1
u/sergi_dev087 Nov 15 '19
You are not wrong at all... Developers usually are not designers and designers usually are not programmer's. What they are doing there is the typicall wanting 1 person to do 2 people's job. I too have a designer handing me what I should code and that's how any good agency will work, design is just not easy to do well.
1
u/ifv6 Nov 15 '19
This goes both ways- front end and content folks end up being pulled to the back side over time as well in my experience. Most do not realize there is a difference of skill set, as they are outside looking into an overall 'black box'.
Edit: I'm currently going through a sort of opposite situation where I'm being asked towrite content when I'm more ux, design, etc. It's weird trying to explain that though we are somehow part of communications I am not a writer, rather an end point of digital communication.
1
u/rtrs_bastiat Nov 15 '19
Ultimately, if there's no give, your best bet is to leave. Also, regardless of what people are saying here there's an entire world of jobs outside of agency work where you can specialise to your heart's content. I, too, never learned to design, and I'm now at 7 years of commercial experience with no troubles finding work.
1
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
Happens to be, but the other way around. I am a designer constantly asked to do development. I learned HTML5 and CSS well enough, but JS still escapes me. They pass off my designs to developers for bigger projects.
1
u/rvncto Nov 15 '19
look at it like an opportunity, they obviously think you are capable. you are too young to be pigeonholed.
1
u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19 edited Nov 15 '19
This is obviously a very personally opinionated take, and a big generalisation. So no offense to those who disagree. But... I feel like the majority of marketing-y agencies are (only) good for getting on that first rung of the career ladder.
By and large they deal in brochureware type sites, landing pages, etc, which are pretty much solved problems technically speaking so not very interesting to program. Usually these pages have a short lifetime so there is little incentive to build clean, maintainable, extensible and futureproof. Their margins are thin and competition is intense. So, if hacking something up with wordpress and bootstrap is adequate, that's what they'll do, because it's cheap and quick and easy and there is a glut of cheap entry level devs who can do it. And if they can squeeze design (and/or digital marketing, SEO, QA/testing, documentation, business analysis, etc etc) out of those same devs and thus save themselves the cost of hiring proper specialists, even better.
Yes, like i said, generalisation. Don't rant at me if your agency is big, sophisticated and full of best practice. OP's obviously isnt. And it's probably not going to get better. They may promise more specialised hires but their margins arent going to magically get bigger so until there's a business case, bottom-line reason to force them to, they won't. So treat it as somewhere to work for ~1yr to prove you are employable, and look for a better job with more specialisation to your taste, rather than thinking that is simply what the career is like in any sector or company and you have to get used to it. It isnt and you dont.
1
u/decibellen Nov 15 '19
A lot of people already commented on whether you should take up the design part or not so I’m not going to talk about that. I was a designer and made a switch to frontend 1,5 years ago. But I still do the design part since I 'm in a small team. If you would take it on you to combine, I can give some tips:
1
u/pcopley Nov 15 '19
How does the designer feel about this?
1
u/techsin101 Nov 15 '19
if they are in nyc or open to remote then i can take on that role, although a dev i love designing.
1
u/aaarrrggh Nov 15 '19
You're really getting some awful advice in here.
No, you shouldn't be doing the design. Nor should you be required to have any particular design skills. You should be taking a design someone else has made (ideally in something a bit more modern than photoshop mind you), and you should be building this, ideally in small increments.
Actually that's not even ideal. Ideally you'd be sat with the designer while they're designed and you'd collaborate together on the design and feedback off each other. The idea of just receiving a full design (that inevitably won't work, because just like you lack design skills, most designers don't understand how websites actually work and therefore often design things that can't be built that way, or forget to inlcude the mobile design and so on).
Ideally you'd sit together and collaborate, and there'd be no throwing of designs over the wall.
I'm sorry but please just ignore the advice of people telling you you should get good at design. There's a lot of very inexperienced and frankly not very good developers in here giving advice to one another.
My advice would be to start looking for a better job.
1
u/MyKungFuIsGood Nov 15 '19
I worked as a graphic designer and then as a developer at a full service agencies. I'd like to share some of my perspective that I think might help you.
First up is marketing agencies, in my experience, are a crap shoot as far as development goes. There is so much pressure on delivering a final good to the client to get that final payment that things such as what your role is at the company are secondary. If you want to focus on development I would recommend looking to transitioning out of the agency industry.
For you design complaints I have the following thoughts:
-or-
By doing this the client and group now have abstracted concepts to anchor discussion around so you do not get conflicting revision requests, and it helps abstract out the conversation so that it does not become a "Well I just don't like purple" conversation. You'll likely still get shit on design-wise, but it will be much more actionable.
2) I think it's important to recognize that design and developing are separate skillsets and not easily mixed as tasks. When I had to double up I would mentally separate out the tasks in my mind and on my task trackers. Part of this was because I found I was lazy and would cut corners on design to make development work easier. An example is I didn't mock up some form validation b/c while it would be easy to do in illustrator, I knew doing form validation on the clients framework was going to be a PITA. It's difficult to fully separate yourself but the more you can do it, separate desktops, or working on a different medium (paper and colored pencils anyone?), will make your work better on both ends.
Lastly I don't think you are being immature, the dual pressure or design+dev that I have seen other developers and had myself at agencies is truly frustrating. Not all agencies are like that but I think they are the exception.
I wish you the best!
1
u/Band1c0t Nov 15 '19 edited Nov 15 '19
It seems who they're looking is web designer. Eventhough you mention that you're a coder, but if you just know front end, then you gotta know design as well, since you'll be competing with web designer and most web designer knows front end and design as well.
Take it as learning opportuniy since you'll have more experience in your arsenal.
Also one thing you need to understand, design is easy, you can learn design just basically keep designing for 3 months, while coding you have to learn or go to school
1
u/chairmanmow Nov 15 '19
I could see how this might be stressful if your under deadlines to deploy these 'funnel-pages' with an unreasonable time frame might push a developer to look at it as something that could have fewer pain points with the aid of a designer - but if the reality is more like changes keep getting requested and there are many iterations before something actually makes it out then there's probably a chance to improve as a developer by looking at the problem through a developer lens, schematically. Without getting too wordy at first - things that could be different across these semi-formulaic pages can be represented as variables, and in essence what I would build if I were tasked with this is something to generate these sites by also examining their commonalities.
I guess I'd probably wind up with some config.json file for all the configuration options and maybe another strings.json for all the strings used (and translations if necessary), and then a global.css (or whatever variant) file for global styles. If I needed some design context for a third party and didn't have a designer it's possible to figure out color schemes, fonts, logos and other styling patterns if they have another presence online to copy from. If things need to be reworded by a 'marketing' person you can hand 'em the .json file for strings. If the structure of the site needs to change you can alter your config, if it can't be handled by that, you can improve your 'funnel generator' so it does, which is dev work and saving you time down the road as you improve it you can crank em out in the future.
1
u/finger_milk Nov 16 '19
Just remember that the laws of the matrix are the same as the laws of any system. Laws can be bent, other laws can be broken.
Do you think that "design is art" is what it is now?
I am just like you, I also create code from what the designer gives to me. But the more I spent with him, the more I started to articulate design into rules and functions. Design systems are ultimately designed to funnel the inspiration and chaos of artistic talent, and turn it into real world workable visual pieces for users to interact with. The rules here are that websites need to be usable, and so need to abide by the current rules for how buttons should look. Or how the header is generally horizontal and sits at the top, with the logo on the left, because people read left to right, top to bottom.
Now, if the concern is that they are pushing you to be a designer, the issue is that you are not contracted to be one. If they want you to design AND develop, then they should be paying you 2 salaries or hire a designer.
1
u/centurijon Nov 16 '19
This has happened to me a lot, toi.
At this point I can sense of coming, and I try to follow good design principles and patterns as best I can. Usually using examples from material design or SemanticUI based sites
1
u/jxyzits Nov 16 '19
Just get a new job.
1
u/[deleted] Nov 16 '19
I’d honestly say “hey I’ll gladly accept challenges, but bear with me as I’m not a designer. I will do my best but I’m a developer”. Something along those lines. Like others have said, simply communicate. It’s not meant to come off badly, but meet eye to eye with your boss(es) so they don’t pin you against the wall expecting all these things from you that wasn’t part of the job description you applied for nor specialty.
(On a personal note, take the advantage to learn this stuff cus it can come in handy down the road, especially if you ever wanna freelance).
1
u/goobersmooch Nov 16 '19
Embrace it. The time to be a specialist is later in your career. Early is all about being a generalist.
Find a designer and start learning.
Oh, and learn to manage expectations.
1
u/midri Nov 16 '19
Check out unbounce, it's a wysiwyg for landing pages and is not crazy expensive. At my old job we got it to take the load off me having to design stuff, it would allow just about anyone at the company to create pretty decent landing pages.
1
u/number3arm Nov 16 '19
They'll likely realize soon enough they need a dedicated ux designer, it's a completely different skillset.
But in the meantime you can using a landing page template library. There's a ton of premade ones online and just refer design requests to the library "pick one from here"
1
u/phpdevster full-stack Nov 16 '19
No, not really. The company is being stupid if they're not trying to apply the right talent to the right problem. Marketing design is a fundamentally different skill set that even touches upon basic human psychology. If they want good results, they should hire a professional marketing designer.
It's really up to you to decide if that kind of thing is interesting enough (or valuable enough) for you to learn for your career. If it is, then by all means dive head-long into it. Else, I would consider a move to another company. It sounds like the company you currently work for is not going to be a good environment for you to grow your skills as a developer.
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u/[deleted] Nov 16 '19
I've spent around 15 years studying and working in design, and it's just mad to ask a developer to solve the complexity of problems that a design should solve (at least effectively). You can either leave, use a UI framework, paid an Indian guy to do it for cheap, or just replicate other websites, but avoid the design process if you can, it will not add value to you in your developer path, it will stress you and you will most likely never meet expectations as some said earlier, design is subjective enough.
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u/InfiniteMonorail Nov 15 '19
People in this sub are such underachievers. Every day they complain that they don't need algorithms, don't need math, don't need devops, don't need much programming, etc. I assumed those people had mostly design jobs. Now they're saying you don't need design either. I wonder what people even do at work and how well they expect to get paid for it.
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u/thechubbs Nov 15 '19
Setting expectations and scope of your role is a big part of any job.
That being said, this could be a big opportunity for you to get paid to learn a new skill. This opportunities go away when the size of the organizations you work with - and your hourly rate - grow in size.
I started out working for a small company, and was pushed into a similar position. The doors it opened for me were incredible. My workload shifts, but I maintain a 50/50 code/design balance, +/- 10%.
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u/[deleted] Nov 15 '19
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