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Web Designer vs Web Developer – What is the difference?

Web Designer vs  Web Developer – What is the difference?

Web designers and developers play a major role in giving life to new software. Or in other words, the designer draws and the developer executes. 

Who is a Web designer?

Web designers are the graphical artists who design the objects and interfaces for the users who try to access the software.  A designer should always think like a user and need to understand the user’s interests in a specific area.

HTML, CSS, and Javascript are the core languages used by designers. They usually build the front-end part of a web application and make it intuitive for the user. The design of a website has a vital role in the popularity it receives. There are several kinds of design methodologies and designers choose the right one for the type of website that is under construction. You should have noticed the layout and design of the e-commerce giant Amazon and the social networking monster Facebook, are the same?.

Designers may get works either on the brand new website or to redesign. A website that is constructed with poor design. 

There are different type of designers:

  1. Web designer
  2. Visual designer
  3. UI/UX designer

Web designer

Website designers make the visual parts of sites. They meet with customers, on the web or face to face, to get a clear structure of the website, what message they should convey on the site. once the details are given the next step they do is making layouts, design, and features that show the customer’s services in a manner that it is appearing to the target audience. 

Normally they rely on HTML editor, photoshop, illustrator, etc for editing pictures. 

Visual designer

Visual designers are specialized graphic designers. visual design aims to improve the aesthetics of the site and its related materials. They will implement suitable images, typography, space, layout, color, and other elements. 

The designers need great knowledge in the graphics section, branding, and identity design. They create banner ads, landing pages, infographics, etc. 

UI/UX designer

UI/UX must be a familiar term for most of us. These guys usually work on the interfaces that the users use to make them good, intuitive, and handy to ease the overall functionality that the website focus on. Landing page designs are a part of UI/UX where the user lands on the website first.

UI designing includes all the visual interactive elements like buttons, spacing, typography, color schemes, etc. The designer needs to think from the user side, also should know the psychology of the users. Giving a better experience in the website is the main area a UX designer should focus on. A UX design is called perfect when it strikes the 3 major functions that are 

  • Usefulness
  • Usability
  • Desirability 

Who is a developer?


Developer gives life to the designs made by the designer. They write, debugs, and executes the programming code for software development. Since the technology has grown, many professionals start focusing on specific parts of the development. 

on the development side we can see 3 types of people:

  1. Front-end developer
  2. Back-end developer
  3. Full-stack developer

Usually, It’s a bit difficult to find someone who knows both.

Front-end developer

All the things like Navigation menus, logo, header, footer, and contents are creations from the designer. They decide how should it look like, how much width and height does it have so that the overall view will look appealing to the user. 

CSS is the language that gives skin to the website while Javascript makes it interactive. Some of the modern technologies/frameworks built on top of Javascript are Angularjs, React, Vuejs, etc. The framework makes the development easier providing plenty of built-in functionalities. 

Back-end developer

Unlike designers, Back-end developers work on the server-side. They implement the application logic and integrate the UI with the back-end system so that the front-end will be connected with the application logic by means of server-side programming languages and databases. They also write the APIs used by the front-end and mobile application developers. 

Though there are several types of server-side languages available, some of the prominent languages that we can see normally are PHP, ASP, JAVA, PYTHON, etc. The back-end relies mainly on the top of 3 layers that an end-user never sees are server, an application language, and a database.

The developers are liable for creating, maintaining, testing, and debugging the entire website, which includes the core sections such as application logic, data and application integration, and all other processes that happen on the back end side.

Full-stack developer

Those who can handle both front-end and back-end development are called full stack developer. These guys usually possess specialized knowledge in all stages of software development. 

Even though most of the focus on one primary language they can still handle other technologies when it’s time to work on them.

The basic skills required to become a full-stack developer are front-end and server-side development languages, database, basic designing ability, server, working with API and vision control systems, etc.

In simple words

A web designer is a person who designs the website as per the client’s wish by thinking from the user’s perspective. A developer makes it all happens by connecting the interface with the back-end system.

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