Bridging the Gap Between the Print and Web Community
There are three things that I hold dear to my heart: design, the web, and community. Being a web designer who loves participating in both educational and social events, I have noticed a strange divided amongst the web design and traditional design communities. In the DC area, these two very distinct circles seem to rarely mix.
My observations were recently confirmed and discussed in a very public blog post called “Dear AIGA, where are the web designers?” by Jeffery Zeldman which raised a lot of interesting comments. Jeffery’s post specifically addresses the absence of web designers speaking at the AIGA Business and Design Conference:
I can't help noticing that for all the brand directors, creative directors, Jungian analysts, and print designers, one rather significant specimen of the profession is missing. Where are the web (or if you insist, the interaction) designers?
Since this post, Jeffery Zeldman has been added to the speaker list at the AIGA conference, but the 49 comments to this post brought up matters far beyond just AIGA and addressed a broader gap between the communities.
While reading through the responses, I felt a wide range of emotions due to my own personal experiences on both sides of the coin. I went to school for print design. I relate to the traditional design communities like AIGA, but as a web designer, I also love learning from groups like Refresh DC. When attending events put on by both groups, I notice such an overlap in concepts and topics, but rarely an overlap in attendees and speakers. When asking each group about the other, I hear inaccurate presumptions and misconceptions. Changing this has been on my mind for a long time.
I am a board member with the Art Directors Club of Washington DC, a non-profit organization dedicated to enriching the creative community, and an organization excited about bridging the gap. Traditionally this group has not had a whole lot of web-related programming, but they are enthusiastic about making it happen. The Art Directors Club is for everyone who participates in the art direction process. This could be anyone from a copywriter to a photographer to a designer or front end-developer. Art direction includes every aspect of creative process, and now (more than ever) the creative process online is happening in record proportions. People working online can learn from those who are working offline and vice versa. All it takes is some overlap between the two communities, and there won't be any differences anymore... the gap will be closed.
On November 6, ADCMW is taking the first steps in this direction by holding an event called "From Print to Web: It's Just that Easy" with Dan Rubin of http://superfluousbanter.org. The talk is the first of its kind for the club and will foster a casual, inviting environment for people to come forward and explore the differences and similarities between the two. We are hoping to draw a attendees from both sides of the spectrum to learn from each other and have an open dialogue. I invite you all to attend.
I would love to hear from you -- have you experienced a similar divide between the two communities? Are there other organizations out there that have been successful at bridging this divide? What might be the positives/negatives in forging the two groups?
(typing this again, wrong captcha killed my last comment :/ )
It depends on the print medium I suppose. If someone does newspaper ads a lot they tend to use borders and containers too much. There are also some things they might not know or forget:
* link color
* text online scales
* that dynamic text will expand their containers (unless you take care to limit the number of words on your backend, otherwise overflow:hidden is ugly with scrollbars
* monitor resolutions and to leave 40px for the scrollbar
* optomizing images (not just small files, but to use interlaced/progressive for large images)
Well, graphic designers and s are so related
Well, graphic designers and are so related.
I’m pretty sure my company is going to send me to this event. Everyone else on the design team does web to at least some extent and sometimes I feel like “just” the print girl. Of course other people also do video in addition to print and web.
I feel like the biggest hurdle for me is the technology, the code languages, things like that. I’m not convinced it’s “just that easy” but I’d be happy to be proven wrong!
There is definitely a separation, and I think we will be forced to close it up. More and more companies seem to want designers that can do it all, print and web. I am primarily a print designer, but do some web. When I attend web related events, I often feel like such an outsider. I wish I could attend that night. Would you be able to give us a summary of the meeting afterwards?
Great Article!
I have been thinking the same thing for some time now, and have been trying to bridge the gap in at least some small way on my blog.
As a designer that works for a company that specifically targets associations (AssociaDirect.com), I think that the AIGA desperately needs to change this and educate “traditional” designers about the web. In my opinion it is the structure of large associations like the AIGA that actually keep it from evolving to meet new demands, such as this.
While I too studied print design and design for both mediums, lately we have been doing a lot more web work. This is the main reason that I have not yet joined the AIGA (even though it is a goal of mine for the year). Obviously there must be other designers in my position that the AIGA is missing out on.
This rant is getting long, I think I need to write a blog article ;) trackback coming your way… thanks for the inspirational words
A good web site is much more than just colors and graphics. Denver web site design firms know that and can offer your site branding, usability, functionality and a good aspect.
The overlap you hear from both groups doesn’t surprise me – the school I went to made you take the same core design classes and then you specialized from there. A lot of people took both print and web design. I think it’s hard to bridge the gap b/c people feel loyal to whichever avenue they first chose. I’m in magazines, and the idea of going to newspaper makes me cringe. I wasn’t a “newspaper person.” Maybe people feel like they aren’t “Web people,” although I think the gap is far smaller between print and Web than print and other forms of print.
To me, it sounds sort of like wanting college professors to share conferences with elementary school teachers. They’re both valuable, they both work hard and accomplish a lot, and they both -teach-, but their actual jobs are so different that once you get beyond the extreme basics, there’s not a lot of professional development that they can both benefit from.
i dont really think its “just that easy” to make a leap from print to web. i tend to think most of us went to school for print, or began working with print. im not saying print designers dont have their own individual aspects to tackle, but going from web to print is far easier than going from print to web.
there are many many things we as web designers have to take into consideration that print designers do not (and visa versa). so many things, i wouldnt even attempt to list them here.
i think saying its easy to go from print to web is like saying its easy to go from flash to maya.
(its not.)
but, bravo on getting people to speak up and mesh ideas, thats never a bad idea.
Yes! All of the Graphic Design colleagues in my graduating class (last year) were somewhat disgruntled at the separation we experienced. Every job now wants both in keeping up with trends, and still in many schools, Graphic Design and Web Design/Animation are two separate entities.
Of course, as designers we’re constantly learning and plan not to stop, but our institutions need to step it up, firstly.
The list is enormous with the differences in print vs. web design, but the fundamentals are the same and in that I should think we have the structural support for a bridge.
You write so well - please marry me! =] I’m officially hooked on the site. The whole team does really well, kudos!
Next entry: Viget.com gets iPhone-ized
Previous entry: Viget Flash Mob: T-Shirts
Recent Comments
@brad
It makes little difference when using native EE functionality or Structure to add pages, it’s just that if you want to add a sub page, you need to remember to assign a...
- Hambo on 'A Whole New Wooooorld: Structure + ExpressionEngine'.
- brad on 'A Whole New Wooooorld: Structure + ExpressionEngine'.
- Doug Avery on 'A Whole New Wooooorld: Structure + ExpressionEngine'.
Subscribe to Comments RSS