Web Design vs Web Development: What’s The Difference?

By Laurence Williams   |    December 18, 2020

DESIGN

Designers Supply Creative; Developers Make it Happen.

Many of our new clients don’t distinguish between a website designer and a website developer.  Both are important and collaborate, but their roles, responsibilities, and talents differ drastically.

Same Goals, Different Skillset. 

Web design refers to the visual, aesthetic appearance of your website, a creative endeavor that attracts graphic designers and those with a great eye for design and detail. Web developers take that design and make it a functioning website using some form of programming language - such as HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP.

Role of a  Web Designer 

Skilled in graphic design and working in a program like Adobe XD, web designers will create a visual template for the client to approve that resembles what will be published on their website. After a client has approved the designer's templates, they are then used by a web developer as the basis to start their coding process.

Role of a Web Developer 

Developers work on the back end of your website, turning the web designers designs into the living code that makes up a website. Developers are versed in many programming languages and focus on the technical interactions, logic, and databases of a website, making a beautiful design function flawlessly.

You Need Both

Think of the people building your website as a brain, where the left hemisphere is creative and the right hemisphere is analytical - you need both hemispheres firing to create something that looks awesome and works a treat. Designers supply the creative, developers make it happen; both work with each other to push better UX design and build websites that please the user and help propel your business objectives.