Graphic Designer or Web Designer???

I was talking yesterday with a customer about the pros and cons of dedicated graphic designers against website designers.

He was telling me about a guy he knows that is a fantastic graphic designer and creates some really special looking websites. But they are all created in an art package, chopped down and published as images.

Not only are they impossible for the search engines to read, he and his customers find them hard to maintain. This story came from my telling him about a site I'd picked up recently, also designed by a graphic designer. This one used more code, but he'd panicked when asked to implement drop down boxes in a search and tried to charge £150 for the changes. So his customer came to me and I'd done the changes in 5 minutes...

But there is a balance. Whilst neither of these 2 guys produce the technical sites I can produce, I would never be able to produce sites with the class of graphics that they have. And I think, finally, I've got the answer.

A third graphic designer contacted me a few weeks back. He wanted a few simple amendments to a site he was building, but didn't have a clue where to start. And it looks like the 2 of us could be working together going forward. He's already put together an animation for me.

He'll be producing the layouts for the websites, along with all the graphic work, then passing me the work of realising that site. When needed, I'll also pass him work for creating graphics.

Everyone wins here. The customers get fantastic looking sites with a whole host of complexities and the two of us are getting paid.

So Graphic Designer or Web Designer? Neither - use both. But remember that you'll be paying for both of their time.