Is web design a dying art?

[dbkooper]

Hello all,

I am beginning to believe that web design is slowly dying off. The reason I think this is because with popular software like WordPress and Drupal out there, it almost makes it pointless to learn web design.

Why would someone new to websites want to spend hundreds of hours reading and practicing web design when he/she can just download pre-made templates from other web designers? I mean with the thousands and thousands of templates out there, you can probably find a design that matches 99% of what you want it to do...even for the most obscure niches. Here is a blog post that makes a really good point: http://blog.readysetconnect.com/2008/09/true-web-design-the-lost-art-web-designers-obsolete-because-of-theme-and-template-designers/

Years ago, if you wanted to start a website you had to learn EVERYTHING yourself...but now there is no need for that. What I think will happen is that there will be fewer new talent entering the field because web design skills are no longer required to start a website. This will mean there will be a smaller, older population of skilled designers who have ability vs a large population of people who are just meer website software operators.

The small population of skilled designers will definitely be in high demand though....who else would be able to build a website from scratch?

 

[Ross]

Those free templates come from designers. So as long as there is demand for the designs and the work to be done there will be designers. No WYSIWYG editer can pop out what a person can do hand coded or designed.

If anything is taking off like never before. The industry is growing and in all reality the internet is in its infancy. Its only around 20 years old.

 

[weblord]

it won't die actually free templates are just there for people to come up for more customized (paid) designs of the author, if web designers have created a rapport for their designs, soon their name will be trusted for the paid ones as well.

 

[vivsin]

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[gaucho1976]

Hello all,

I am beginning to believe that web design is slowly dying off. The reason I think this is because with popular software like WordPress and Drupal out there, it almost makes it pointless to learn web design.

Why would someone new to websites want to spend hundreds of hours reading and practicing web design when he/she can just download pre-made templates from other web designers? I mean with the thousands and thousands of templates out there, you can probably find a design that matches 99% of what you want it to do...even for the most obscure niches. Here is a blog post that makes a really good point: http://blog.readysetconnect.com/2008/09/true-web-design-the-lost-art-web-designers-obsolete-because-of-theme-and-template-designers/

Years ago, if you wanted to start a website you had to learn EVERYTHING yourself...but now there is no need for that. What I think will happen is that there will be fewer new talent entering the field because web design skills are no longer required to start a website. This will mean there will be a smaller, older population of skilled designers who have ability vs a large population of people who are just meer website software operators.

The small population of skilled designers will definitely be in high demand though....who else would be able to build a website from scratch?

OK, I'm in a hurry so quick reply. By my experience, I'd say you're wrong, as a matter of fact problem is the excess of designers and people who think they're designers because they downloaded a cracked copy of Photoshop. Then again, real designers have no problem to get work, ie on these months before Xmas that are always busy I tend to decline and average of 2 works per week (I pass them to fellow designers, of course).

Question is you're facing it from the wrong POV. You think that because Wordpress and Drupal are very complete CMS then everything is done. However, your reasoning can't explain why one of the booming design businesses is... skinning Wordpress, Drupal and so on.

Think about it, it's like when you buy your first car. An used one, pretty cruffy, you buy it just because you want a car and that's all you can afford. But you'll always look for something better. Same happens with design. As a matter of fact, at the same time you downloaded that free Wordpress copy and skin, you were hooked up. If you fail, you won't probably want to invest any money on it. But if you see your blog, site or whatever just needs that little spin to start to rock, then you'll get a design. maybe not a professional one, usually people is cheap and look for amateur and semi-pro designers. But after you realize you don't have what you were looking for, you'll end with a real designer, and hopefully a real site that makes money. And a site with personality, different to everything else out there, a site people remembers, that they can recognize at first sight.

If you don't believe me, do a search on my posts. I never offered my services here. Or anywhere else, as we're at it. I always work for repeated customers and companies coming from those repeated customers. I just use to help people with design questions, and according to your logic I should be starving or close to it :hehe: but believe me it's not the case.

Now, if you re-word your post like this: "Is crappy web pseudo-design a dying art?" then I'd say there are slightly more chances, but still not a real chance on it, fact is something like 80% of people is color blind and think a page with 2 tables and an animated gif (with default PS bevels, bevels are da shitnizz! :D ) is a design

 

[CrazyTech]

Well, I don't think one could consider it a dying art at all. It's certainly going through changes and things like CSS have really revolutionized the industry, but it's growing every day as more people get online. A business, as a single example, cannot possibly have the same design as another website. It's simply not professional. You still have plenty of folks out there designing their own quite beautiful sites.

Nothing has changed that a decent design still is the best draw for a website. Not a whole lot can change that for the forseeable future. It's just like computer software, despite the now possible avenues of hardware design, you still need that user interaction. Even as much as we look down on Facebook and Myspace, they're still designs and done very well in at least some ways.

We are a long way from editors being able to replace someone who knows graphic design, xhtml/css, etc. well.