Pixelvetica

     I think that sometimes we web, graphics, and UX designers and developers forget how important each is to the other. In a world where all of our media seems to be a collaborative effort— heck, if you post a youtube video, it’s not just you; other people can make comments and record feedback vids too— we take it for granted that everyone else is symbiotically doing their job properly. For this post, we’ll take the example of context to be iPad app creation.

     The developer cannot survive without the designer: yes, he’s got some sense of what it should turn out like, but lines of objective-C don’t create beautiful gradients and rounded corners and 1px Apple-style text-shadows. If he’s not a UI person, he’s probably not sure where to put the buttons either, or what order the navigation should be presented in.

     In the same way, the designer is lost on his own. Make all of the beautiful little icons you want, but they don’t do squat, and they aren’t gonna appear on an iPad screen anytime soon without a means of distribution, á la an app. Just because you can make an iMac icon look realistic doesn’t mean you know any code, or the math behind that radial 3-point gradient you just applied.

     When the developer and designer work together though, that’s where the magic happens. A great example of symbiosis in software creation is Panic (they make awesome Mac stuff). Tons of awesome designers and developers work constantly, consistently, and in close quarters to create what many regard to be the best designed AND coded apps of the Mac universe. They’ve achieved synergy.

     And if you’re one of those people who’s both a designer and developer, well, I guess you’re just better than the rest of us. 