If you had to be 51% of one thing and 49% of the other, how would you rate yourself as designer vs. programmer.

It was quite a struggle once told I had to make a decision. Years later, I’m curious how many others have faced this same challenge.

At first, I had a hard time understanding why I had to be one or the other.

Our company had been around for several months and it was time to "take it to the next level." Overnight, we had grown from a tiny office with fold-out tables and cardboard boxes to an office space that later proved itself big enough to roller blade from one end to the other.

We had grown from 15 employees to over 150 including our own national sales reps, marketing department, advertising, back-end programmers, network admin, front-end designers, illustrators... suddenly we found ourselves answering the phone and saying "I’m not sure if we have a so-and-so here, let me transfer you to our directory."

We weren’t a little family anymore.

But that was okay, because we were being kept busy with 401K seminars and strategy meetings. How can we broaden our market? What sets us apart from the competitors? What kind of image are we presenting to our customers?

It wasn’t long before the CEO sat us down and announced we were bringing in Ogilvy One to analyze and design our "look and feel".

But we already have a "look and feel"

Within a week, our vacant cubicles were swarming with consultants. They were buzzing around papering the walls with sketches and printouts, talking about e-this and e-that and branding and site personality.

We realized quickly... these guys meant business.

Their creative director and I were paired off to assess my studio and the skill sets within. She and I sat at the white board and made 2 lists: designers and programmers.

For the most part, everyone shuffled nicely into one category or the other, with an occasional "he does both, but he really prefers programming." Or vice versa.

Then she asked me.

Me? Oh, well I do both.

"No, Daisey, you have to choose one or the other. Are you a designer or a programmer?"

How could I possibly choose between two things I’m so equally interested in? I’ve been designing and creating visual art since I was a kid. A majority of my professional experience has been in the design industry, both online and print. I dream in colors and shapes, I taste in hues and alpha channels... So do I lean towards being a designer?

Yet programming has allowed me to fill a void that otherwise was left empty. It’s challenged me to think logically and analytically... there’s no greater feeling than being stuck on a technical speed bump for days. Then, finally you try something that couldn’t possibly work (what the heck, you’ve already tried everything else) You save it, refresh it and it works! Victory, at last! You float around the room on your digital cloud 9 feeling oh so on top of the world. So, does that mean I lean towards programming?

Finally, she explained her reasoning; mainly so she’d know what my role would be in the exploration and development stages over the next few months. I told her I would have to get back with her on that. I was stumped. Truly, stumped.

In the earlier days of graphic design, artists and designers were introduced and drawn to the visual programs: Quark, CAD, Photoshop, Corel, Illustrator, WordPerfect, PageMaker, etc. So naturally, they got their solid footing in design before they even thought about diving into the world of programming. But then, the more they explored the internet and its interactive possibilities, the more some of them realized how limited they were in their 2 dimensional "art" programs. They wanted more.

Visions of animations and mouseovers and pop-up windows became part of the designs, and the only way to bring those visions to life, was to jump in there and code it yourself. Even if you weren’t going to be the one doing the coding, you at least had to know what does and doesn’t work on the world wide web. As a user interface programmer, it’s a much smoother process when the designer knows how to optimize, slice and prepare images for the web. And as a back-end programmer, it’s nice to have clean and concise code to add your functionality to. So as a designer, it helps to know what the end product is going to be and how it’s going to be handled and further developed.

I feel a huge part of designing a website is piecing it together and holding its hand all the way until it’s entirely navigable within the browser. A web designer’s job doesn’t stop at Photoshop, just as a mother’s job doesn’t stop at giving birth.

The more projects I’ve worked on, the fuzzier that line gets between front-end and back-end. It seems front-end designers are expected to know much more than they were a couple of years ago... mainly because there are so many programs that do a lot of the grunt-work for you. (But of course, we all know we can’t rely on WYSIWIG alone.)

In fact, I’m hearing the title "User Interface Designer" in exchange for "Web Designer" these days. The term Graphic User Interface (GUI) captures not only the look and feel, but also the aesthetic functionality... the bells and whistles.

So how could one specifically say "I am one or the other" when both worlds are so intricately woven? I think a designer would be doing himself a grave injustice by not knowing what technical boundaries their designs must conform to.

Also, as a freelancer, it’s a huge bonus to be able to develop, not only aesthetically pleasing websites, but also fully functional interactive sites utilizing anything from database driven scheduling systems to secured shopping carts.

So what did I ever decide when asked the 51% question?

To this very day... I still can’t answer that.

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