From Print to Web: A design discussion with Dan Rubin

Last night Dan Rubin, superfluousbanter.org, spoke to a large group of Washington, D.C. Art Directors about the myths, similarities and differences of design between the print and web mediums. The crowd was a great diversity of traditional print designers and web designers alike. What started as one of the best presentations I’ve ever sat through quickly turned into one of the most interesting discussions I have ever been a part of.

Today there is still this strong separation between “print” and “web” among the design community. That was the focus of Dan’s presentation, ultimately what we are doing is “design” and we are together the “design community”. The core at what makes us professionally talented is shared among that talent, such as typography and color theory. Working in both mediums we share design constraints; whether it be paper size or browser size, budgeting issues and technical issues – within both mediums designers are working with design constraints, it is understanding those constraints and being the most creative within them where we share many of our similarities.

Dan touches on some of the myths of “web design” that often make print designers cringe, as the design constraints are perceived as too great to truly “design”. Stomping out some of those myths included examples of utilizing more than the limited browser set of fonts and also working within them to create highly unique and creative web designs. Other myths that still exist are that web designers are limited to 256 colors, that we don’t have control of some typographical elements such as working with the baseline and leading; to name a few. Another strong disconcertion print designers have with “web designers” is this feeling that anyone can do it and that the industry is plagued with “armature designers” – while the statement is true with some respect, the important thing to note is that this “issue” is not limited to web and exist among other mediums, especially print. Anyone with Microsoft Word, Clip Art and is in walking distance to a Kinkos is now a “print designer”. Those of us with expensive cameras are calling our selves “photographers”; I am sure many professional photographers would take issue with such a claim.

While the skill, practice and quality of our work still separates amateur from professional – there is still this looked-down-upon feeling from the web design community by the print. Rubin explains elegantly how this issue also exists across mediums: Opera singers looking down on A Cappella singers, film makers look down on cartoonist, book authors look down on Journalist … these are simply different forms of an art, not one being “better” than another. Web Design is not this abomination of print design and print design is not this archaic form of web design.

Personally, I feel the biggest element truly separating the print designers from the web is nothing more than comfort, control and clarity. Print designers highly value their relationships with their printers – they will be on the phone with them all night, will drive down to their shop to watch as their design comes off the press and ready for proof, they will articulate the deepest level of detail to truly ensure their design intention perfectly matches the design execution. This relationship between designer and printer is critical and absolutely fundamental – but, the printer of the web is a “developer” and traditional print designers don’t know how to have that same relationship with developers as they do with printers. Hell, most web designers don’t know how to have that relationship with developers. Within our own industry we struggle to keep web designer and web developer in sync – how can we possible expect a print designer getting into the web to accomplish this?

Most print designers know much about the printing process, even how the machines function and the supplies needed by the printer to accomplish the job correctly – most seasoned print designers could walk a printer through the entire process of what they need to do to successfully execute the job. However, print designers lack this same interest and passion for the technologies that power the web; so they can’t have that same conversation or level of conversation with a developer. You don’t need to know how a press works to be a print designer, but it helps make you great when you do. You don’t need to know how HTML, CSS and JavaScript work to be a web designer, but it helps make you great when you do! And lets be honest, if you are a seasoned print designer, who really has the time to learn about code and “web standards”? Both in print and web, you cannot hand off a design concept and ask someone to bring it to life without being a part of that process.

We are not talking about print design or web design; we are simply talking about design. If you want to be a good designer, in any medium, you have to have the passion to be great. If you are a traditional print designer looking to design a website and have no passion for the web, you will never be a good web designer or create a great design for the web – because you’ll never give it the attention to detail your work deserved. As a designer, we are best when we immerse ourselves in what we do.

Download Dan Rubin’s Presentation (PDF)

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