Stop Designing in Photoshop. No thanks!

Introduction

There has been a lot of buzz on the web lately about designing in the browser (designing with markup). Several articles have popped up recently such as Andy Clarke’s “Time to stop showing clients static design visuals” and a recent article  “Make Your Mockup in Markup” from 24ways. The authors write about why you should stop designing in Photoshop or similar graphics programs and start designing in markup. While there are many good points in their articles I have a problem believing that is the way we should all be designing.

Problems with designing in markup

For me the biggest issue I have is making a truly artistic site with just markup and a fancy background image. A lot of the sites I design have unique layouts that include angles, curves, and detailed graphics, patterns or textures. These elements just can’t be replicated with code.  Even with the advancements of CSS3 there is only so much “design” you can do with code. Meagan Fisher gives an example of designing a site with markup in her 24ways article. Megan’s final product is a great looking site. So if she was able to make a great looking site with just code what’s the problem? The problem is that if everyone was to start designing their sites in this manner the web would be full of sites that are stylistically similar. If you think about it, you can really only create fairly simplistic designs with code only. Drop shadow, rounded corners and text shadows can only go so far. Sure, you can throw some fancy background on the site to make it look more unique but the overall look and feel is still boxes and text.

Another problem I see is that it is difficult to mentally layout and design a site in your code. Let me first add that this is my personal view and it may not be the same for everyone. When I design it is important for me to be able to quickly move, resize, reshape, recolor, add a new texture, etc. etc. I start with a sketch but I still don’t know exactly what the final product will look like until I am finished. If I had to go through this mental process in the browser it would never work for me, my mind just cannot grasp that final product until it I can see it visually. There is no way I could piece together a beautiful site and then go back and add the graphics where needed. I need to make the graphics and then code the site based off of the graphics.

It’s not completely a bad thing

I don’t think that designing in the browser is a complete sin, in fact I think it’s a great idea. That’s right I said it. If I know that the design I want to show a client is a clean simple design I might actually give this a shot. If the client signs-off on the design I not only have an approved design, but I have completed mark up. But the reality here is that a large majority or my sites and other sites out there are not super simplistic. There is definitely a place and a need for simple site, but we cannot have a web full of them.

I do agree to a point that static comps are not the ideal format for showing a client a web design. However in my experience I have found that for most clients a static comp and a good explanation of features is sufficient. I would love to see programs such as Photoshop make improvements in this area. If Photoshop had the capability to output a design that could display browser like interactions such as rollovers and click troughs I think that Photoshop comps would be even better. I am not a user of Fireworks but I know many designers choose Fireworks for that very reason.

Conclusion

I personally don’t care what you design your websites in. Do what you are comfortable with. Each method has its pros and cons and is merely a tool to complete a job. My major concern is that design creativity and diversity will suffer if everyone follows the commands of a few influential people in our industry. This method of designing in the browser may work well for some but I don’t think that it’s for everyone. If the authors would have described this subject as an alternative technique for some projects I don’t think I would even be writing this post. It’s the fact that they are telling us to STOP designing in Photoshop and to STOP showing clients static comps, that really bugs me.

What do you think about designing in the browser? Have you tried it? Did you have success? Was it a train wreck, do you think I am an idiot? Let me know in the comments!

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