Web Design for Print Designers
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- mg33
I have a few people I work with who have traditionally been print designers, who are now getting a bit more involved in digital design. I'm putting together a crash-course on all things responsive design, web design basics, etc. and trying to think of all the things that will be useful to them - even down to print terminology that isn't used in web design.
What comes to mind as being important for print designers to understand as they transition to digital design?
So far, I've got:
- Responsive basics
- fixed vs. fluid layouts
- working within a grid
- understanding basic HTML aspects like divs
- CSS-only capabilities for text
- mobile first designWhat else comes to mind?
- umbee542
image optimization - load speeds - the google.
- bigbaby530
I could use a course like this.
- sausages0
https://www.freecodecamp.org/lea…
The Responsive Web Design cert here is an OK (and free) run-through of the basics for non-digital types.
- whatthefunk0
- Design Systems
- UX Writing
- Templates
- Information Architecture
- SEO (alt text, etc.)
- Prototyping
- Accessibility (contrast, low/no vision, font size, etc.)
- Responsive breakpoints (how to omit content for mobile)
- micro-interactions & animations- This seems more about coding programming and almost nothing to do with design. Maybe I'm wrong.monospaced
- Definitely more in depth. Maybe for a web team, but may be a little much for the designers.umbee54
- Responsive Design system - Yes!umbee54
- All of this has to do with digital design for newbs imho. I love when marketing designers make a design with cta copy that's a full sentence...hence UX writingwhatthefunk
- section_0140
Javascript basics. In particular, using document.getElementbyId and document.getElementsbyClassName to add/remove CSS styles.
Learning how to listen to resize events would probably help too, since that's when you'd most likely be class swapping.
- CyBrainX0
Don't dumb down mobile versions of things. More people are looking at your mobile content. Don't make it worse just because everyone else does.
- imbecile2
copywriting
- SEO copywriting: The ultimate guide
https://yoast.com/co…imbecile - Amazon books
https://www.amazon.c…imbecile - How to Write Content For People and Optimize For Google
https://neilpatel.co…imbecile
- SEO copywriting: The ultimate guide
- utopian3
That logo in the upper left menu...can always be bigger.
- mg330
Thanks for the suggestions everyone, this is really helpful. Some of these are a bit more than what I want to teach the print people I work with. It’s really just more to help them understand how to design appropriately to the things that I am creating on the UX side. Even if I can get people to simply understand a 12 column grid and the concept of mobile first, that will be a huge win.
- I’d have thought grids would be an easy pickup for print designers, unless you got a team of Carsons to deal with : )MrT
- http://gridcalculato…utopian
- cherub0
I come from a photography background not a design background, fair warning. Imho a color science refresher wouldn't hurt. Reorient towards the mixing of RGB for a mobile screen via additive color rather than the mixing of CMYK over a white surface via subtractive color. Examine the color and luminance limitations of the viewing devices themselves, with the intent to stay within the boundaries when designing so it looks correct on the average of all devices.
- Nairn3
Encourage them to learn to give up on the idea that what they want to see exactly is exactly what they'll see.
- It was hard for me to understand the flexibility of a responsive grid at first. Then you also have a dev team that fucks with your design.Chimp
- The idea you can't get what you designed must be the most frustrating thing for a traditional designer. Web fucking sucks.monospaced
- It's a wholly different medium. Nowadays I find the idea of "Things Need to be Exactly How I want on screen" quite ridiculous and antithetical to the web.Nairn
- To me, the ridiculous part is that after 30+ years, we still can't get it exactly as we want. I agree, the web is antithetical to design ideals ...monospaced
- ... which is not the designer's fault.monospaced
- Eh? How should a medium be subserviant to a design presumption? The medium dictates the message. The myriad of digital outputs is not a printed page.Nairn
- So if a designer doesn't understand the limitations - and potentials - of the medium they're working in, then it is absolutely their fault if they choose.Nairn
- You can still deliver a flat PNG file if you want some conceit of exactness on a medium far beyond that, but fuck if that's basically useless.Nairn
- Or, an SVG file. At least that has readable elements. Still stupid.Nairn
- I spent the first few years of my professional life trying to ensure that client's brands translated exactly across browsers. Stupid. Short-sighted.Nairn
- Chimp0
1. How to write for digital platforms
2. An overview of UX
3. How to use a template and for get being creative like in 2002?
- webazoot0
Good luck with this. I used to work for a print company and a print based ad agency doing the web site of things so his came up a lot and peoples expectations on the similarities of the two things aren't anywhere near realistic.
- BaskerviIle2
Show them this:
https://start.uxdesign.cc/
- nb0
The box model
- nb0
Might as well start with Figma. Particular attention to Components, Libraries, Prototype mode.
- nb0
A brief introduction to front end frameworks, what they are and why they are so popular. Don’t need to know everything about them, but you are going to run into this in the real world.
- monospaced1
I'm one of those print guys that doesn't know how to design for web ... I'm your target audience.
For me it's about software more than the principles. I have no idea what tools to design in, so a focus on that would be the most helpful to me.
- mekk1
I'm sick of explaining my job to people that did not learn anything new in the last 15 years just so they can keep up with my work.
- imagine how they feel hearing that website builders care more about code than the design sidemonospaced
- imagine hearing from print designers that they still haven't taken a look into digital design in 2020mekk
- imagine all the peopleimbecile
- It isn’t hard to do.monospaced
- I do agree with this. I'd question any designer (print or otherwise) who hasn't had the curiosity to at least dabble in the web over the past 20 yearsBaskerviIle
- Question what exactly? Surely not their design expertise.monospaced
- I'd want to know why they haven't been curious about the web, I don't see how someone could be good at their craft without exploration and experimentation andzarkonite
- if you haven't been curious about that then what else have you been too lazy to explore? is this how they work, repeat old formulas all the time?zarkonite
- Exactly, if you work in print (and I used to back in the day), you will have noticed more and more of your work and your live moving to digital.BaskerviIle
- I would hope that any designer was curious about the world around them, especially as print skills translate easily to web...it's all just layout and hierarchyBaskerviIle
- yeah I didn't mean if your job doesn't require any digital then that's different, I totally agree with you on seeing your work slip away.zarkonite
- Look. Of course I’ve done digital work and I’ve been curious and explored. I’m not “lazy.” But the web side only asks for certain assets not the skill to develomonospaced
- If my job wasn’t already insanely demanding I might have taken time to totally learn a skill I don’t need. But that isn’t the case. I’m a seasoned designer stilmonospaced
- When faced with threads like this, a traditional designer sees terms CSS and html and it never seems clear. What software. Where to start?monospaced
- Hey mono I wasn't calling you lazy, sorry man, I was thinking of my experiences with print people that don't want to do any digital.zarkonite
- I hear ya. I'm sensitive because I'm a print guy who never had to do web, and never learned it. I would rather focus on the visual system than technical stuffmonospaced
- What's lacking on the web side is designers with good fundamentals so I personally like onboarding print people into digital... there's things to know of coursezarkonite
- but no one needs to go in depth with the technical stuff. It's not like knowing how to make your own ink makes you a better pring designer.zarkonite
- agreedmonospaced