Web design and web development are two important directions in website building. In truth, many people use these terms interchangeably, not realizing that they are different, albeit related, concepts. It's wise to know the differences between web designand web development, especially if you plan on ordering creating of website.

Let's try to explain these two concepts in simple terms.

What Is Web Design?

Web design means planning and creating the visual side of a website. This includes the development of the site layout, structure of web pages, user interface, easy navigation, choice of ideal color combinations, fonts, images, animations, and other graphic elements.

Web designers are graphic artists who bring clients' ideas to life, creating a thoughtful website interface. Just like an architect drafts a project for a future home, a web designer models a site layout before a web developer starts designing it.

What a Web Designer Should Be Able to Do:

• Good understanding of graphic and logo design.

• Work with programs for creating graphics, such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, and Sketch.

• Look for the best methods of creating a layout, easy navigation, clear interface.

• Be aware of the latest graphic design trends. Maintain consistency with designs from other companies, especially Google and Facebook. This makes it easier to navigate the site and use the interface since it is already familiar to users.

• Consider website branding, color palettes, and typography that impact web page readability.

Designers do not just make a beautiful website. The convenience of using the interface depends on the result of their work, and therefore the site traffic.

What Is Web Development?

The point of web development is to write the code for the website to function. Web developers use integrated development environments and programming languages ​​to build a fully functional website based on a project created by designers.

Web site development consists of layout (client part) and programming (software part). Therefore,web developers are divided into two groups: front-end and back-end.

The front-end, or client-side, of the application is the creation of the code and markup responsible for the visual design of the website. Front-end developers should be able to work with hypertext markup (HTML), cascading tables styles (CSS),and JavaScript (JS). With the help of programming languages ​​and styles, a developer can create a full-fledged site: from a general layout to inserting animations, images, using various fonts and interfaces. For small sites, layout may be the only type of development that is required to complete a project. For more complex projects, back-end development is a must.

The back-end, or program part, of the application is responsible for processing and storing information transmitted through the interface. The use of a back-end is required if the site contains dynamic data. Information can be stored in a database on a localor remote server. To develop the software part of the site and connect to servers, languages ​​such as PHP, Java, and C# are usually used.

To summarize, a web designer is someone who participates in the design of a website, while a webdeveloper is responsible for writing code. Both have different tasks, but a designer who understands how web pages are created will be more experienced and prepared to design those pages. Likewise, a web developer who has a grasp of design basics can better control the appearance of content from the user's side.

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