So, Microsoft have a IE 9 commercial running on television these days. For a good long time web developers and designers loathed IE, especially IE 6. I do admit that IE 7 and IE 8 were dramatically better. Let’s hope they continue to get better and less of a pain to design for.I guess we shall see what aches in the near future.

Generally speaking it seems that most people do not know the difference between a web designer and a web developer. To me, they are two very different groups. One can know both but I think it’s hard to specialize in both. But if you mention to someone not in the field they think that being a web guy means you can do ANYTHING. That is not the case. Let me explain.

Web Designer

From my experience very well crafted people. They are designers in general. A lot of them being graphic designers. They know what appeals to the eyes. What fonts and colors flows well together. They can bring everything together visually which is very important since that is the first impression.

Web Developer

They are behind the scenes. They bring the data together. They provide the functionality of the site. You want to to pull all data within Atlanta that contains Thai food? The developer will create the form and pull that data. The designer well present that nicely to you.

A person can be both but it is hard to find single individual who excels in both. Being an excellent designer is hard. Being an excellent developer is hard. Being both? Well, even harder. I think anyone that web freelances tries to learn both as much as possible. As soon as they get into it they realize where their strength lies. I just want people to realize that when you go to someone who works on websites they do not necessarily know Flash, HTML, JQuery, CSS, PHP, JSP, SQL, JSON, Java, .Net, Ruby on Rails, Coldfusion, Javascript, Photoshop, Illustrator… The list goes one.

Just my 2 cents.

Pagoda Works is currently undergoing some constructions as the 2012 is in full run. Some changes on our end to make things better. For one thing Pagoda Works will strictly be a WordPress shop. What does that mean? It means all focus is on WordPress template creation, plugins, and all things that make  Wordpress an awesome platform to be on. I have to say, I think being sort of an everything shop spread things out a bit thin. I love to do some custom PHP programming (and may still take on PHP projects on certain requests) BUT  I think putting all the energy in one platform that is still very popular is a good decision for me.

So, let’s see what 2012 will bring. It’s a new year and it’s time for a new direction!