Hello all, I am beginning to believe that web design is slowly dying off. The reason I think this is because with popular software like WordPress and Drupal out there, it almost makes it pointless to learn web design. Why would someone new to websites want to spend hundreds of hours reading and practicing web design when he/she can just download pre-made templates from other web designers? I mean with the thousands and thousands of templates out there, you can probably find a design that matches 99% of what you want it to do...even for the most obscure niches. Here is a blog post that makes a really good point: http://blog.readysetconnect.com/2008/09/true-web-design-the-lost-art-web-designers-obsolete-because-of-theme-and-template-designers/ Years ago, if you wanted to start a website you had to learn EVERYTHING yourself...but now there is no need for that. What I think will happen is that there will be fewer new talent entering the field because web design skills are no longer required to start a website. This will mean there will be a smaller, older population of skilled designers who have ability vs a large population of people who are just meer website software operators. The small population of skilled designers will definitely be in high demand though....who else would be able to build a website from scratch?
In my company we still need skilled designers and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. For commercial applications, templates don't cut it.
Well 85%+ of the people who want websites would want it to be custom made and thats where we web designers come in .
Don't you think that's a bit like saying - with popular software like Garage Band there's almost no point in learning to play the guitar (or drums, or whatever). Yeah, ok, it's not the best analogy, but you get the point. Just because you can make a website with WordPress or Drupal, doesn't make it a good website. And even if *every* website was made with WordPress or Drupal, someone would have to develop for and around those.
No, I do not think that is entirely correct. Yes there are thousands and thousands of pre-made templates out there, as well as many pre-built cms's. However, unless the site a webmaster desires to start is simply a non-unique turnkey website, then I doubt that most will resort to just using a template. There will always be a need for custom websites, as most people simply do not want their websites looking like everybody else's.
going around different forums posting the exact same thread with the intention of promoting your own blog is not a smart thing to do. Ismail
But how many of you got into web design years because you wanted to start a website but the only option at the time was to learn web design? Nowadays your can build 1000 websites with no knowledge in web design at all...what im trying to get to is that if there are less people forced to learn web design(because there is no alternative), that means there will be less web designs as a whole. That can be good or bad depending on which side of the line you are on
I don't believe in this because web design Industry will only die if static sites go down.But I think they will never happen.
I believe the opposite of what you proposed will happen. Wordress and other software will act as a gateway to web design. The fear factor will be eliminated, and creating a web presence will be common place for children in grade school. They'll grow up creating websites. And being curious, innovate beings they'll want to know how it works, and they'll figure it out because it's not hard to learn. Anyone can start a web page in minutes and those cookie cutter drones will always exist. But if you're talking about ecommerce, which is expected to explode in the coming years, you'll need to be better than everyone else to rise to the top. As more and more gravitate to what's fast and easy, a greater need to be different, unique, and innovative will lead to the desire to learn the principles of web design.
Ready made templates will eventually become blah. Designers of these ready made ones are, for sure, ready to get into the next level whereby they get good compensation for what they do.
This fear is meaningless.... millions of applications are releasing daily and hundreds of operating systems are releasing..does it mean that there is no future for anymore applications or operating systems? I think Drupal, Joomla, Mambo, wordpress and similar wonderful and perfect products will increase the demand of the programmers and web designers..they are perfect tested and approved platforms, so that you can do your own work and make it more perfect and appealing to your clients. So don't worry..we are still in the very first phases of internet and web revolutions...more than 98% is there to cover and see whats there for us...so please be optimistic...
The web design industry will not die and the demand increasing because more and more offline industries have resort to online marketing which in fact needs web developers.
There is no way it would die. People want websites made all the time, especially companies and even companies who already have a website and want a better one designed. People who don't have much knowledge of html can throw a basic site together easily but a web designer will put effort into it and make it look nice and functional.
I was thinking the same thing at one point, when I became familiar with Joomla and saw the templates people make, I was like "f**king hell, they're awesome, it only takes 5 minutes now to make a website". But then I realized that real companies pay money for CUSTOM design, real companies don't just open "free logo creator" and create a logo themselfs, or borrow one from other company, no, they pay big £££ for custom logo design, they pay £££ for custom stand, office stuff, all that jazz, and they pay big £££ for a custom website design.
Art does not die , may be web designers/graphic designers are unable to make much money from it , but people will continue to do graphic designing , web designing ,etc.
I don't think things like Wordpress and Dupal are killing the web design industry, most companies are willing to pay to get something custom made that looks nice, they only companies that will use a wordpress site will never be found online anyway.
IMO it is actually the reverse. In earlier days developing an web site was so expensive and time consuming that not many people considered that as an option. Now , with the introduction of wordpress and cms like joomla , many people can start there own website without spending much. But when they get success with their web site, they always look for custom designs/logo/programming. So , the scope for designers and programmers has actually increased.
I disagree! with your point Web designers still have something to do! A Professional Website still acquire high class designers for there sites!
but paint by numbers will. At least that's my analogy. In my opinion this will probably help the industry, not hinder it. As more people become aware of the web and how it works they will realize how limited tools such as Wordpress and Joomla are, thus increasing my work load. There will always be jobs in large companies, at least I know I won't be using Amazon if they switch to Wordpress. Just my $0.02