I plan to experiment more with typography and layout. Firstly I will be digging out my old graphic design books, possibly buying some more and replicating some of the layout techniques in HTML and CSS. Web designers will be aware that technical restraints can give us limitations that print designers do not face (they have their own set of restraints). It will be a task of experimenting with what can be achieved in layout with HTML and CSS, exploring that edge first. And then reigning it in to what can be achieved with considerations of browser deficiencies, optimal screen resolution for audience majority and how layout sits within the heuristic factors an interface should abide by.

There is no reason why good layout cannot be used commercially, in a content managed system or otherwise. So why have so many, me included, been playing it safe for so long? I am going to push the boat out today and design an 80px gutter. Strike me down.

I knew my strengths lay in what we—online experts—have come to call today, digital media. Whereas the technical specifications of a graphic designer are type setting and colour separation plates, the Web designer working knowledge is in Web page expansion, graphical user interface (GUI) design and accessibility considerations.

There are cross-overs in the disciplines. Sure. Typographic sensibility, page balance and colour selection are inherent disciplines in all good designers. Essentially graphic and Web designers are bound by their maturity to design. They’re separated by their focus.

Proposed with the job to layout magazine column or brochure I would naturally put fourth a contact able to carry out the task. A thumbling attempt at completing the project would require too much learning and error on my part. Nor would it stoke my interest. I would hope that my graphic design contacts would extend the same favour and thinking if the glove was on the other hand having been asked to produce a series of Web page layout designs.

From experience in the creative industries and speaking with peers this is not always so. There is a tendency to place Web design in the hands of seasoned graphic designers. They make the decisions, call the shots, before passing the Photoshop file to a Web developer to muddle through.

Web designers have a discipline entirely their own. A Web designer is to produce unique, functional and appealing strategies that take account of a medium that will change dependent on platform, for instance the type of browser, the viewing device, even the screen resolution set by the end user. This is ever more prevalent today with mobile devices and the like.

This is merely a smattering off the top layer considerations for a Web designer. I will return to this topic in future posts. For the time being, what experiences have you of graphic design professionals attempting Web design? Perhaps you are a graphic designer who is tasked with Web related projects. Do you feel you are unable to complete the task fully due to inexperience? Does work get returned by developers saying it won’t work? What do the Web developers amongst you say, have you had to redesign work signed off for you to develop as they were unworkable?