Would like to see people’s opinions on this. A lot of traditional artists at my college look down on me as a web designer. Like “oh it’s just a click of a button and its done�. So what does everyone here think?

Personally I think its art we just work with different tools and people haven’t accepted it yet.

Web design is definitely art. It takes knowledge of which colors are easier on the eyes, aesthetics, defining a site's "atmosphere" based on the way it looks, and even a lot of graphic marketing! I.e. the design has to sell the product the website is trying to sell

Web design is art... but I find its harder to draw to my designs on paper then to actually do it on the computer, but that is because of the selection of tools that computers have. Hand drawing, however, is very nice, but cannot not compair to what a very skill full person can do with images on a computer...

What really drives me crazy, is the resolution of pixles we have now, and are acustom to, image in 15-20 years or more?

with the likes of master artists such asda Vinci, Rembrandt, Monet and Dali, to name a few, i'd have a difficult time taking ur statement verbatim, but if ur saying that a skillful computer artist can generate wonderful multimedia imagery and motion worthy of display and competion on its own merit i would whole heartedly agree.

Hey all --

I certainly think that web design is an art -- and I also think that it is often times largely underappreciated. Take a look at some of the good sites out there vs. the bad sites. The most obvious differences are usually the outward appearance -- and a GOOD web design, which is likely created by a good web artist, has taken into consideration everything from colors to font size and color to alignment of page elements to photography and the weight of each element on the page. It's just that our canvas is not a big white tangible one sitting on an easel... and our tools aren't paint or chalk or watercolor... but we certainly have our own canvas and artistic tools to choose from. And like any other art -- you can tell when you're dealing with someone who really knows what they're doing and has the creative, artistic talent to bring together all of the aforementioned elements to create something that looks really nice.

Wow -- perhaps I'm a little more adament about the topic than I thought. Like I said, I think it's very often underappreciated. But yes, a web site is definitely art.

Cheers!
Shannon

well, i would amend that in as much that while the graphics inherent in a website may constitue art, it isn't automatically good art. Can it be? Absolutely! But that's not by definition, but rather execution. jm2c

thx for those replies. i too feel its under appreciated hehe.

Do you think style affects web design? Do web designers use style to persuade?

all these questions btw are for my degree dissertation for uni. getting some opinion so i can write my arguement.

I think style in web design is like style in any art --- you have your abstract style and you have your impressionist style --- and within each style there's good and bad. And each style can be used in different ways to convey different messages, or as you say -- persuade. I think that the right combination of style and color and content does indeed have an effect on the viewer... and I think that a lot of thought has to go into all of those things in order to convey the right message. It all goes back to marketing. You gotta find that golden message, the golden style, that speaks directly to the consumer base that you are targetting. That's why, again, I think that web design is often underappreciated. The good designers know these things and are able to cater to different audiences and use different styles in order to hit those sweet spots.

Just my thoughts.

thx for the replies. while we are on the subject does anyone know any books or places i can find out about history of web design/development and to help answer the question "is webdesign art".

seems almost impossible to find information on it

:rolleyes:

Web design certainly is an art and if all there is no web design, there is no computer world.

On a recent survey conducted on this topic, i got 90% of the votes for web design as an art. The rest 5% says it is a profession and the final 5% of no comments.

You can see the history of web design right from the Ist generation from this site. I had given the link below.

http://www.innervisions.com.au/webhistory/first.html

Bye