You can be a web designer and not know HTML/CSS?

I believe this to be a very serious issue. Having worked with both designers who not only understand HTML/CSS but actually build their OWN designs and designers who don't have a clue about how websites are build I can tell the difference is huge. I believe the problem is not just whether designs can or cannot be build, I believe it's more about if designs can be build within an estimated timeframe and budget. Designers who don't understand how websites are build seem to come up with monstrosities of designs that never can be build within budgets and timeframes. Sure, the designs look good. As a poster or a flyer but we're building websites here... Designers who do not understand how websites are build seem to design every single website as a massive bitmap. I've had to build 5 megabyte home pages simply because a designer didn't understand the medium. The client wasn't very happy when they where slapped with a massive bill at the end of each month because of the amount of bandwidth the site was using. Don't get me started on gradients and the fact that a browser can have different sizes or the fact that a design needs to be "pixel perfect" (which seems to be impossible to understand for some designers).

Being a "web designer" and not knowing HTML/CSS is just plain stupid. How can you work in this industry? Go work in print where you belong with the rest of the fossils.

I don't know about "must" know html/css, but to get beyond a certain level of competency in designing web pages, to be able to make designs that are easily transferable to code, a knowledge of html/css will come into play.

I've worked with designers with and without this knowledge before, as well as designers familiar with css, but not html, and I can say that working with designers that knew html/css is far easier. Much less back and forth. Also, the ones without the knowledge get annoyed when told their designs don't translate well to code.

HTML/CSS does not take that much effort to learn. Just put in the effort and at least pick up the basics. Read a book on it. You don't need to know the ins and outs, but knowing the basics will help you design sites. And maybe you will find it interesting, and learn all the nitty gritty too. It will make you a better web designer.

I'm guilty of ridiculous analogies, but some of these are just beyond making sense.

The one that annoyed me the most here that I saw (twice) was the parallel between layers taking you down to understanding TCP/IP and socket programming. I'm quite certain I'm not the only person who's ever designed a (fairly rich) web site that does not in any way use networks. An attempt at such an analogy will only show your own lack of understanding of the layers.

I've had web designers who do great design and UX work and would deliver it to me in a basic HTML format with at least basic CSS that I could apply in the product. These were successful designers that enabled the team to build high quality products.

If I'm going to implement a web design I received in .psd format, you might as well just come over and describe what you're envisioning. You are simply "an idea guy" (though hopefully with really good ideas that I couldn't've thought of myself) at that point and photoshop is a tool you use to communicate that idea. If you work in a sufficiently large organization, that's probably just fine.

I communicate a lot of my ideas in .org when I can. Most of the time, my ideas come out in .py, .c, .cc, .erlang, .java, .js, .html, .sass, or whatever else feels like a fit.

The fewer people you have between the problem and the solution, the faster things move.

The biggest difference I find is that the designer who doesn't understand the guts of layout ends up with a site that is literally inflexible: it doesn't resize well and is really hard to modify later. The general outdated-ness of many corporate sites can be tracked to the difficulty of getting a flexible layout in place that lets you add a new item to the site without a total redesign.

If you are talking about a web designer, then I don't think it's necessary to know HTML/CSS, just good UI design, since they can create their designs in photoshop.

It's then the job of a web developer to convert that design to something a computer can display.

Sometimes people do both, and that's fine, although sometimes the people who know HTML/CSS can't design their way out of a paper bag. I'm one of them.

A web designer that doesn't know HTML/CSS is fine.

A web developer that knows HTML/CSS and can use a designer's mockup is fine.

The manager of those two parties that doesn't have experience in both can be troublesome.

Ok, some thoughts after reading through some of the comments both here and on the original article.

1) If you are putting words onto a website, you are not designing anything. You are publishing content. That content can be a story, a comment, an ad, etc. You are not designing or building a site. You are not a web designer nor a developer.

2) If you have received a graphic representation of a site (say from a graphic designer) and are implementing that design into a functioning page using wysiwyg-ish tools that do not require you to know how the underlying html & css technologies, you are building a site. Despite the use of tools, the end result is a page that works in at least one browser. You are the base-level web developer. However, you will never work for me until you learn html, css, and probably javascript too.

3) If you are only a graphic designer and you are pushing pixels to create a site layout, you are nominally a web designer. It is permissible for a pixel-pusher to do nothing but design, but unless you have some moderate level of actual coding you are doing a disservice to yourself and your coworkers. One of my biggest continuing gripes over the years is being given visual layouts that look interesting, but are nearly impossible to implement cleanly. A related issue is that graphic designers who never actually build sites nearly always leave major gaps in the UX of their designs. They don't think through every aspect of their design (what are the hover states, what should it look like when the mouse is here or here, etc). Essentially, if you are only a graphic designer you will not work for me unless you have some actual developer experience.

In the end, you can get a spectrum from #2-#3. I am a web developer who has been doing this for something like 10 years. I have moderate photoshop skills and have created my own designs before. But I'm only adequate at design.

Other people I have worked with are primarily graphic designers that are adequate at developing. They make amazing looking designs that sometimes have a few UX problems. However, when you put that kind of person with a developer like me, you can hit a nice sweet spot where we understand enough of each other's worlds that we can really get some shit done.

Finally, my tweet from a few weeks ago about this very problem, http://twitter.com/geuis/status/22554072991

I would actually take this argument even further and add an understanding of good UX with a sprinkle of business knowledge. Without the UX, a designer has no basis on what works for each particular type of user, and without a basic understanding of business, the designer will lack the understanding of what and why they're actually designing the thing they're designing.

It's not strictly necessary to know HTML/CSS, but I can't see how you could be a web designer and not want to learn. Back in the day when all I could do was Photoshop and InDesign, I'd constantly think, "I wish I could code this up myself."

Sure you can, you can also be a writer and not know what punctuation is. In fact that would explain a few things around the web.

oh wait, you meant a good web designer ...