A few years ago I went to a mostly graphic-based conference in Jackson, Miss. Being a student at the time who was majoring in both web development and graphic design, I presented a question to one of the speakers: What is your advice to students that want to pursue both web development and graphic design? His response to my seemingly simple question was basically as follows: It is not possible to do both web and graphics, and if you try, you will fail. Because you cannot be good at both, you will be bad at both and will fail at your career. It was his opinion that a person must choose to either be in the graphics field or in the web field and to focus his or her energy solely on that field.

Needless to say, I left that conference feeling as though someone had crushed my dreams. I wondered, “Maybe he was right, maybe I should just give up, maybe I do suck at both.” After giving it much more thought, I decided I wouldn’t let one person’s comment change my mind or my career dreams. I was going to continue to pursue both web and graphics. I had already gone through quite a lot when I originally made the decision (working out my class schedules, choosing my extra-curriculars, etc.), and I wasn’t about to let myself be stopped by this hurdle.

I continued on. I spent many long nights working on school work and many long days talking to my instructors and guidance counselors in my efforts to force these two very different worlds to be merged together. A year passed, and it was time for the conference again. I was excited to meet more people in the graphics field, to receive paper samples from major paper companies, and to hear what the new line-up of speakers had to say about the field. I had put aside my experience with the not-so-encouraging speaker from the year before.

Amusingly enough, a new speaker told us how important it is as graphic designers to branch out and know more about the web world for which we are developing. He encouraged us to take a few web classes and download various programs to help with those who can code but might need some help with the more in-depth coding.

He even went as far as to compare a person with abilities in both web development and graphic design to a unicorn.

A unicorn? Yes, a unicorn. His point was that people with skills in both fields are so rare that they seem almost mythological.

Here I sat, finally reassured that I hadn’t made a mistake in deciding my future. As the new speaker finished his presentation and began taking questions, I thought of the previous year’s speaker and raised my hand. I told him I was a student dual majoring in web and graphics and mentioned the other speaker’s discouraging words. This man only responded with encouragement and praise and suggested that the previous speaker might have been from a previous generation of graphic design. In the past, the two worlds did not cross, but in today’s society full of digital ads and billboards and electronically driven marketing, this is simply no longer the case.

You see, the worlds of graphic design, web development, marketing and advertising are changing drastically. With our new generation being so tech savvy and so technologically driven, it is important that we keep up or be left behind.

Keep up or be left behind.

I now have two degrees, one in web development and the other in graphic design. I don’t claim to be the best at both worlds, but I can hold my own in each. I am twice as valuable as my predecessors who felt they should only have one focus.

Since my graduation, the curriculums for both degree fields have been adjusted. Graphic design majors are now required to take web development classes, and web development majors are required to take graphic design classes.

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.

This statement is proving more and more true in these two fields. Web and graphics must learn to merge together in order to be greater than what they were in generations past.

At The Focus Group, we’ve decided to tackle this problem head on. We are aiming to close the gap between the web and graphics worlds in order to produce websites more efficiently. From teaching graphic designers some of the web lingo, to teaching the web developers to watch out for common graphics faux-pas, we are ahead of the game because we all have a mutual respect for one another.

My advice:

• If you are a company with both a web and graphics department, have both departments were more closely with one another.
• If you are a graphic designer, learn more about the web world. Even if you don’t learn to “code,” you should know certain terms and basic website functionality.
• If you are a web developer, study up on the principles of good design and good layout.
• If you are a student interested in both fields, pursue your goals and don’t let anyone tell you it’s impossible, because the impossible things of today are the necessary things of tomorrow.

Katie Mosteller
Website Developer