Sometimes, we invent a lot of words for things that are basically the same. For example, I think that most of us would agree that an attorney is pretty much the same as a lawyer, and a college is very similar to a university. While there might be some minor differences here and there, we tend to use the terms interchangeably without anyone having too much trouble understanding what we mean.

Once in a while, though, things aren’t quite that easy. For instance, even though they sound a bit close and both concern stars and planets, a person who signed up for a course on astronomy and ended up learning about astrology would be disappointed. I mention this because it’s not uncommon to hear clients refer to graphic designers and web designers as basically the same thing.

Is there a difference? And does it matter? You bet it does! While it’s true that both graphic designers and web designers are artistic professionals that can make your marketing materials pop, there is a degree of specialty to each. Traditionally, graphic designers work on print materials, like brochures, annual reports, and magazine advertisements. Web designers, on the other hand, spend as much time working with code as we do images – we worry about CSS, screen sizes, and HTML tags rather than paper stock or ink variations.

That extra bit of specialty can be more important than you might think. That’s because a profitable small business website isn’t just a pretty picture – it’s a piece of online art backed by some kind of coding. It needs to function perfectly for a variety of people using more than a dozen computer platforms and Internet browsers. Getting ink to look great on the page isn’t easy, but pulling the same colors and images out of a thousand different laptops and monitors at the same time is a whole different kind of challenge.

For that reason, you need to be careful hiring graphic designers without any coding experience to lay out your site. There definitely are talented web professionals working at firms that do print work, but the skills aren’t interchangeable. Working with websites requires a different set of skills, knowledge, and even software to make sure that what you see on the screen is going to translate properly into a working site. Sometimes these differences aren’t easy to spot at first glance. That’s because a client’s initial look at their new website is usually in the form of an image mockup. Since the image doesn’t really have to do anything, it can be made to look like a million with programs like Photoshop, even if the designer doesn’t have the background to transform that picture into a working model using HTML and CSS.

Graphic design and web design sound close, but they’re not the same thing and knowing the difference is important. Any artist can give you something that looks nice, but a professional web designer can make or break your online business.

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