I'm a web developer also and I work with clients mostly in Europe, Australia and the U.S. My clients are generally other developers contracting the back-end st

I'm a web developer also and I work with clients mostly in Europe, Australia and the U.S. My clients are generally other developers contracting the back-end stuff to me. Generally the design is done by one source, someone else will do the HTML / CSS and then I weave everything into a working site. So, your experience has been the same as mine. I have never done design work, but this system makes a lot of sense to me for all sides. If you hire a high end designer you may not want to pay the same high end rates for that designer to do the HTML / CSS as well. That same high end designer may not want to bother with that sort of work, especially if that person has a lot of design work queued up. Because there are a lot of choices for people who can do HTML / CSS, I wouldn't expect the designer to do this, especially if that designer is great to work with (great to work with is highly valuable in the freelance world.) HTML / CSS is easy enough to pick up that designers should know it, but I don't think it should be a requirement. The only time I have seen problems with this is with designers who have a heavy print background and hand over a design which would looks like it belongs in a magazine or brochure. Another thing to consider is that the fastest front-end developers are those who do a lot of it. If I'm in a crunch for time, I would rather hire someone who is a specialist on the front end who could pump out the work much faster than someone who spends far more time in design than development. EDIT: Actually, I think I veered away from the question. Should web designers KNOW HTML / CSS? Yes. I think it would be difficult to get to the point of supporting yourself as a freelance web designer without learning HTML / CSS somewhere along the way. Should web designers be expected to do HTML / CSS work? Not necessarily.