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I've been a front-end engineer for 8 years, and I haven't yet worked with someone who was a truly top-notch graphical designer and an expert-level programmer.

I've been a front-end engineer for 8 years, and I haven't yet worked with someone who was a truly top-notch graphical designer and an expert-level programmer. (I'm sure there are some out there, but they're not easy to find.) The best projects I've worked on have always split that work between at least two people, though the exact division of labor differs. Sometimes the graphic designer just hands raw Photoshop files to the developer to implement from scratch, while in other cases the designer does the basic CSS and markup and the developer provides tools/frameworks and does integration work. I think the best situation is to hire a web developer and a designer who already know how to work together as a team. Web development agencies can provide that. Or hire a freelance developer who can subcontract or recommend a designer.

inerte 17y ago
I've upvoted you and would like to add some things. Being a programmer is a whole job. You can't expect someone to be awesome at design and know how to use source control (properly), bug/issue, javascript, browser incompatibilities, w3c validation, etc, etc. Other fields of work are the same, btw. Architects can use hammers but I'm pretty sure only a few could handle a pneumatic drill properly and with safety. The designers probably said they knew front-end coding because whatever they had to do previously was good enough for the past clients. The OP has higher standards, which now requires a professional to do it (shameless plug, I'm available for freelancing work).