A talk for Figtalks, an event held by Figtree London for Digital Shoreditch, about why designers should stop complaining about coding and just do it.

1. Why designers should
learn how to code
Rik Lomas, Lomalogue Ltd.
@riklomas

2. How the design and development
process worked 5 years ago

3. Design Development

4. How the process is becoming

5. Design Development

6. How should the process be?

7. Design Development

8. The best product companies
mix design and engineering
e.g. Apple, Audi, Dyson, Eames,
Herman Miller, Ikea, Leica,
Lego, Monocle, Penguin Books,
Vivienne Westwood, Zaha Hadid

9. Design Product

10. Design Product

11. Craftsmanship.

12. Understanding code means you will
understand the medium and the craft.

13. “Web design is product design. Drawing a
picture of the product is not designing
the product.
Web design is experience design. If you
stop at the PSD you've stopped well before
midpoint in the design.”
— Andy Rutledge

14. You need to know HTML and CSS
to be a designer at Facebook

15. You need to know HTML and CSS
to be a designer at Facebook and
Google

16. You need to know HTML and CSS
to be a designer at Facebook and
Google and Apple

17. You need to know HTML and CSS
to be a designer at Facebook and
Google and Apple and Instagram

18. “Ability to modify and construct solid HTML
and CSS is a BIG plus. [...] You'll be the one
moving your designs from Photoshop to code.
You should be very comfortable with HTML &
CSS or be willing to learn them quickly.
Exceptional candidates will have a fundamental
understanding of Javascript and Python.”
— Instagram’s designer job advert

19. “But learning code is hard...”

20. “I take great pleasure in talking to developers
about jQuery, HTML5 and other such dev
terms, completely oblivious to their meaning.”
— Tweet from designer

21. “If you don’t want to learn code,
don’t do digital design.”
— My reply

22. Are you smarter than a 10 year old?
www.codeclub.org.uk
www.raspberrypi.org

23. What is there to lose?

24. Online
teamtreehouse.com HTML, Javascript, iOS
codecademy.com Javascript, web fundamentals
designthencode.com iOS, Mac
learncodethehardway.org Ruby, Python, SQL
IRL
london.generalassemb.ly Pretty much everything digital

25. Best way to learn?

26. Best way to learn?
Do it yourself.

27. You will be frustrated.

28. You will be frustrated.
You will solve your own problems.

29. You will be frustrated.
You will solve your own problems.
You will learn to be self-reliant.

30. You will be frustrated.
You will solve your own problems.
You will learn to be self-reliant.
You will be better at design.

31. You will be frustrated.
You will solve your own problems.
You will learn to be self-reliant.
You will be better at design.
You will be better at your craft.

32. Thanks!
Rik Lomas, Lomalogue Ltd.
@riklomas