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I also liked your comment about the following:

Jon pointed out within the discussion that I am a member of the iSTD and as such (in the context of the discussion), it sets me, and members of similar organisations, apart from the ?Front Page designers?. True. But, sets me apart to whom? My peers or my clients?

I previously worked at an attorney marketing firm and attorneys seem to continue to suffer this same mindset of accreditation. Marketing a professional service, like web design is very different from marketing a physical product. The client is NOT qualified to judge the quality of your work (the drafting of a trust, or the coding of a site), so accreditations are fairly useless to the uninitiated.

A developer to my mind is one who does the behavioural aspect of a web site. Scripting, applications and database programming, creating hooks, etc. The designer is one who creates the site concept, does layout, presentation and stylistic coding (though I hate calling (x)html/css/xml/etc coding). They may do the graphics design if they are able, or use the services of a graphics designer.

Now they may, especially in the case of a small independent shop all be done by one person, but they can also be more of a contractor where a staff provides the various components of an integrated whole.

This is why I think any universal certification program is doomed to failure. As I indicated in a discussion elsewhere on this topic there are any of a number of organizations that purport to do this sort of thing now. Most people have never heard of them and lend them little credence if they have.

Most ?web designers? of my acquaintance are mostly self-taught rather than academically educated in the field and , as has been stated by a previous poster, are of necessity jacks-of-all trades in scripting, layout, coding and occasionally graphics.

Any certification would need endorsements in various fields leading to the morass that plagues Microsoft certifications. Such programs are costly to run and are reflected in the price of the certifications. This has the potential to be onerous for and/or shut out many smaller designer/developers who, while they may be perfectly competent, are not so afluent as to be able to play the ?certification game?.

I know it is easy to criticise without offering alternatives but I?m not sure what the alternatives would be. The fact that it is easy to find problems to criticise means that the concept needs further development.

Perhaps something more along the lines of the Society of Graphic Designers of Canada or American Institute of Graphic Arts would be better than the Engineering model.

Jeff, maybe a title change is in order. Let the “tools” keep calling themselves web designers while the “skills” come up with a name which more closely explains what we do.

I’ve been a frontpage gal in years past, but had tremendous respect for people who did what I do today and would never have dared call myself a web designer. I told people I did cheap sites and if they couldn’t afford a real web designer, I could throw something together until they could (or until I became one). It’s how I learned, so I definitely don’t think people in that boat should be drowned, but I do agree that there should be a professional separation of some kind, just not sure what’s best.

So why, dammit, why, is it that people believe that if they have Dreamweaver, they can be a web designer?

Those exact words have come out of my mouth! Actually, I was told in an interview earlier this year that I had to design in Dreamweaver or they couldn’t hire me. Needless to say I didn’t get the job. I’ve found this to be pretty common in the area I live. Other places I interviewed said basically the same thing. The agencies want the factory-produced websites that can be whipped up in a few hours because it makes more money for them. Me, I’m not JUST in it for the money, which seems to be the case among many people here, but if I’m not using “the tools” I’m out. And the clients don’t know the difference, honestly. I get samples sites sent to me all the time from prospects who want their site to look like some other site. These sites are cookiecutter sites probably slapped together and they honestly can’t tell the difference between those sites and the ones in my portfolio, which until I get past their ignorance, is pretty insulting.

One point in regard to certification, I do think there’s a difference between a developer and a designer. I see a lot of developers who go by designer when they rarely if ever work with graphics. I think that brings down designers a lot – in the same way it would bring down the level of developer if I were to tell people I was a developer. I can tweak some code and okay, writea little with a gun to my head, but I’m no developer. I do graphics/css mostly, so it would be hurtful to my beautiful developer peers to cay I’m a developer when I occasionally develop. I like to see the same respect from developers. If you only occasionally design, you’re probably not a designer (though I’ll bet you’re a fabulous developer). :)