- Hey everyone.
Look who I've got with me on my channel today.
This is Ran from Flux, whose videos you've probably seen
pop up in the suggested feed next to mine.
Do you want to introduce yourself,
tell people what you do?
- Yeah, hi, my name is Ran.
I'm a designer based in Tel Aviv, Israel.
I do mainly freelance design.
I also have my own business.
So I'm doing product design for myself
and then I also have a YouTube channel
where I post daily videos about how I work,
what I struggle with, success, failures
and just random thoughts.
- It's one of my favorite channels on YouTube,
so I'm really excited that we're filming together.
- That's so great to hear, because honestly,
your channel was one of my inspirations to start mine.
- Ah, Stop.
Okay, so I tweeted out asking
what you'd be interested in hearing us talk about together
and a few people said they'd be really interested
to hear us talking about how our workflow
and what's changed,
now that we're building our own websites.
So I learned to code last year
and now code my own pages in WordPress.
You use Webflow now as part of your workflow,
so you can take control of all of that part
in working with clients.
- Yep.
- How's it been?
What was your process before you learned
to build your own sites?
- Well, it usually was something like,
if we're talking about something like three years ago.
If your developer was hi-tech
they knew how to deal with Photoshop files,
but if not, you'd have to recreate a spec doc
with spacing and that stuff.
I guess that is now sold with tools
like Zeplin and InVision and stuff like that.
But I was still dependent on other people
to actually realize my vision or my work.
Or when clients approach me to build a website,
I would have to subcontract
and then I would be dependent on their availability
or their skill and that was,
to me that was really frustrating.
And so I found the perfect,
I started to learn HTML and CSS by myself,
but I didn't really enjoy the process.
And so for me, when I found out Webflow,
that was the perfect solution for me
to kind of execute on my own ideas.
Now I can execute really much faster,
because it even saves time,
like the communication with the developer,
and it helps me make more money,
because I can charge for design and development
at the same time, so yeah.
- True.
- So for me, it's invaluable.
I could never go back.
And actually when I have clients
who want to develop their own websites,
I'm actually frustrated, because I know that again
I'll have to deal with their developers.
- This big document and yeah.
- Yeah and I actually,
I just finished a huge project
with a big marketing website with like 20 pages
and they wanted their own developer to do it on WordPress
and we had so much going back and forth.
Like, "Can you export me this icon
"and the SVG, PNG, the spacing doesn't look right"
and honestly I was quite disappointed with the end result.
Yeah, so that's why I don't like to trust other people
with doing my work.
- Yeah, I feel the same way in that
I feel like when I used to work with developers,
I worked with amazing developers throughout my career,
but just because they don't have
the same design eye as I do. - It's true.
- They'll build a page. - They just don't see it.
- They'll say it's finished and I look at it and be like,
this looks nothing like what I gave you,
how could you think this is the same.
So I really like being in control of the whole process now.
And yeah getting to,
It's only my fault, right,
if it's not looking like the design.
- Do you do all the WordPress development?
Like everything?
- Yeah.
So I work within a theme that the other designer
at ConverKit, Dilan, set up.
So there's a lot of the grid and base typography stuff
that already in place though.
I don't have to start from scratch.
But yeah I code all of the templates myself,
custom fields, all of that.
- Amazing. - Yeah.
- It's been quite a learning curve,
but I'm really glad that I did it.
Would you advise other designers
to learn to build their own stuff?
Whether it's coding, using the Webflow, you know something.
- You know there's this kind of famous debate
whether designers should,
- Should designers learn to code?
- Yeah, I don't think
you should do anything
that you don't want to.
But I think it would be very beneficial for you
to be able to do that.
You know it will save you a lot of time.
It's a valuable skill to know.
It doesn't matter that I use Webflow.
To use Webflow you have to understand the code like,
- The basics,
- The general concepts of HTML and CSS.
So in a way you have to learn to code
to use Webflow properly.
So I think, yeah, it's super, super valuable.
- I think so too.
My opinion on this, should designers learn to code,
is that you don't need to be an expert,
but you should have an understanding.
- Exactly.
- So you don't need to know how to write it from scratch.
You more need,
like if you're speaking a language,
you need to know how to read it
rather than think of the vocabulary
off the top of your head,
and like speak it.
- You know what, I think language is a great metaphor
because most languages, with just lets say,
a thousand words, you can do 95% of the things.
And so to get to those thousand words or like,
you know that's not very difficult.
You don't have to be fluent, and a super-developer
that know how to do interactive JavaScript,
like craziness.
Just know the basic, you'll be able to do 95% of the things.
- And even if you're not building your own stuff,
I think it really helps
for communicating with a developer, right?
- It's true, you know I did a personal project
where I developed an iPhone app.
Now, so for that I learned Objective-C
to develop for iPhone.
I will never to that again.
I do not plan to develop iPhone apps for my clients,
but the fact that I do know the structure
and the logic of how iPhone apps are being developed,
was tremendously valuable for all my communication
with developers whenever I'm working with it.
So, it was worth learning it,
even though I'm not gonna be using it again,
literally writing the code.
- Yeah, that makes sense.
Someone asked on Twitter, "Do you think you're a unicorn??
(both laughing)
- Of course. - Oh yeah!
- I don't know what that means.
- That means, a unicorn is if you're a designer-developer.
- Oh.
- I think it came about when that was rare?
But I feel like it's not so rare anymore, I like yeah,
- I know as unicorn from the startup world,
where it's a billion dollar company.
- Yeah, right, yeah.
- I wish I was a billion dollar company.
- Yeah that'd be nice. - Yeah.
I wouldn't call myself a developer
even though I know how to develop.
But its just, maybe it's an identity thing?
I'm like a designer first, - Yep, same.
- That's how I feel
- Yeah I agree, but I like the concept of being a unicorn,
just cause I like unicorns.
- Unicorns are fun.
A billion dollars is fun as well.
(hands slapping)
- Alright, thank you for being here on my channel Ran,
this is so fun. - Yeah.
We're gonna film a video of Ran and Turner right now.
What are we gonna talk about.
- I think how much fun we had here at the Epicurrence event.
- Yeah, that sounds good.
So if you want to hear about that
head on over and make sure you subscribe while you're there
because like I said,
one of my favorite channels on YouTube,
so you're probably gonna like it.
- See you guys.
- Bye.