Dan Govan's Article ‘Make it like the PSD’ touches on the idea that designers should stop using PSD’s to show clients the mockup of a site to avoid disappointment when the working site (made with HTML/CSS) is presented to them.

He states that in his experience, clients are left disappointed due to a number of reasons. One being that the ‘Font isn’t the same’. When in fact, yes it is. Browsers render the same font differently, as to different browser sizes and devices. Designers also don’t take into consideration that the browser size changes between user’s, and the site needs to accommodate all, not exact pixel dimensions like a PSD file does.

Govan end’s his post with stating that the creative process “continues into the browser” and suggests Front End Developers and Designers should collaborate and work together closely.

Now don’t get me wrong, I love Photoshop. I’ve been using it for several years and consider myself confident using and working with it commercially. But I have to ask myself the question… How do I feel about the Photoshop-driven design process used currently?

The answer to this is quite simple, Pretty Shit.

To me, it seems a little selfish, from the designer's point-of-view this is. I mean, a designer's job is to design, but if what they’re designing cannot be achieved, then it is a good design? Fair enough it may be visually pleasing and perfect in the clients eyes, but if there is no awareness or consideration towards a developer, then how is that fair?

I agree with Govan and his article stating designers and developers should work closer to collaborate and that designers should even learn basic coding such as HTML & CSS.

Reading Dan’s article, begged me to ask the question, “If PSDs are so bad, why do so many people use them as project deliverables?”.

Again, answer is simple: Lack of Education

With the popularity of Adobe Photoshop ever increasing due to it’s decreasing costs, great marketing, impressive user feedback & sea of pirated copies, It’s a very easy, effective and professional piece of software.

After all, It’s where I got into this whole Media business, just like thousands of others.

Now there needs to be a conversation between designers and developers to create awareness of the problems caused, and it needs these developers to create tools for designers to design better mockups, that don’t avoid these problems. Some have come onto the market such as Invision, Sketch & Adobe Muse — But how known are they? (And don’t start with the whole Photoshop’s marketing budget is huge bullshit, Adobe created Muse.. dur!).

Tom Sharman.