For creating Rich Media banners, designers and developers both play an important role. Although the roles seem similar at first - creating impactful and interactive banners - are different from each other. We often get the question when necessary customizations or format requests are made, "Who do I need? A designer or a developer?". Chances are, you need both! Today, we will therefore take a closer look at the main differences between a designer and developer and when you should use whose expertise.
Designers
Designers can also be thought of as the artists; they are responsible for designing Rich Media banners, namely creating beautiful images and videos that attract attention. Their focus is therefore on the 'looks', user experience and overall visual appeal.
When do I need a designer?
1. Conceptualisation and storyboarding: designers already play a crucial role in the early stages in visualising ideas and turning them into creative concepts that match the objectives of a campaign that a developer can move forward with.
2. Branding: designers ensure that the banners look visually appealing and at the same time are 'on brand' so that the brand comes out clearly through the colors, typography and graphics chosen.
3. Creative and interactive elements: designers are also the go-to people for eye-catching expressions and required elements for animated and interactive banners with cool videos and more.
To make the design stand out online and make it interactive, you may need a developer who knows exactly how to set it up technically. As a designer, you can do this yourself via Easy Rich Media, which allows you to develop a number of Easy Rich Media formats by simply delivering designs (based on Photoshop). However, for more extensive advanced components of Rich Media banners, you often need the expertise of a developer.
Developers
HTML, CSS, Javascript, Screenad interface... Developers are actually the technical brains behind Rich Media banners and therefore build the actual interactivity of the banners. They bring the designs, often created by designers, to life by coding and programming. This allows users to interact with the banner online on different devices, websites and apps.
When do I need a developer?
1. Translation of creative concepts: once the creative concept is down, developers come in to code its interactive elements. With this, they translate static designs into clickable, swipeable and engaging banners. This applies to front-end (what the user sees) and back-end (technical operation).
2. Interaction: Rich media banners often include the possibility of interaction; such as gamification, AI, dynamic products, but also quizes, puzzles, data fields and much more. Developers are indispensable here as they implement the technical aspects of this so that the user can interact with the expression flawlessly. All these components can also be made measurable, provided the developer builds this in.
3. Optimisation: developers are also instrumental during the lifetime of the campaign for optimisations and ensuring that the banners work without any problems, from minimising load times to resolving any technical issues.
Both expertises needed for Rich Media
As you can see, designers and developers deal with much of the same thing; creating Rich Media banners, however, the core of everyone's expertise is different. Whereas designers are responsible for how a Rich Media banner actually looks, a developer is responsible for bringing it to life through interaction. Together, they develop eye-catching and attractive Rich Media banners with technical interactive elements to bring an ad to life, attract the user's attention and leave a lasting impression.
However, it is also possible for a designer to incorporate interaction in a Rich Media banner if he or she is handy with coding and programming, or uses Easy Rich Media. It is just that often the advanced parts of Rich Media can only be built by a developer. Of course, a creative developer can also develop the design and then bring it to life.
In short, you need both expertises; those of a designer and developer, but one person can also have both skills 😉.
