February 2, 2018

I know, a lot of posts out there say website design in Photoshop is so last decade. They say that Illustrator (or Sketch) are the ways to go right now. Photoshop takes up too much space and power out of a computer and so on they go. Let me give a few reasons why I’ve been designing websites in Photoshop for ten years and am not planning to switch anytime soon.

Photoshop takes fewer steps to get it done

I gave Illustrator a try when it comes to website design. I still design websites using Illustrator if my clients want that. I don’t have a problem working in different programs. Photoshop though, allows me to do my designs pixel perfect and if I want to create some sort of an effect with the type or images or navigation, I don’t have to switch out from Illustrator, create an effect in Photoshop and merge back to Illustrator. I don’t like taking the extra steps (there are already plenty of them) and no matter what program I use besides Photoshop it only makes me take more extra steps to get where I want to be with my website design.

Illustrator and other programs are great when designing simple websites in a more of a puzzle-like flow putting together photos, fonts, and colors. In my experience, they are not the best for a creative kind of work that takes more than just stalking and styling of the elements.

Photoshop doesn’t crash like Illustrator does

Every time Illustrator crashes, it feels like it betrays you in a very intimate moment of creativity. Photoshop is a lot more stable than Illustrator. That’s just the truth. I still love Illustrator and use it for all my branding work and a lot for graphic design. For website design – it’s photoshop.

Photoshop syncs with InVision beautifully

We love to present website designs to our clients using InVision app. We create full prototypes that let the client play around with the design in progress by clicking the menu items, see rollovers, and experience the website in a browser, not a PDF. Photoshop is great syncing with InVision through the Craft app. Illustrator on the other hand – nope.

But…

We are anxiously waiting for InVision Studio early access to arrive. It promises to be a game changer. Though again, it will not cancel out Photoshop. There are always those little touches that make the website stand out from the rest and Photoshop is the most convenient program to accomplish that.

 

At the end of it all, it’s different for everyone and you just have to do what’s best for you. In my workflow, I couldn’t transition to anything else eventhough I tried.