Becoming a designer

Personally I'm all about getting rid of the idea there is such a thing as pixel perfect.

Instead designing along these lines

Content --> Sketching / Wireframing --> HTML --> CSS

I concur with what John said about frameworks, 95 time out of 100 you don't need a framework

Also in terms of what John said about colors, I think there is a place for a hi-def wireframe where you choose your typefaces & colors but staying far away from pixel perfection.

I would get the content right, then design your page using html and css and then add the ROR code.

I had the same problem. IMO it depends on how you'll actually work and which "path" seems natural. From what I've experienced, designers who use photoshop/illustrator stick exclusively to that path and only use code as a back-up.

If you're using photoshop and thinking "oh hells yes, this is easy" then that's probably what you'll use when you're a professional so go with that path first.

I think that addressing the multi-hat role of designer/developer would be beneficial as well.

I've been chewing away at an iPhone app, and found my self at a point where I think I should go survey some members of my target demographic before I proceed in Xcode.

More on point: I'm working on an application for professional artisan bread bakers to use in the kitchen. I'm not a baker at all, and I can only assume that placing something on the app store that's completely counter-intuitive to the target demographic would be fairly catastrophic for my app's reputation.

When you're a one person team, it would be nice to know when to switch roles between them. Designer, developer, even an analyst role - perhaps a Dive into "project planning" that encompasses all of the various "hat" roles that a single person could "wear" for a solo act?

I did notice some similar content on the Treeviews episodes, but perhaps something a bit more instructional and in depth? I'm just throwing ideas around here...

You have to know how to code. Plain and simple. You can mock things up in Photshop first if you'd like, but if you don't know how to translate that into HTML-CSS, it's not really design. It's going to be increasingly more that direction as time goes on.

What James says below is exactly how I feel. I think a lot of us get too far ahead of ourselves, planning XY and Z before we take care of AB and C. My workflow is exactly as James', sometimes I might do a really quick Photoshop for colors and such, but far from detailed or "pixel perfect" (the single most overused phrase in web design alongide 'rockstar' and 'ninja'). Your design is going to change in the browser, on each device and screen size view, so deciding what content is most important up front is downright necessary. I would discourage building things with a framework before you know how to do it with just HTML-CSS-JS, only because you will find that 95 times out of 100, you don't NEED a framework to get what you want.

My thoughts on this topic is pretty simple. First gather all information about the website. Then I like to draw things on paper because its just faster in my opinion to get a general idea of what it will look like. If you have clients that want to see a finished version then just do it on Photoshop. But you will need to have knowledge of what is possible and what is not.

Then just do the HTML first, then CSS, then any JS/Ruby/PHP etc...

Frameworks are ok to use but after doing several websites with them you will rarely use all of the features they offer. I like to use gridset for the layout and jquery scripts I found online for most things. In essence that's what a framework is just a collection of scripts and grids. But if you like using it them then do it.