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iOS

Posted by Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points

Concerned that my design skills aren't up to scratch for a career in iOS development.

When it comes to building websites the spectrum between the designer and the developer is very broad. I have been able to create some decent looking sites without being all that skilled in graphic design. Is there such a thing as a backend iOS developer?

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

What do you think Amit Bijlani and Ben Jakuben

Ben Jakuben
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher
Ben Jakuben
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher

Also cc our newest iOS teacher, Pasan Premaratne. :)

4 Answers

Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points

you could always just build your app, then once finished with the actual development just hire a designer. Its very easy to take a design and implement it in your app, especially through the use of the UIAppearance proxy. A lot of developers dont have an eye for design (myself included) and rely on designers.

However, its relatively easy to make an app look good by just modifying the colors of the interface which is pretty easy to do yourself. If you have done the Ribbit app project you will see that they only change really made design wise was the color palette, and after those changes were made it looked like a very professional and well designed app compared to the way it looked before with the default iOS styles. Also purchasing an icon set from a site like Symbolicons and using those takes your app a long way as well

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

then once finished with the actual development just hire a designer

That assumes he has the budget to hire a designer. It's hard to sell an app without a solid design but if you need sales to be able to fund a designer, it's a chicken and the egg problem.

Stone Preston
Stone Preston
42,016 Points

I added a bit to my answer to address this issue of designing it himself.

Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points
Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points

Hey James, thanks... the thing is, I want to freelance and I anticipate that I'll be working alone until I eventually land a job with a big enough budget that would enable me to bring in a designer. Then once I form that relationship with a designer I can take a more backend approach.

I don't hear iOS developers refer to themselves as front or back end devs in the same way as in the web space - but maybe that's because I don't hangout with enough iOS devs haha

I'm trying to see a clearer path forwards - any tips on where to go to find out more in regards iOS development on the backend, and the career prospects, what technologies I'd need to learn ect.

James Barnett
James Barnett
39,199 Points

I want to freelance and I anticipate that I'll be working alone until I eventually land a job with a big enough budget that would enable me to bring in a designer

That does sound like an issue. I would think if you want to be a one man shop for making apps you'd probably need to up some of your design skills.

I would recommend contracting out logo and icon design work and focus on color, typography and layout skills.

Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points
Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points

Yea I wont even touch logo's, I think that's its own discipline to be fair.

Thanks guys... on reflection I think I'm just going to man-up and put the time in to bring my UI/UX up to par. Thanks for the support!

I feel better about this now :)

Ben Jakuben
STAFF
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher
Ben Jakuben
Ben Jakuben
Treehouse Teacher

I'm not much of a designer and have had a very enjoyable career as a mobile developer. :) It's awesome if you can work with talented designers, obviously. I've been able to implement designs from mockups in many cases and it's always an enjoyable process for me. My contribution is knowledge of Android UX patterns and basic design practices, but nothing about color, spacing, balance, etc! :)

That said, it's fairly easy to design decent apps yourself if you keep it simple and stick mostly to stock components or well-known 3rd party controls. The OS itself really helps you in this manner. I think there is so much opportunity for rewarding careers in mobile development right now, so I would definitely recommend keeping at it and brushing up on your design skills on the side with practice and materials like we have available here.

Michael Thomas
Michael Thomas
10,910 Points

Ah thanks Ben, that's encouraging to know. I'll be parting with windows and getting my first ever mac this week, maybe that's just natural evolution ;)