In 2004, I’d just finished an Industrial Design degree and was on the hunt for work — not in industrial design, but in graphic design. I was trying to get my foot in the door. But I was in a new country, had no leads and needed to get something online to promote myself and find that first design role.
Back then, you couldn’t just fire up a drag-and-drop builder. WordPress was only starting out. If you wanted a site, you had to code it.
So I opened a text editor and taught myself HTML and CSS. Not because I wanted to become a developer — but because I needed work.
What started as a workaround ended up becoming the most important career decision I’ve made.
Making My Work Visible
I didn’t see it as “learning to code” at the time. I just needed something online.
I sketched the layout in a notebook, then Googled how to turn that into a web page. I learned how <div> worked, how to float elements, how to write inline styles. I inspected other people’s websites and copied what I saw. It was clunky and slow, but it worked.
Eventually, I had a site I could send to potential clients. It got me freelance work. That work led to more projects. And suddenly, I wasn’t just a jobseeker — I was running a little solo design practice.
All because I’d learned just enough code to ship something real.
The Shift: Designing for Interaction
Industrial design had taught me to think in systems, materials, form and function. Graphic design taught me hierarchy, composition and communication. But it was code that taught me interaction — how something feels, not just how it looks.
Designing for screen introduced new variables:
- What happens when the screen size changes?
- How should a button behave on hover or tap?
- What does good feedback feel like?
- How do users flow from one idea to the next?
These weren’t questions I’d ever considered when designing posters or logos. But they became essential once my work lived inside a browser.
Designing in the Browser Changed My Mindset
As my skills grew, I started skipping Photoshop entirely and designing directly in the browser.
It was faster. It was clearer. It was more honest.
- I could test responsive behaviour immediately.
- I could build interactions instead of explaining them.
- I could make decisions based on how things felt, not just how they looked.
This way of working turned me into a more thoughtful designer. One who understood the edges, the transitions, and the moments that matter. One who could speak with developers in their language. One who could prototype ideas and test them, without needing permission or a backlog slot.
Twenty Years On, It’s Still the Best Decision I Made
A lot has changed since 2004.
Back then:
- There was no Figma, no Webflow, no component libraries.
- We sliced PSDs.
- We prayed designs held together in IE6.
Now:
- Interfaces are dynamic.
- Design systems are codebases.
- AI is writing front-end scaffolds.
- Clients expect working prototypes, not polished pictures.
But here’s the thing — the value of understanding code hasn’t changed. If anything, it’s become more important.
Even now, many designers still operate a few steps removed from how things actually get built. That separation slows everything down.
Designing with Code Taught Me to Think in Outcomes
Learning to code changed my approach to design in five big ways:
- It made me outcome-oriented
I stopped designing for presentation and started designing for implementation. - It made me a better collaborator
Devs trust you more when you understand their constraints and speak their language. - It let me test faster
I could prototype in hours, not wait weeks for something to be built and reviewed. - It made design feel real
You see how users interact with what you made — not just how it looks. - It created new opportunities
I became the go-to person for hybrid roles: design systems, UX engineering, product delivery.
For Designers Wondering Whether to Learn
You don’t need to become an engineer. You don’t need to learn every framework. But if you want to build a design career that lasts, you need to get close to the material — and the material of digital design is code.
Learn enough to test your ideas.
Learn enough to talk to devs with empathy.
Learn enough to build prototypes that feel real.
Design today isn’t about pixels. It’s about flow, speed, clarity and intent.
And nothing teaches you that better than the browser.
Looking Back
I didn’t set out to become a coder. I just wanted a job. But choosing to learn how digital things are made — and learning to make them myself — ended up shaping every step of my career.
If you’re a designer wondering where to grow next, I’d start there.
It worked for me.