Should a good front-end developer be a good designer as well?

Question

Design

I aspire to front-end and want to clarify for myself: Does a front-end developer have to develop / refine website design (especially design from scratch)? At the same time, I understand that good fronts work in offices with designers on staff, but still ...
I noted for myself that I am a zero-level designer and this is clearly not my thing. Although the finished design I endure with pleasure.

Answer 1

I agree with the statements of my colleagues above, of course, the front-end should not have full-fledged designer skills, but the basics of working in Photoshop are a must.
That is, he must be able to "read" the layout: know the elementary basics of Photoshop; work with groups and layers to see what layer parameters the designer used; be able to save images and graphics from the layout (icons, pictures, etc.), know where the font settings are located in order to understand what size and font was used, and other little things.
In other words, he must have basic knowledge of Photoshop and this is where his design knowledge ends. Of course, if he knows more, this is a plus for him, but he is not obliged to use this knowledge to refine the layout.
The designer, in turn, must have not initial, but more or less normal front-end knowledge in order to understand the principle of layout and not draw crazy things that need to be typed in wild ways or cannot be done at all.
From the outside, this arrangement seems unfair to designers, but I say this as a designer. I started working on the web as a Front-end, a little back-and-forth, and then switched to design. And knowledge of layout helps me a lot to optimize my work with layout designers. Working with several layout designers constantly, I study their layout style and draw a design, taking into account their "favorites", they, in turn (if they know Photoshop well), also meet me and correct my "forgottenness" (hover of any one buttons, or a window that differs from others by the presence or absence of a single field). But for major shortcomings, they turn to me and rightly so.
If you have established regular work with certain designers and they are conscientious in their work (sign all layers, make comments and UI files) and respect your work, but purely on a human level, you can meet them in some small moments, but you don't have to.
If you work with designers who change like gloves, with "dirty" layouts (not prepared for layout and made anyhow), then you should not finish drawing anything! This should be done by the designer who drew or another, but not you. You are a technical worker, not a creative one, and the fact that you know how to "design" something in Photoshop does not apply to your spectrum of work. This is exactly the same as asking a designer to fix something in the back-end - not his garden.

Answer 2

No, it shouldn't.
Front-end developer and designer are different professions.
They just have some common skills, for example, they both need to be able to typeset.

Answer 3

in many web studios I know, especially small ones, these professions are combined, but in fact these are different professions and their sphere is different. I'm not talking about the fact that the profession of a UX designer, a UI designer, who are indirectly related to writing frontend code, has spun off. You can be fluent in javascript or be an excellent coder, but at the same time be a very mediocre designer.

Answer 4

Yes, a front-end developer must have the skills of a designer.