Designers vs developers

Recently I worked on a project where I was just doing front end development and managing the code. This is one of the first times where the designer did not hand off the master files but instead cut images for us devs to use. All in all it slowed things down a lot. When we got to making sprite images, all of the files had to be re-done. We never received images that looked acceptable for IE 6. In fairness to the designer, he was working blind and disconnected from the code.

All in all it could have been easier and now I know how to handle it for the next project.

Here is the preferred method:

• Designer builds wireframes and full comps. Those files are delivered in their native format (illustrator AI, Photoshop psd, etc) to the front end developer.
• Front end Developer makes image sprites and files as he writing the css. This allows him to adjust pixels in code or in photoshop as he is going. That dev can also rework the pixels for IE 6.

Are you a front end developer who does not know or have photoshop? The bottom line is that we all need to know how to work across these boundaries to make a agile team.