Design isn't JUST art. Sure, it incorporates it as one if it's many facets, but true design is ENGINEERING that gives equal measure not just to art, but to usabili9ty, accessibility, specifications, guidelines, limitations of the medium, legal requirements and dozens of other things that separate true design from what some know-nothing art school fool vomits up in Photoshop, Figma, or other visual tools.
Because what about users on screen readers? Braille readers? Search engines. That's DESIGN'S job as well.
When I talk about artists under the delusion of being designers, I mean the ones who don't even know what EM/REM are or why they're important. The ones who aren't even aware or worse just plain flip the bird at accessible colour contrasts.
Such "Designers" being the same as the artsy fartsy scam artists claiming to be "architects" who sucker marks into creating "death ray architecture", plywood palaces (See "John Hancock Tower"), Italian marble death-slingers, or eyesore beehive-looking structures that have to not allow anyone to go in them because "F*** public safety" was job one in the "design".
This form over function BS needs to stop, because I don't care how ****ing pretty it is, the simple fact is if the audience cannot use it for the intended task, what the hell good is it?
As a dearly departed friend of mine said, people don't visit websites for the goofy crap you hang around the content, they visit FOR the content.
And to be frank, over-use of art distracting from the content is why so many projects end up dead in their first year. Again though, I'm not saying you can't make it pretty... but if you can't be bothered to use legible colour contrasts, user scaleable fonts, and responsive layout that actually works, with a focus on getting the user in and out to do what they want done as quickly and easily as possible, then you can take your "art" and stick it you know where!
"what if you don't know? What if you're new?" -- George Carlin
There's a comparison I often make. Ralph McQuarrie vs. Chip Foose.
McQuarrie is responsible for some of the most iconic imagery in sci-fi and fantasy. He as inspired and amazed the world with his ideas. The problem is, not a single one of his original concepts could be made in the real world without unobtainium. He had no engineering background, know knowledge of structures, materials, or even basic physics. That's why his work was -- and remains -- in the realm of fiction. When his art DOES conform, it's usually created after someone like ILM has made physical models that fixed all his ignorant mistakes.
And I don't mean ignorant as an insult there. He just didn't know this stuff. Thus, McQuarrie is NOT a designer. He's a concept artist.
Foose on the other hand can take a poster board, a pack of alcohol markers, and belt out in minutes amazing pictures of an automobile. What makes him so different?
He can then walk into the garage, build said car to the point it will pass an inspection, and it will go down the road straight. THAT is what a designer is capable of.
And where most of the people treating Photoshop, GIMP, Figma, Fireworks, etc as "design tools" typically go utterly and totally off the rails. When it comes to web design, starting out drawing pretty pictures is putting the cart before the horse.
Though it's a tell you laser focused on consultant, likely meaning you're used to the types who walk in, do a bunch of meetings and talks, and walks away with a paycheck accomplishing nothing.
I get down in there with the front end developers and designers teaching them where they went wrong, and helping them right down to sitting there coding alongside them as a team effort. That INCLUDES quite often creating new designs that retain the flavor of the prior art, but bringing all those engineering concepts that artists poo-poo in ignorance back into the process.
If you think "art" is the be all end-all of design, then you clearly don't know what design is. NOT that said ignorance (again, not meant as an insult, just means not knowing) is painfully commonplace, which is how even the likes of MIT can get suckered by an artist pretending to be an architect giving them a building that looks mind-blowing, but can't even drain rainwater properly. Their "Stata Center" was made to LOOK like it was falling in on itself.... and just a decade later it's LITERALLY falling over because the know-nothing artist threw the rules out the window for his "vision". Thus the cracking foundation, walls separating from floors, sick building syndrome (black mold), and impending structural collapse.
But sure, Art, art, art... screw UX. Which is the comedy of people who prattle on about UX and UI whilst taking a dump on everything that makes them good... and something MORE than JUST art.