Do I have to learn code to become a "Game Designer/ Animator"?

The title “game designer” is not very well defined. I’ve worked on games where the designer was the one working on the “stories” and the engineers did the coding, and some where the game designers did all the math and coding. Find out what the studio uses as titles cause maybe you do, maybe you don’t!

as an animator, I found it helpful to have a general idea about how the coding worked and what the coders needed so that I could deliver my parts in a useful and timely matter, but I never did game coding myself.

If you want to program games you need to learn code. If you have some talent in art and plan to create art assets for your game, then you can leave the programming for someone else. Now how do you find that someone else? Hopefully your game design and art samples will be so great they'll want to agree to help you. Of course they will probably be expecting some kind of remuneration, either as you go, or a share of the profits, should it succeed.

I would say yes you would need to know how to program. Below is information in which supports my answer. You can check the website where I found the information below.

https://study.com/articles/How_to_Become_a_Video_Game_Designer_Education_and_Career_Roadmap.html

<span style="color: rgb(85, 85, 85);">Designers must work with artists and programmers to create the scripting language and artistic vision for a game.</span>

Key Skills: Creativity; ability to tell a story and work as part of a team; knowledge of programming languages, software, and 3D modeling programs; ability to work many hours seated and looking at a computer monitor; passion and experience in video gaming