Hello! Please give us a short background of yourself – age, current location, hobbies, likes, dislikes, etc.

Hi Guys! I am a 24 year old happily married father of three beautiful boys (soon to be four! Its a girl!), currently residing in Lynchburg, VA (very small town). I enjoy hanging out with the family, playing video games, and working out when I am not designing or developing something. I like learning new things, computers, food, and gadgets. I dislike watching sports, waking up early in the morning, and hate traffic. (Ed – Don’t we all, lol.)

How did you get into web design and development?

Well, I have always liked Web Design and Development since I was in high school – this then ‘hobby’ was basically just playing with graphics, Photoshop, and MySpace code. Then the hobby was turned into a career after me and my wife had our first child. I started out as a ‘design guy’ at a small but successful web development firm in my town. After several years (of hard work, dedication and learning) I went from design guy, to HTML/CSS/JS guy, to PHP/MySQL programming guy, to all of the above – until I was the lead developer/designer at the firm and was needed on lots of different projects.

You’re a self-taught web designer and developer. Does that get in the way of finding clients? Or is it irrelevant in this industry, as long as you have the necessary talent and drive?

Great question: I find that being self taught versus having a degree is irrelevant in this industry to land great clients. I have a long list of clients at this point, some big businesses, some small – but never once has anyone said “Can I see your degree?” or “Did you go to college for this?” I think that some of them probably assume it, and others just don’t think about it, but as long as the end result is what the client wants, then they are happy. A lot of the time clients approach me because of something else I had done that they liked, or from a referral, but being self-taught has never kept me from landing a client.

I understand that you have a full time job in a web dev company – how do you manage to fit it all in a day? Does the quality of work suffer, and if not, how do you do it? I’m sure everyone would love to know.

Yes this is true, It is definitely a LOT of work, but I love every minute of it. Like I said above, I am married with three boys (and soon to be girl, yay!) and I am the only source of income for our household, so every little bit counts. It is knowing that my family depends on me, and that I love doing what I do, that drives me through each day. The quality of work never changes in my eyes, because with each thing I do, I try to do it as best as possible for the most desirable outcome. There comes a point where when you put out crappy work, you get crappy things in return – and that doesn’t help anyone! So always do your best and it will definitely make things easier for you and your clients.

Where do you find inspiration as a web designer?

I find it all over the place, you can never have too much inspiration! I find it in nature, art, music, things around my apartment.
I find inspiration when I watch my kids play, I find inspiration while browsing the internet, Flickr, etc.
I find inspiration in other web design blogs. Pretty much everything around you is inspirational in one way, shape, or form.

What makes you stand out in a soup of designers and developers?

Wow that is a tough question. I would have to say that since my career has had me involved in so many different things, what makes me stand out from the crowd is, that I can practically do anything. I have done everything from design, development, programming, even some Enterprise Linux Server admin type stuff. Some designers only do logos, graphics, and so on while other developers only code html/CSS. Still many others only program, or do advanced Javascript.

Me? I do it all, and love doing it all. I like working with teams that design the site, and I build out the html/CSS/JS and program it. I also like working alone, and doing it all from start to finish. I can go from designing a logo in Photoshop one second, to creating a MySQL database scheme to integrate into a new web app I am building the next. Doing it all really raises my value to my clients, as well as keeps my days from being monotonous, boring, and lifeless. I love putting together all the pieces to create a fully immersed experience!

What was the last project you enjoyed working on?

My most recent project was pretty fun, I had the pleasure of working with an IT firm that develops productivity applications. My task was to take their current design and work with them, and their company goals, to create a new and fresh site design and layout for the site. Basically I had to breathe some life into it, without changing everything. It was a great project with a great client, it required some design skills in Photoshop, as well as some programming in the Wordpress platform. I also spruced it up and brought it into the new age by adding some Javascript trickery in there with jQuery. The final result turned out well, and there are plans for more changes in the future, but the finished project can be found here.

Twitter has skyrocketed my web design and dev career.

You’ve got 12,000+ followers on Twitter! How did you build your following? What are the topics that you usually Tweet about? How has your success in Twitter crossed over to your web design and dev career?

Ah yes, I am a huge fan of Twitter! It took a long time to build my following, lots of dedication to tweeting in 2009 lol. I basically built it by engaging with my followers, listening to their needs, helping out people and their problems, tweeting awesome links, but most importantly, just being myself. I tweet about anything from logo design, freelancing techniques, Javascript tutorials, to advanced regular e|Expression and programming. I basically tweet about design, development, programming, computer science, and nerdy stuff.

Twitter has skyrocketed my web design and dev career. When I started tweeting a little over a year ago, not many people knew who I was – now it seems like everyone (in the design/development community at least) has seen me or my site, or recognize my twitter avatar. It has presented me with some fantastic opportunities, new friends, new clients, and in the past few months alone I have been approached by several companies trying to recruit me. So it has definitely proven for an interesting ride, and I will definitely keep tweeting to see what happens next.

You seem to be quite the family guy! Do you find it difficult to keep up what with all the stuff that’s on your plate?

I LOVE my family, they are seriously the greatest thing that ever happened to me. I am 100% positive that I would not be where I am today without them. Having said that, the obvious answer to this question is yeah, sometimes it is a little difficult to make sure everyones needs are met and nothing falls off my radar, but so far everything has gone fairly smoothly, and it is definitely worth all the hard work it takes to make it. Going to bed at night (or staying up all night) knowing that everything is taken care of is a great feeling. The key is to never give up. I have never been a ‘quitter’.

Its going to be a busy future, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

What are your plans for the future? Anything else you’d like to learn and go into?

I have a lot of awesome things planned for this year! I will be helping launch a few blogs in the next couple of months, as well as a personal project that will be going live in a few months from now which is very exciting! I am also fully redesigning my personal site so stay tuned there for when all of this stuff launches soon.

And so, there is always something I would like to learn! I am CONSTANTLY trying to learn everything there is to learn about design, development, programming, and computer science as a whole. I am also studying a lot about businesses and startups because I plan on launching a few startups in the next year or two. Its going to be a busy future, but I wouldn’t have it any other way!

To kick things off, please tell us something about yourself. Design background, hobbies, and other interests!

I finished studying Interactive Media Production at Bournemouth University (UK) over three years ago but I never really had any formal design tuition as such. My father was a printer and my mother was a pretty successful fashion designer so I guess you could say it’s in my genes!  I’m a complete sports buff though; football, tennis and snowboarding are what get me up in the morning. I’d love to be able to make a board film at some point – that’s a life goal for me. In fact, I’d love to make more short-films full stop. Back before I went to the university a few of my mates and I made this short film that got us nominated for the Cooperative Young Film Makers of the Year which was pretty cool. It’d be great to get back into that scene again.

You’ve recently made a significant career move. What made you decide to finally leave the security of a full-time job for a freelance setup? How was the transition process?

My last company, Clinic was amazing. I had an awesome few years there leading projects for Nike, Microsoft, Network Rail & Orange. However, when I took some time off in the summer to travel around Europe, I realized I was stagnating; I wasn’t progressing. I have too much motivation to achieve something with my life to be frustrated.

The transition was painless for me. My agent found my first job and, although I was only supposed to be there a week, I ended up staying for three months. Those first few days were stressful though, I worry too much about failing. I guess most designers have that in the back of their mind. It’s all going really well though and I’m having a great time.

What difficulties did you encounter in making the leap? Was it worth it?

The projects I’ve worked on since I went freelance have been insane and have made it totally worth the initial and rather daunting task of finding the first few clients, work, an agent you can trust, an accountant, setting up an Ltd Company, and so on. For three months I worked on nearly every digital campaign out there for Virgin Media. The trust that represents is so rewarding.
What projects are you currently working on? Does the location of your clients affect your work?

Having freelanced for numerous agencies in New York remotely, in-house in Amsterdam for Achtung on FWA-winning projects and for many agencies in London I have to say that I prefer being around other creatives.  I worked solidly from my office at home for five weeks on one of the projects for an American agency and after that kind of stint you end up getting cabin fever much to the amusement of everyone around you. It was tough. I’ve literally just finished a pitch that’s awaiting client approval but it’s massive and I am unbelievably excited to be involved in it. We’ll have to wait and see what happens there though, fingers crossed.

I find it imperative as a designer to find a developer that you can trust to take hold of your vision and produce what you’re expecting to see.

Discuss the importance of networking to the industry you’re in. What’s the best way to grow and maintain a network?

Networking is without doubt the most important part of being a freelancer. Without meeting people, being friendly and talking about creative work in general you’d never get any new projects in the pipeline. I’ve picked up a lot of work through Twitter; the best job so far was some video editing work for Oasis’ Liam Gallagher’s new clothing label Pretty Green. Someone I was following put out a tweet and it all just fell into place.  As for my new portfolio, Create and Breathe, that went up a few weeks back now and Marc Hibbins handled the build for me. We’ve collaborated on a few projects now, thirtyy2thirty8 being another example. I find it imperative as a designer to find a developer that you can trust to take hold of your vision and produce what you’re expecting to see.

Any advice to those who are thinking of working on a freelance basis?

If you have work already lined up take the jump but be prepared. Have savings for those stretches without work. Luckily I’m yet to have one but I am very wary of it especially given the current financial climate and all.

If you loved the design and freelancing insights, visit Gareth’s portfolio!

Hi Jackie! Please tell us something about yourself – age, design background, hobbies.
I’m 31 years old – I studied Graphic design for 3 years at AAA School of Advertising after I finished high school. Straight after that I knew I wanted to be a web designer, so I started persuing careers at web agencies rather than design agencies. I’m very lucky to have worked at some of the top agencies in Cape Town, South Africa – eg. Ogilvy Interactive, Mnemonic, Stonewall+, etc. I’ve been a designer for 10 years and a year ago I decided to leave the 9-5 job and pursued a fulltime freelance gig.

Why did you choose design as a career?
I’ve always been very creative – At school I wasn’t interested in the content in my projects, I was more worried about how they were decorated (if only I could get marks for how good my projects looked) I didn’t even realise there was a career for just that – I walked past my Guidance teacher’s class the one day and she had a poster for a design competition on her door, it immediately grabbed my eye – I couldn’t get it out of my mind and made numerous entries into the competition. I ended up winning 2nd place in the competition and the college that held it immediately accepted me into a 3 year course, even though I had never studied art at school.

How is it being a web designer based in South Africa? Have you experienced any work-related bias in the past?

It’s really great being a designer in South Africa – The exchange rate is quite low, so a lot of countries look to outsource the work to designers in SA, because they get to maintain a very high standard of design, but at a lower rate than having it designed in the US/UK.

How is the design scene different in South Africa compared to the ones in Europe and America?
The design scene in South Africa is thriving! Design is cutting edge and breaking boundaries in South Africa – Cape Town hosts a design conference called Design Indaba once a year, which attracts visitors from all over the world. We live in a beautiful country that has the most amazing beaches, wine estates, mountains and I think our beautiful surroundings truly inspire anyone that lives in this country.

What is you design process? That is, how do you develop a website from scratch?
Once the client has approved the quote, I’ll start wireframing the various pages in the website. Once the client has approved the wireframe, I’ll then move onto designing 2 options for the homepage – it’s best not to progress onto the internal pages until the design direction has been approved for the homepage. Once the design is signed off for the homepage – I then start designing the layouts for the internal pages. Once all the design layouts have been approved by the client, they then get sliced into XHTML/CSS.

What are your favorite color palettes?
I don’t have a favourite color or pallette that I generally stick to – every project requires a different pallette, that best suits the brief. I use Kuler to sometimes help mix a preferred color pallete.

What are your top five favorite apps?
Keeping track of all my invoices, I use an application called Pulse App.
I’ve been using this application for many years to send out emailers/newsletter campaigns – great interface as well: Campaign Monitor.
If you need to do an onscreen video capture – Jing is brilliant and it’s free.
Dropbox is a valuable freelance tool to share files.
This isn’t really an app but it has really come in handy a couple of times – it allows you to upload a jpg of the font and then it lets you know the font name.
Another useful website to download free fonts is Dafont.

What software do you use to design?
Adobe Photoshop

Any tips for noobs?
When starting a design career you need to realise that with the good, comes the bad. Learn to take criticism well, let it help you grow as a designer!

How would you describe your design style?

I enjoy creating designs that are elegant, organized, and clutter-free.  At the same time, I like my designs to be modern and cutting-edge.  Usability is an important aspect too.  I love it when people look at the finished product – whether it’s an application, a website, or a postcard – and find the user experience and presentation intuitive.

What were the projects you worked on that became your favorites?

My favorite project would probably have to be the NFL intranet portal.  The client envisioned it as a very dynamic site filled with colorful imagery, that invited a lot of creativity from my end.  Plus, the client was very receptive to new ideas.  They were happy to consider them even if they did not end up using all of them.

What are your pet peeves as a designer?

One of my pet peeves is design that requires an instruction manual to navigate.  It may be creative, but is far too unpractical for most uses.  Another pet peeve is slow machines.  I often work on-site at corporate clients who require me to use their hardware.  Some hardware can barely handle basic computing and chokes on Photoshop.

One of Tanya’s vector illustrations using Illustrator

What do you love most about your job?

Design always tries to achieve a goal – deliver a message, simplify an interface, present information to a user.  I get immense satisfaction from seeing the user understand the message instantly.  Steve Krug said it best when he titled his book “Don’t Make Me Think!”  Expressing my creativity through this type of design is what I love most about my job.

Your top five favorite websites in terms of design!

Ooh, that’s a tough one, I like way too many sites!  Okay, let’s try, in no particular order:

Jason Santa Maria I go crazy for the always-changing design that custom fits every article he writes
Veerle Pieters Love Veerle’s blog colors, her designs and her tutorials
Web Designer Wall The vector and “scrapbook-like” hand-drawn designs never cease to amaze me
Vlad Studio I love the wallpapers Vlad makes!
Squared Eye A great mix of imagery and typography that works together all too well

How would you describe a successful designer?

A successful designer is first and foremost, a person who follows their passion.  You have to be in it because you love doing it, and not be afraid to experiment with your style.  Successful design is all about switching things around and creating new twists for the old true and tried ways.  And usually, when your great work speaks for itself – consider yourself successful.

What are your other passions aside from designing?

Spare time is a luxury for me. Whatever spare time I have, I spend with my family and friends. I also love jogging, cooking, and taking photos.

Tanya’s photography

After obtaining degrees in music, you turn to graphic design and marketing, fields which you’ve never studied in college. What gives? How did you get into these fields and more importantly, why?
After attempting to have a career in music for a couple of years, I realized I would be much happier getting a “day job” and pursuing music locally. I ended up getting an entry level job in a marketing department that became my career for the next 10 years. I learned so much during that time about effective branding, marketing, customer service, etc. which have been incredibly helpful as I’ve moved into doing freelance work. I made that move after I had my first child, in order to be at home with him. I’ve always been interested in web and graphic design and have been blessed to be able to turn that into a thriving business.

How did you cultivate your design skills? Did you take classes or was it purely self-studied?
I’m completely self-taught. I have several design books that were really helpful in learning the basic design principles. I learned Illustrator and Photoshop through online tutorials and trial and error mostly.

Marketing. What are the kinds of products you usually work on and what do you usually do? How did you acquire your marketing skills?
I don’t do as much marketing consulting as I would like. Mostly, it’s working with clients to tune their message to appeal to their customers. I acquired my skills by working with large retail brands who were very good at marketing their products, as well as attending conferences and seminars as part of my role at the company I worked for.

How did you get clients when you were just starting out? How do you keep them?
When I was starting out, I offered to do work for friends and acquaintances for free or very cheap, just to build my portfolio. Then as I began working more with Wordpress specifically, networking with other designers, blogging and creating free WordPress themes were all key to building my client base.

Keeping clients is purely a matter of exceeding their expectations. I just try to be great to work with and I try to only work with clients who are good to work with as well.

What is your design philosophy? Is it difficult to live by it, say, when clients demand something you honestly think is a bad idea?

It’s my goal to make my clients’ sites as attractive and user-friendly as possible. I believe it’s my job to help them make good decisions. I will tell them if I think something they want is not the best choice and try to persuade, but in the end, it’s their site. I don’t believe I’m here to uphold some high ground of good design. If clients want to make bad choices and insist on them, I’ll do it, but I’m probably not going to work with them a second time because it’s just no fun.

What’s your design process? That is, how do you usually go about creating a website?

After determining the needs of the client and the look and feel they’re going for, I spend some time gathering inspiration and looking through the the sites of their competition if the situation warrants. Sometimes I will sketch or do a wireframe. Then I create a Photoshop mockup and get feedback from the client, tweaking until they’re pleased. Then I slice and dice the mockup and begin coding!

How would you describe your designs? Who is your market?

Describing my design style is surprisingly difficult. Clarity is something I strive for in all aspects. Clarity of message, typography, image – when the visitor arrives they know as quickly as possible what the site is about and they grasp the brand image/message the site is meant to convey. My designs are clean and sharp, with bold use of color as much as possible. My market? Anyone really! I’ve worked on such a variety of sites and enjoy creating things in a variety of styles.

You profess to have a love affair with Wordpress. How did it start? Why Wordpress?

I started out with WordPress when I moved my old personal blog from Blogger to WP. I already had my main domain, randaclay.com, and was a little frustrated with Blogger’s limitations. I had a great time playing around with the look of that blog, and loved how easy it was to customize. The more sites I create with WP, the more I love it. It will do just about anything, and the range of plugins available that extend it’s functionality further is amazing. I love that it makes it so easy for a non-techie user to run their own site. WordPress is just so user-friendly and well-designed- I love working with it.

What are your pet peeves as a developer?

I hate it when I’m doing modifications to a theme originally created by a real tech-head who put in complexity for complexity’s sake to show how smart they were. It then takes someone like me twice as long to modify it.  It’s sort of annoying to do a project with a client who says at the beginning “I don’t know what would be best. You’re the designer, and I trust your judgment.” Then when I create something for them, suddenly they have all kinds of ideas about what they want, and I have to start over. I understand that for some it’s hard to know what they want until they see it, but it’s still really frustrating.

What do you think is the measure of a good web designer/developer? Is it money, fame, or quietly producing aesthetic yet functional results for happy clients? Would you say you’re a good designer?

A good designer produces creative, aesthetic and functional sites for clients that meet the goal the client is trying to achieve with the site. A site can look great and work great, but if it doesn’t sell anything, it’s not a good design. I think a really good designer is also good to work with. They’re flexible, positive, helpful, and responsive. I’m confident in the designs I create, and feel I’m a good designer, but it’s something that’s a process and is always improving I hope.

People starting out in the field you’re in tend to make a lot of mistakes. What mistakes have you made in the past and how have you overcome them?

Yes, I’ve definitely made my share of mistakes. Early on, I created a couple of sites in Illustrator and used the built-in tool for slicing them up and spitting out the HTML for the site. It works, but creates such ugly code. I waited too long to really learn CSS well. I didn’t realize the importance of validating your code and being thorough in cross-testing sites in multiple browsers. I’ve made the mistake of getting too friendly with some clients and doing lots of freebies until they came to expect MOST things to be free. I’ve learned to discern whether people really have a respect for my time, and avoid time-sucking clients like the plague.

Any tips and tricks you’d like to share with noobs?

Start a blog. It’s the best tool for networking and allowing potential clients to get to know you as a designer and as a person. People like to work with people they feel they know. Don’t spin your wheels a lot with spec work like on 99Designs or other places.

How do you juggle work and motherhood? Does everything beautifully fit in, or is it always a compromise between work and family? I know a lot of developers who spend many a sleepless night and precious weekends slaving over a project. Do you ever get like this?

Juggling everything is a challenge for sure. I’ve learned not to overload myself (for the most part) and that includes learning to say “no” which I have always had a hard time doing. I often work on things in very small increments – whatever time I can steal between the myriad of other things going on. Nap time is great for client calls. I regularly stay up too late, which is not a good thing of course. Like anything you spend time on what’s most important and I have to remind myself not to compromise time with my children for the less important stuff.

Sabrina talks about design, the industry’s state in Ireland, being invited to to present in TechCrunch 50, giving a talk in last May’s Future of Web Design conference, and being mildly dyslexic.

It would be really cool if you can introduce yourself to our readers – what you do, what you specialize in, and your hobbies.

I’m a web designer and web developer living in Ireland. Because I work primarily with very small, very broke start-ups, I also do a lot of web marketing and product strategy for my clients. Essentially, I specialise in dragging you through launch and getting you through your first year – I normally expect my clients to outgrow the depth of service I can deliver in 18 – 24 months. At that point, your business should be bankrupt, profitable or funded and I’ll refer you todedicated specialists from SEO to marketing in order to help you move forward.

When I’m not working, which is almost never, I do love to read. I worked in a hospital when I was younger and I guess I became addicted to blood, guts, panic and drama. I like forensics, police procedurals, and true crime. And I love to travel. I work a lot with Katherine Nolan and once a year, we leave our kids, dogs, partners and clients behind and go re-charge somewhere in Europe for a week. Surprisingly, whilst away, we do not discuss CSS layers, font stacks or databases.

What’s your design philosophy?

I subscribe to the KISS philosophy (Keep It Simple, Stupid) although this is more politely described as “form follows function.” Believe me, I like to turn out good looking sites as much as the next dedicated designer, but if you design the most beautiful site in the world and nobody who turns up can figure out what you do, what you sell, or what you are asking them to do, the site fails. So most of my designs are hung off of very simple key messaging. I generally come up with and grid out the key text first and build the site around that.

What/who are your design inspirations?

It sounds hokey but normally I get inspired talking to the client about their project. People in start-up mode are mad-keen about what they’re doing and very enthusiastic when it comes to telling you all about it. Quite often as the client and I talk back and forth, an actual image of what the site should look like develops in my head, and I tell them to stop talking so I can go comp it out.

I’m not a big browser of CSS galleries or other people’s portfolios, but I like to browse fonts. The only newsletter I’m subscribed to that I didn’t actually design myself for a client is MyFonts.com’s monthly typography interview, and I open it and drool. I’m sort of a font junkie, and my plan for retirement is to amuse myself in old age by learning to craft fine fonts for my own enjoyment. My husband is also a fontaholic, and our coffee table is a shrine to classic typography books. It also has the remote control for our TiVo, and I think about that remote control a lot. It was universally hailed as the best designed remote control in the history of the universe when it came out, and it’s an object that still delivers an excellent, intuitive, perfectly placed user experience every time.

Can you tell us something about the design scene in Ireland? Would you say that it’s booming? What’s different about the design industry there compared to the rest of the world?

Well, it’s smaller than the US or the UK, for a start. Everybody is connected to everybody; we have a very active Barcamp and Open Coffee scene here, and a fair amount of incubators. After living here for only four years, it would be unusual for me to be more than one or two degrees of separation from anyone I really needed to put a client in touch with, so that’s a wonderful aspect of the Irish internet. There is also an emphasis on “buying Irish” and more clients here actively prefer to work with Irish designers, developers and hosting providers than I saw in the UK or the US. (Apparently, I count as Irish, which is nice.)

In general, Ireland is still immature in many respects. The guy who does my financial planning, for example, only got a web site last month and my head almost imploded when he told me that – he’s been in business for years. A lot of companies are still evolving from cataloguing online to selling online, and that process is slow. In a way, it’s a positive for the clients who take the plunge – it’s still possible to really stand out here in a way that helps online businesses thrive. We are not yet at the stage where there are an overwhelming number of choices when you want to buy a consumer good online in Ireland, and sometimes you still can’t buy a particular thing and end up purchasing from another country.

But having said that, we have a lot of seriously heavy-hitting, forward thinking developers here who are turning out world-class web apps – Decisions for Heroes, TeamWork ProjectManager, and LouderVoice’s Android apps come to mind. I see a big future for Ireland there.

You were invited to be one of the “elite” 100 exhibitors in the Demo Pit of the TechCrunch 50 event. Why did you finally decide not to go?

I put in the application at the last minute on the very last day, and in retrospect, it was premature. Going to TC50 would have required a financial leap we were not able to make on short notice. Katherine and I would have had to put in a six week, full-time, un-funded development push to be ready for launch, and come up with the cash to take both of us to California for a week and pay for all that stuff you need when you want to maximise an opportunity like that – you only get to launch once.

The cost/benefit analysis wasn’t really in favour of going, either, since we were not truly investor ready. We did listen to everything the internet and loads of people privately had to say – the phone rang for days – and we’ve put cashflow in place, cleared the decks for full time development starting in February, and we’re going to try again next year when the product and our plan for financing is more mature. I have no idea if they’d invite us back again, but if they do, we’ll be there.

You presented a very interesting topic during last May’s Future of Web Design conference called “Throwing Client Collaboration Out the Window: The Stalinist Web Design Model”. Can you expound a bit about this for Devlounge readers? How was the experience?

The Stalinist Web Design Model is a term I came up with to describe the way I work, which is all about *not* giving the client choices and *not* being afraid to say No. It’s a working style for rapid development, lower-budget projects. I do not follow the standard agency model of giving my clients three homepage designs to choose between; I give them my best homepage design and 95% of the time, we get on with it, no revisions. And when a client asks “can you add this, or could we have that, or can you move the Foo?” I quite often just say No – either because the request isn’t going to buy you enough bang for your development buck, or because there’s a very good and well-supported reason Foo is where it is, or because it’s just a terrible idea.

A lot of this is about being aware that there is nobody else in this process to advocate for the end user and their experience. So while the client may want to capture 97 kinds of data about the people who register, you and I both know that the people registering want to give you as little data as humanly possible, and that if you ask for more than that, your registration rates look like the EKG of a dead person. There are better ways, and better points in the process, to ask people to part with more data – something like LinkedIn, for example, shows you the percentage of your profile you’ve completed.

On the flip side, quite often a client will get things they never thought of asking for – if something like Wishlists will bring a lot to the user experience or really drive up retention, then you’re getting wishlists even if you’ve never heard of a wishlist before in your life. That’s the sort of thing you can add that comes from advocating for a good user experience but also brings a lot of unexpected value to the client with little dev overhead.

While I was very excited about presenting this topic, I have to say it wasn’t the highlight of my conference career. There was a technical failure, I couldn’t see the info on what was being projected behind me, and I ended up reading off my notes after 4 and half excruciating minutes of frozen Power Point presentation. And I’m the first to say I am not an experienced enough presenter to not be rattled by that. It probably would have been a different story at a Barcamp seminar with 40 people, but in an auditorium with hundreds and hundreds of people, it’s a big deal.

But you know, it’s good to fall on your ass sometimes. It keeps you humble. I keep my FOWD pass next to my awards to balance them out.
Does being mildly dyslexic affect your work in any way?

I always go to great pains to point out that my dyslexia is really very mild; I’m not a great case study in UI for people with dyslexia since a lot of people struggle much more than I do. The dyscalculia (difficulty with numbers and orientation) is actually a bigger issue for me. But I love what technology does for me; I love GPS, spell check, spreadhseets and the fact that Google search will do basic math for me. My life is a lot easier now than it was even five years ago.

Since I’ve never not had these issues, it’s hard for me to know how it’s influenced my work but I suspect it does. Again, I am all about the KISS. I would never just accept a client spec that called for three or more tiers of navigation; I would always make the client substantiate that need, see if we couldn’t move content around to do it in two, and at the very least split the tertiary navigation off from the primary nav bars. (Stacked navigation bars can be problematic when choices are not effectively differentiated from each other.) I also pay a lot of attention to the location of the search function; I can’t say I always get it right but I do spend a lot of time thinking about it. And very occasionally, like on Twitterfone, I make a concious decision to leave search out altogether when the only thing it will accomplish is to complicate a very simple UI.

Out of necessity, I do design forms I myself could fill out; you wouldn’t assume that was a particularly unusual hurdle for a UI designer to be able cross, but I literally cannot log into my own bank and it makes me insane.

What were the hardest lessons you ever had to learn in your career?

I actually wrote a blog entry on this one day when I was wrapping up a project that had gone to hell in a handbasket. I still believe everything I wrote there, and if anything I’ve become an even bigger fan of trusting my instincts. Every time the voice in my had has said RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY! about a perfectly nice sounding project with perfectly nice sounding people, the project has turned out to be a complete cluster frack.

The flip side of that as a freelancer, of course, is the money. My rates are low for my area because I genuinely prefer start-ups and funds for my guys are usually tight. This puts a lot of strain on cashflow, but every time I’ve taken a “run away!” job to fill the gap in my bank balance, I’ve regretted it. Most people work to live, but my husband is a freelancer also and our solution has been to change our life to suit the way we work. Leaving London was a big part of that, and I have no regrets – I love the start-up culture here, the inter-connectedness of the community, and virtually all of the clients I’ve been lucky enough to have are genuinely lovely people I believe in and enjoy working with.

Here Lea talks about how she got started on design, being the boss of her own company, her love for ExpressionEngine, some of her favorite apps and websites and her personal branding.

Hi Lea! Please give us a little backgrounder on yourself – age, degree, hobbies.

I just turned 27 this year. I went to college, majored in Design & Digital Media and got myself a Visual Communication Design diploma. When I’m not designing, I really love to cook and experiment in the kitchen. I also love to sing. Bonus trivia: I used to be in a choir and was in 5 musicals throughout high school.

This is such a cliche question but it’s something that can’t really be avoided – how did you get started on web design? Why did you choose this particular career? Did you just kind of fall into it or was it something that you’ve always wanted to do?
I’ve always been an artistic person, ever since I was a child. I started playing around with websites when Netscape 1 and 14.4 baud modems were out. The habit never went away, even though it started as a hobby showcasing my writing, artwork, and a fledgling blog. In some ways I did “fall into it” — I was considering several career options and paths during my last year of high school; pursuing web design seemed the most natural way to express both my artistic and technical side. Originally, I thought I was going to be more of an illustrator or animator, but web design won out in the end.

When you started professionally designing websites, how did you get clients? More importantly, how do you keep them?
In one word: networking. Making sure I make great sites, got the word out there, and soon referrals started coming. I got exposure through a lot of my peers’ and CSS galleries back when it was still new. From there, I just tried to keep making great sites and designs. How I keep clients is essentially providing them excellent service and results. Building trust is key; finding someone new is always cumbersome so half the battle in keeping clients is to make them feel that working with someone else wouldn’t be as rewarding as working with me.

You run your very own one-woman company. What were the difficulties you encountered in the beginning? Do you plan to expand any time in the near future or do you prefer to continue subcontracting some of the work you receive?
In the beginning, I think the main difficulty is the unknown. I think when anyone first starts a business you’re always in survival mode. You just want to make sure you can pay the bills. So, I think one of things that I could have done more was plan for success. However, with the network, trust, and reputation I built, it wasn’t as hard as it seemed to garner clients.

I don’t plan to expand any time soon. Sub-contractors are the “new employee.” I like being able to work with experts of their craft and we all get to do what we like to do or are best at. Being a boss is often misunderstood and under-appreciated. When you take on an employee, you really are responsible for that person’s livelihood. Right now, I don’t want to take on that type of responsibility.

What is your CMS of choice? Why?
ExpressionEngine! I would call it “the designer’s CMS.” I love it because the templating system is extremely powerful and the syntax used is not a huge leap of logic for front-end developers who are used to an XML tag structure (open tag, content, closed tag). I love that it can do a lot of things out of the box without having to install that many add-ons, and it’s a relatively affordable solution for clients. That being said, the add-on and developer community is amazing. Actually, the entire ExpressionEngine community is really second-to-none. I think this is partially because as a commercial product, you attract professional clients. This means, naturally that everyone “plays nice” on the forums, and on top of that, the support is fast and top-notch. There are very few CMS communities out there that can rival the friendliness of ExpressionEngine’s community.
What software do you use in your design work? What are the hardware you can’t live without?
I use Adobe CS3 as my software suite of choice. I use mainly Photoshop for my work, but you can also see me dipping into Illustrator for vector and identity work, and InDesign for any print or wireframe work. Coda is my main html / css editor and I use Cyberduck for FTP. Regarding hardware, as someone who started as a PC studio, I can’t imagine ever working without my 17″ Macbook Pro. I’m definitely an Apple convert.

Name three apps that increase your productivity.
I use The Hit List as my main to-do app, iCal synced with Google Calendar, and Billings for timing projects.

What are your top five favorite websites of all time (in terms of design) and why?

1. Jasonsantamaria.com
He is really taking the idea of art direction on the web to the max. Design with context and meaning? Yes, please! I love his customized entries and how he is able to really push the flexibility of CSS and CMSs, as well (he also uses ExpressionEngine). As also the mastermind between Typedia, he really knows how to play around with type.

2. 31three.com
Jesse Bennett-Chamberlain is a master designer, and he never even had any formal training! Can you believe that? He simply knows how to use contrast and subtle details to draw out the best in a design, no matter what element he’s focusing on. The man is a stickler for details.

3. change.gov – actually, the entire Obama campaign
I think that Blue State Digital did a great job of tying all their web properties together, consistently and beautifully. They knew how to manipulate imagery (dramatic gradients, thoughtful photograph choices, great colour scheme), grids, and type to convey a lot of information in an attractive manner across all platforms.

4. threadless.com
I love how super stylized it is, and extremely consistent even throughout the years. They really own the type and colors. They somehow manage to squeeze in as much imagery and information possible and yet still not make it too overwhelming.

5. apple.com
They live and breathe design and have established a strong aesthetic. Strong imagery and whitespace usage, they aren’t afraid to take risks with their grid or content; unlike most websites, they’re one of the few who choose to be the least verbose possible on their homepage. Almost unheard of!

I’ve observed that designers tend to work harder on their own website than any other project that came before (and comes after). What is the inspiration behind Lealea.net? Did you have any difficulties creating what is, essentially, your “alter-ego” online?
It’s hard to pinpoint one single inspiration. Since lealea.net was such a personal endeavour I can even say that all my personal and professional experiences up to now has influenced lealea.net. I also take a little bit of issue regarding “alter-ego.” That implies that I’m being someone completely different online, when that is not the case and absolutely opposite of what I advocate when I talk about personal branding. It was a difficult process for sure, but I outline all of that in my article on A List Apart: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/redesigning-your-own-site/

What does the Lea Alcantara brand stand for? How did you build your personal brand? How do you maintain it?
It stands for design with sass and class. In short, working me assures that you’ll never have a dull experience or product in the end, but I’m a professional through and through. As for building my personal brand, I achieved that by going through an adjective-association exercise, outlined in my series of articles Art of Self-Branding (http://www.lealea.net/selfbranding)

To maintain it, if I’m doing it right, all I really have to do is make sure I’m being myself in every touch point. So, it’s actually not that hard. It’s harder to maintain a company brand because it’s a step removed. A personal brand is essentially you, concentrate. You know you’re doing it wrong if people say, “You’re nothing like I imagined you from your website.” Fortunately, I’ve never had anyone say that to me in the almost 5 years of being in business. What you want people to say is either one of the two, when you meet: “You’re exactly as I imagined.” or “You’re even better in person.”

What do you love most about your job?
I absolutely love being my own boss! The freedom — manufactured, or not — is really quite intoxicating. I love that I have the opportunity to work on a variety of projects, and the sense of satisfaction in making my clients really really happy with the end product, especially if they make money or gain exposure as a direct result of a design of mine. I love meeting and networking with people, and I love sharing my knowledge.

The Interview

So what is Cymbolism, your new web app?
Cymbolism is a crowd sourcing application that that attempts to quantify the association between colors and words. Users are shown a word, and are asked to select which color they associate with that word. The user votes are tallied to quantity which colors are most associated with that word.

How would you say a designer should use Cymbolism?
When working on a new design, the creative brief usually includes a few key words that help drive the design direction.

You can lookup these words on Cymbolism, via the search functionality, and see what color people associate with those words which can provide you starting point for your designs color scheme.

Even if you decided to go against the current trends, Cymbolism will tell you what the trend is.

What sparked the Cymbolism project?
I’m really bad a picking color schemes for my web projects, so I’ve been reading a lot of articles and books on color theory, and they mention the psychology of color a lot. I started searching around the web to see if there was something more up-to-date for those associations, when I couldn’t find anything the idea for Cymbolism was born.

What are your thoughts on how colors are used in web design today?
I think the bigger sites still play it a little too safe. Most of those sites have much the same light background with a little splash of color. Even companies that have strong color associations (UPS for example) don’t make strong enough use of these colors.

What do you think govern our color choices in design? Is it all trends?
External trends do play a large role in color choices. When we see one effective use of color it usually spawns a lot of copy cats.

Same is true off-line. We still pay too much attention to what the next big color will be at the annual fashion shows, driving a lot of color choice in the print world.

Online we are able to adapt quickly and easily so people should not be afraid to try new things.

I’d like to thank Mubashar Iqbal for the interview, and urge you all to take a look at Cymbolism. Maybe it can help you in your upcoming project!

Devlounge: Hello Keegan, thanks for taking the time to chat with us. Mind introducing yourself for anyone who may not know you?

Keegan Jones: Hello internets, I’m Keegan Jones. I am a designer for a small company in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas called Firewheel Design.

DL: How did you get started in design? Was it a life long hobby, or just something you kind of picked up on? Did you go through any specific schooling for it?

KJ: Back in 1999, my family got a 400MHZ iMac DV (graphite colored, baby!) for Christmas. At the time, I was in high school and skateboarded a lot. I started editing skate videos in iMovie, and wanted a place to post them online.

One day I was at the library and checked out a book titled “HTML for Dummies”. I installed a version of Adobe Golive (which I wouldn’t recommend), and started aimlessly figuring out how to put together a website. My dad, who is also a designer, brought home a copy of Adobe Photoshop 5.5. Long story short, I wasted a lot of time in Golive and Photoshop and ended up building a website called “Ollie Jones“.

To answer your question, I haven’t gone through any specific schooling for web/design stuff. Most everything I learned from reading books and looking at good design. When I got my first job at Neubix, Ryan Sims was a big influence and helped me become a better designer by critiquing my work.

DL: Firewheel Design, your design studio, is responsible for some truly kick ass products, which I’m sure most if not all of our readership is familiar with in both Blinksale and IconBuffet. What is it like running two successful projects like that our used by thousands upon thousands of people every day. Is it intimidating at all trying to get things “perfect”?

KJ: We have a lot of fun with Blinksale and IconBuffet. Our main goal is building things that we use ourselves, and hoping others will too. Thankfully, it has worked out so far. We don’t worry too much about getting things perfect. It’s easier to evolve by listening what users want.

DL: For IconBuffet, what made you decide to allow users to “trade” free icons [through Free Delivery] with each other? In terms of marketing, has it worked successfully in getting more people to register and / or purchase premium icons?

KJ: For IconBuffet, we wanted to build a community around icons. Trading icons with others is the basis for our social network. It definitely has helped bring more people to the site. I’m actually not sure if the increase in registered users has translated into more purchasers of premium icons.

DL: According to the Firewheel splash at the moment, the doors have been locked while you work on a new project. Is there any way we can pry out any little bit of information about what this new project may involve?

KJ: Mums the word on our new stuff. If it peaks your interest, go to Firewheel Design and enter your email addy. We will drop you an email when we launch (which should happen before the end of the year).

DL: Last summer when we talked to Ryan Sims, The Big Noob was basically turned off. Since that, it’s made a powerful return, most notably with some sharp blue Noob shirts that even you have sported. What brought the Noob back out from the shelf?

KJ: The Noob was turned off because a lot was happening in our lives. Brad Smith and Ryan Sims had just moved to Boston, and I to Dallas. During that transition, we didn’t have time to keep fresh content coming. But life has settled down now, and we are back. Noob power!

DL: Alright, last question. When not designing, what are your other main hobbies?

KJ: I enjoying playing Xbox 360 (currently a lot of Madden ‘08), pretending to be a photographer, making silly videos, hanging out with friends, and trying new restaurants.

Thanks for your time!

DL: I assume a good portion of my audience knows who you are, but care to introduce yourself and share some facts about yourself with us?

Jonathan Snook: My name is Jonathan Snook and I’m a web designer/developer based out of Ottawa, Canada. I’ve been running my blog at Snook.ca since 2003 although I’ve had posts from 2001 before I really called my site a blog. I’ve been tinkering on the web since 1995. These days, I freelance full time all the while just trying to be an active member of the online community.

DL: You’ve thrown a lot of your support behind the CakePHP framework, and not to long ago, your personal site was also updated to use Cake as the backend rather than Movabletype. What do you like best about Cake that convinced you to switch and play around with it?

JS: The best part about Cake has to be the automation of mundane tasks. It takes the convention over configuration concept from Rails and does it in PHP. It’s been a pleasure to develop with and has given me the flexibility to customize my site in a way that wasn’t very easy to do in Movable Type or Wordpress.

DL: On the topic of Cake, you also created your own CakePHP developer job board, called Withcake. With all the job boards already out there, how has Withcake been doing? Do you think it helps focusing on just one job field, in this case, Cake developing, as opposed to a bunch of different fields? (Personally, this would be my kind of job board – anything with Cake is usually good)

JS: By this point in time, I was hoping to see Withcake.com really see a surge but instead, it’s been in a maintenance pattern. Not enough people yet to have it complete at the level of other job boards but its specialization in a specific framework means it doesn’t have to either. There are companies and developers alike who’ve chosen CakePHP as the core to whatever they happen to be building. It’s great that they have a central place to go to and find like-minded people to work on projects together.

DL: The newest project just launched from Sidebar Creative is My Mile Marker. From what I understand, you were responsible for the UI. How long was this project planned for, and what was the inspiration behind it?

I’d have to look back but I believe the original idea behind this was Steve Smith’s. We often discuss various project ideas and this is one we had settled on as being the first as it would be fairly quick to put together and launch. There was no specific development plan; we just worked on it when we could with each of us providing insight or development along the way.

DL: Being part of Sidebar Creative, where each of you have your own obligations to other companies / sites / etc, how easy it is to find time for everyone to sit down and put work in on a project like this? Do you wait for everyone to have a free block in their schedules, or is everyone allowed to work at their own pace?

It’s worked out extremely well with each of us being able to pitch in at different times in different ways. None (or at least, very little) of the development was done simultaneously. We’d simply chat when we needed to, exchanging files until it was all done. It’s an oddly seamless process, that speaks to the power of the web and to the fantastic group of people I’m extremely happy to be associated with.

DL: Last project question, I swear. What do you hope your Haylia project accomplishes, and when can we expect to see it go live? For those that have not heard / seen it yet, Haylia is hosted blog solution for sharing adoption stories, inspired by your own adoption story. I think it is an excellent idea, and a great way to take the traditional hosted blog platform to a different, much more personal and focused level.

JS: I’d like Haylia to become a success, of course. Success means a few different things in this context, though. Sure, there’s the financial success one hopes for but more importantly, it’s enabling people to share their stories. My wife and I believe that adoption can be a great experience and one that should be shared with many people.

Launching the site for the masses, however, has taken longer than hoped. Working on it has taken a back seat while I work on client projects but I do intend to have it see a soft launch before the end of August. The majority of the functionality is already in place and ready to go. There’s just some polish and some templates that need to be added.

That’s been my biggest problem as a freelancer: I don’t spend as much time on my own projects as I should.

“It’s an oddly seamless process, that speaks to the power of the web and to the fantastic group of people I’m extremely happy to be associated with.” – Snook on working with Sidebar Creative

DL: If you could name five must have apps you use everyday (web and/or desktop based), what would they be?

JS: Very utilitarian, I’m afraid: Microsoft Outlook, Gmail, Firefox, Mint (I’m a stats junkie), and UltraEdit (currently my text editor of choice).

DL: Alright, last question. Here comes your free plugging opportunity. Could you please share some sites you visit / read daily? They can be on whatever topics imaginable – they don’t have to be design / development related.

JS: With the advent of RSS, Google Reader has become essential. There’s no sites that I specifically jump to on a daily basis to check if there’s new stuff. The sad consequence of that is that there has been the occasional RSS feed that gets changed up and I’ll lose track of a site for a couple months until I suddenly realize I’ve been missing some good content. Now, there are certain sites that are consistently good like Roger Johansson’s 456 Berea Street, Andy Rutledge’s Design View, and Simon Willison’s site, especially his daily links. Natalie Jost also has really good, insightful posts. There’s so much talent in the industry it’s hard to keep up with everybody!

DL: Thanks for answering a few questions for me. Good luck with the many projects you currently have on your plate, and of course, we will all be awaiting to see what else is next.

JS: You’re welcome and thank you very much!

Fernando Lins: Sure, my name is Fernando Lins, I’m 20 years old and I live in São Paulo, Brazil. Currently I study Graphic Design at the Belas Artes university during night time, and work as a freelance illustrator, graphic and interface designer during the day. My website is fernandolins.com .

DL: Now on to the obvious and most repetitive question I’ve ever had to ask: How did you get started in design? (And how long have you been doing it for, etc)

FL: I’ve always been a great fan of technology, grew up watching Transformers and Macross reruns, playing video-games, listening to dance(!) music. And since I’m the youngest of 3, with 10 and 12 years of difference between my siblings and I, I had to find ways to have fun alone. So besides my MTNT toys and Lego, I used to draw all day long. I would watch Disney movies, pause them, and draw the characters on paper, then color them and make an exhibition in my room, or make collages with them on backgrounds I’d paint myself with gouache.

My illustrations are mostly a way to express myself without rules, so I like it very much, and I’m trying to incorporate that into my “real” designs more

When my sister went to college to study Industrial Design, and had to work on websites (that back in 1995) to make a living, that got me interested. I liked to watch her “create” images on Photoshop and make them interactive. I had no idea what Photoshop was, but from watching her I learned the basics, just enough to open an image and paint over it, play with brushes and so on. I also decided to learn how to make a website a few years later (1997) and learned HTML and Javascript.

The Internet evolved, and from looking for cool sites I got in touch with the work of amazing graphic designers like Mike Cina and Mike Young from WeWorkForThem, DesignGraphik and TrueIsTrue, Jemma Gura from Prate, Joshua Davis of Praystation, and studios like Me Company, The Designers Republic, Attik, Tomato, etc. That combined with my interest in electronic music grew on me the need to use that new, incredible language to express myself.

My first professional piece of work was for a canadian DJ, whom I e-mailed asking if I could re-design his site, and he was really happy about the offer. A few years later we worked together on a huge project called Progressive Vibe, but it was cancelled due to financial problems. That was in 2001 so I can say I do some sort of design work for almost 7 years now.

DL: Illustration is one of your strong points, but you’ve also done some great looking logo and icon work. If you had to pick a specific type of work as a favorite, what would it be?

FL: That’s quite hard for me to choose, I think each of them has a different pleasure, if I can put it that way, attached to it. My illustrations are mostly a way to express myself without rules, so I like it very much, and I’m trying to incorporate that into my “real” designs more. Branding is my favorite part of graphic design, I love to create an identity for a company or a person, think of an strategy and then smell that amazing scent of paper when you print business cards and brochures. On the interface side, I like working with icons because they are all about metaphors, and they’re universal. Making a symbol that people from around the globe must understand is tough. I guess that if one day I have my own studio with lots of employees, I’ll keep the branding services for myself, it’s probably the one I like the most.

DL: For the latest Devlounge design, you played a major role in the constructing of the layout of the site by creating fresh, original illustrations to replace our outdated collection we had used for the past 3 versions. If you could give a brief overview of your three main pieces you’ve contributed so far (at the time of writing this interview) and the inspiration behind them…

FL: Starting by the red one, which I recently named “Dragon Battle”, I wanted something that incorporated the red inside the Devlounge logo. It is not the same color, but that’s from where I began. You probably won’t be able to see it, but there is an outline of an open hand in the middle of the piece, and that was the first object. I then made a liquid, gradient outline for it and that naturally evolved into a full piece. I can’t quite explain how it happens, I just grab my stylus and start to create these lava, swirly, liquid shapes. I dunno, I guess I like molten things.

“High Voltage Love” was inspired by an issue of the Vogue magazine saying something about the 80’s look being back for the Brazilian summer (*audible gasp*), so I thought it’d be fun to work with some kitsch elements, like the sad woman face, the rounded “pacman” font – which I designed myself – and the vibrant colors.

“On” is a great piece, and lots of people have been asking me about it. It’s just a bunch of brushes under a levels adjustments layer, there, I said it. It was inspired by a picture I saw on Flickr of the power button of an iBook. I then got a very similar picture on a stock pictures site and started working on top of it. I think it’s the one that most says “motion”, and I really like the mix of blue and green on black.

DL: Since we’re on the topic of illustration work, do you use any special techniques and/or tools, such as a tablet, or is it mainly the mouse doing all the work?

FL: I have many, many illustrations done solely with the mouse. Actually all my work prior to 2006 is all “mouse-made”. I bought my tablet on the beginning of 2006 and it’s all I use today. The liquid aspect of my illustrations exists because I do it with the tablet, as well as the light beams on illustrations like “On”, mentioned above. For some of the illustrations I’ll draw elements on paper with ink and scan them, making a virtual pastiche in Photoshop.

DL: What do you like to do in your free time when you’re away from the desk?

FL: “Free time” is something I haven’t had for a while now, but when I get a chance to escape I like to walk around the city with my camera, and sometimes without it. I’m a big walker, so I’ll take the day to visit places, eat in new restaurants, listen to good music live, and take as many pictures as I can. It’s a great exercise, not only for the body but for the mind, as a designer you can’t know enough things, so I’m always looking for new things. During the week, which is when I’m busier, it all comes down to being near my loved one and reading some books.

DL: Out of all your clients and all your various types of work, what project do you think you’ve had the most fun working on?

FL: I’ve had a lot of fun working on all of my projects, but what you see in my portfolio is just the start. I’ve been working on some really great projects lately that mix all of my abilities, so I guess they are the most fun so far, but unfortunately I can’t name them. They’ll be on my *cough*new*cough* site soon. Working on the Devlounge illustrations set was really exciting, it’s not often that I get to do illustration work with such freedom, and it really helped me instigate my artistic vein.

Q: Hello Craig, how’s everything going? Mind introducing yourself along with Firstborn to all of our readers?

My name is Craig Elimeliah, I am a producer at Firstborn Multimedia. I have been designing, developing and producing interactive websites and applications for about 9 years now. I actually started my design career while in rabbinical school in Jerusalem. Upon returning to the States in 1997 I got myself a job at a MAC lab in a private school in NJ where I scored some free equipment and software and the rest is history. I owned an interactive firm called Pixelon Design and then a software company called Fashionware, after I sold Fashionware I joined Firstborn.

Firstborn is one of the top interactive development firms in the world. We have an amazing team of designers and developers and very talented producers.

Q: When did Firstborn first come about, and how many people make up your team?

Firstborn is turning 10 this year, a real achievement for an interactive shop. Firstborn was started by Michael Ferdman, Vas Sloutchevsky and Mark Ferdman. Today Michael is the sole owner. Firstborn has about 30 employees and is always looking for passionate and talented people who love the interactive realm and work really hard. What separates us from most other companies is that we are comprised of many different personalities that all bring something different to the table. We are all about hard work and dedication, we all love what we do and we are very privileged to be able to work with the world’s top brands and best projects.

Q: One of your most recent projects was for Microsoft Forefront. Mind explaining the process that was involved in putting together this project, and what it’s like to work with big companies (Macy’s, Victoria Secret, MTV, etc)?

Microsoft Forefront was a really exciting project to work on; I flew out to LA and took along Tim Nolan (fellow producer) and John White (art director extraordinaire) to shoot the video for the site. We had an amazing time working with McCann SF in Hollywood and our insistence on high def video and other various flash considerations paid off big time, McCann really allowed us to take the reigns and produce something special.

We were absolutely obsessed with taming alpha video on the web, we had gotten so many crappy assets in the past we knew that this was the project where we were going to solve all of our alpha video mysteries and produce a site that was going to be comprised of ONLY video assets.

Alon Zouaretz programmed the hell out of this site and made it all come together. He is an absolute genius when it comes to site structure and organization. Joon, our creative director, did the amazing effects for the intro and everyone else in the company stepped in and helped out with the GIGS AND GIGS of raw video.

It was truly a company wide collaborative experience and I was really fortunate to have the opportunity to head it up as the producer. We are all very proud of the results and Microsoft is just as happy.

My latest round of projects included brands like Axe, Intel, Samsung, Microsoft, some work for a famous hip hop star and a really fun site for Perdue. As you see I have been really lucky this year to have worked on all of these high profile brands. Firstborn attracts the best clients out there and we always deliver big time. We also do a lot of projects that we can’t even mention, also major brands and successful sites.

Everyone at Firstborn enjoys working on highly profile projects that change the landscape of the interactive realm. I can’t imagine not working with the best brands because it allows us to set the bar every time we launch a new project. Sometimes I feel like I am a bit spoiled. I am truly fortunate for being able to work such great projects.

“Sorry to say this but 2.0 just can’t produce that kind of emotional impact. There is nothing overrated about Flash. Its engaging and entertaining, 2.0 is not anywhere near Flash in that respect.“
- Craig on Flash “Dying Out”

Q: Obviously by the caliber of your flash and motion work, the benefits of Flash are still extremely great. What would you say to all those “web 2.0ers” who believe flash is dying out and is over-rated now?

Dying out? That’s news to me. 2.0 is cool for like Blogs and community driven sites like Digg, but Flash is so pure, so emotional. Flash is passionate, it tells a story. Innovation will level out and Flash will be in the hands of more people very shortly, however it will be the inspirational aspect that will drive the new wave of developers. I am also a writer, and to me Flash resembles the beauty of words, it allows the user to enter new worlds and to connect on an emotional level. Sorry to say this but 2.0 just can’t produce that kind of emotional impact. There is nothing overrated about Flash. Its engaging and entertaining, 2.0 is not anywhere near Flash in that respect.

Q: With such a mass collection of portfolio work, are there any particular projects / clients you’ve enjoyed working on / with the most?

Fila Adatto.

Fila was my baby. It was the most unusual and unique project I had ever worked on. It was one of the first projects I had taken on at Firstborn. Fila approached us to come up with a customized web-based flash enabled foot scanner so they would be able to sell custom made shoes to their customers. You can check out my case study here. This project involved everything from Flash, 3D, hardware, software, integration, back ends, front ends, databases and some very unique personalities. I even spent a few weeks selling the actual shoes in the store so that I could test the kiosk and make sure everything worked perfectly. This project had it all. I learned so much producing this project and it gained me a lifetime of experience. The results were amazing and the kiosk launched worldwide.

I could literally write a book on the whole process and drama that took place during this project.

Q: What tools do you use the most when combining live motion with flash design? Will the launch of Flash CS3 have any major impact on your work flow process?

We use lots of different tools. Our developers are very flexible and will do whatever it takes to get the right results. We use all the Adobe products like After Effects, Flash, Photoshop and Illustrator as well as Ultra and even 3Ds Max and other 3D programs. We use a host of compression methods and programming methods to help tie together the various technologies included in that is lots of creative brain power and hard work.

CS3 is going to have a major impact with how developers and designer do everything. We have already started tinkering with it and we will continue to master the new features so that we can deliver the best possible work to our clients and to make sure that our future projects are the best they can be. I am personally very excited to get my hands dirty and to pick up some of the new tools for my personal work that I enjoy doing in my free time.

CS3 is the ultimate package and a re-birth of sorts for Adobe. It is putting very powerful and easy to use tools in the hands of many people who will be creating the new digital landscape.

Q: Any work worth checking out on the horizon (For example, a free Devlounge promo piece)?

Nice one, we can talk about that after the interview. We have some very exciting new things on the horizon that I can’t talk about here. We have a new website coming out this year that will coincide with our ten year anniversary and that is very exciting for us. Keep your eyes peeled because there is going to be a whole new level of excitement and quality being churned out of Firstborn.

Q: Thanks for taking the time to chat. Keep up the excellent work and regards to everyone at FB!

My pleasure! Thanks for bringing us the community that is Devlounge and keep up the good work.