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.

Q: What’s the best part of working for a young company? Is it the same as an everyday job, or is it more fun to be part of such a highly successful site?

The Digg team is still relatively small, but we are completely focused on developing new features for our users..and yes, it’s a blast to work for a company like Digg because we have such a loyal following and close relationship with the community.

Q: On a hosting / tech specs related question, how do you estimate or determine the amount of bandwidth you’ll need each month to run such a high traffic site?

We grew fairly quickly right out of the gate, so before too long one server became two servers, myisam become innodb, we moved to Debian then we went to three servers, Apache 2.x, mysql master-slave replication, started using memcached, moved to PHP 5.x, hired a dba. And then the pace picked up yet again. We try to account for 1,000 requests per second at high points in the day for traffic.

Q: How likely is it that you will be going strong and still run by the same people in the next 5 - 10 years? Is selling to another company something that you see in the near future?

We just recently closed a 2nd round of funding, and are completely devoted to focusing on growing the site internally into something that will continue to offer users the best social experience on the Net.

Q: What’s it like knowing that everything you do front-end wise is going to have both positive and negative feedback from the hardcore users? Do you take a lot of the feature and design suggestions to heart?

We always listen to the users, and check every email that comes to the feedback address. It might take some time for us to get everything that’s requested rolled out, but that’s because we want to do it right.

Q: How long will it be before the Digg API is released?

Soon, very soon.

Q: Are there any plans for allowing users to register as “owners” of a particular URL (similar to how a user can register as the owner of a blog at technorati) and to allow them to “adjust” poorly chosen (or sometimes blatantly false) titles and descriptions that link to their content?

We don’t have any plans along those lines at this time, but I would add that Digg currently provides users with a variety of tools to report inaccurate content on the site. With these tools, Digg empowers its more than one million users as editors of content on the site.

Q: Care to shed some light on any future plans and what we should be looking out for from Digg in the coming months / year?

Stay tuned. As always, Digg will continue to innovate and offer cool new features. Also, please come out to the Digg user celebration party at Mezzanine in San Francisco on April 19th.

Devlounge: Hello Rina – thanks for giving up some time to answer some questions for us and let us dig deeper into the mind of an extremely talented designer. Care to introduce yourself and give some background information for our readers?

Rina Miele: Hey all. WHATUP? I’m Rina, and I am 25 and live in Sleepy Hollow, (yes, it’s a real place) New York and I make designs and it’s fun and I’ve been doing it practically my entire life and I like colors and when I grow up I wanna be a supermodel and music is awesome and I love watching anything in HD and I love video games, vinyl toys and Lego™ and this sentence is ridiculous.

DL: How did you first get into design, and is it more of a hobby or full time job?

RM: Growing up. My father is a designer and I remember when the industry started to use computers. One day he just went out and bought a Mac — the Mac IIsi. Ah, what a classic: 20MHz, 1MB of RAM (yes, megabyte). I was fascinated by that thing. I even loved just playing with the screensaver for like 3 hours. But he had Photoshop… version 2.5 or something. All I know is that you basically were able to paint and there were no layers. That was tough! But that’s what I remember. I made designs on the computer from then on. What was that, like, 1990? It was cool, seeing the application developing and growing with it. I was always an “artsy” kid, but I didn’t really think much about “designing” as a career until high school was ending. It wasn’t anything monumental though. It sort of just happened because I could do it. So I went off to college, got some jobs, and here I am.

Design is a full time lifestyle though. That sort of sounds clichéd, but it’s true. I walk into a grocery store and notice every little thing, down to the labels on the anchovies. I’ve always been conscious of things around me. It’s a discerning quality I think many designers develop. It’s like an advanced form or curiosity, really. You just want to see what else is out there. I think in this way I’m fortunate to be able to work in this field, it surrounds us.

“Keep those business cards and use them, don’t just consider them decoration.”

DL: You have worked with some extremely influential brands in Pop Culture – VH1, the NBA, Allure Magazine, and Atlantic Records just to name a few. What does it mean to be hired by companies like these out of all the designers in the world, and have you had fun with these projects?

RM: All the work I’ve been doing lately has been really great. Anything in the entertainment field generally gives you a ton creative freedom. You always have to do something fresh/crazy/stimulating/new/innovative. I love that.

I’ve worked with a bunch of agencies on most of my projects rather than with the clients directly. I try my best to stay in contact with the people I meet. Anyone can tell you how hard that is if you’re busy 24/7 - but like I said, I do my best. It’s a small world, you’d be surprised who you run in to down the line and what roles they play in shaping your career. Keep those business cards and use them, don’t just consider them decoration.

DL: Do you have a specific area of work you like doing the most (Web, Print, ID, etc)?

RM: Hmm… Well, I’ve been doing 90% web for the last few years, and that’s been great, I love it. Though, I do have to say I miss print. I miss the tactile quality about it. I like making “things” - especially packages and all things 3D. It’s funny because I didn’t make a conscious decision to become a web designer. It just worked out that way. But yea, 3D/packaging is hot. That’s my answer and I’m sticking to it.

DL: Working in a field overcrowded with male designers, what does your own success story say about the role women can play in design / development?

RM: Girls rule, and boys drool. I’m kidding. Honestly, gender hasn’t been a factor I’ve ever considered. Sure, if you break it down it seems there are more males in the industry. But I’ve always been concerned with being a good designer. Period. I never gave much thought about being a good “female designer.”

DL: Where did the idea for the name “Honey Design” come from?

RM: My last name is Miele - it means honey in Italian. I wanted to create a pseudonym/alias for myself. I started asking questions like, “Who am I? What do I want? Where am I going?” Then I decided to keep things simpler. I looked to my name… realized how dope it is that it translated to “honey” and then sort of went from there. I’d love to say there’s a deeper meaning to it, something inspiring, but it was as easy as 1, 2, 3. The logo on the other hand wasn’t as easy… but that’s something else altogether!

DL: What do you like to do in your spare time when you’re not busy designing?

RM: I answered a little bit of this in Question #1. Other than what I mentioned I try to just sit back, relax and do nothing and/or sleep. We forget to do that sometimes. That’s really important. I can’t stress that enough. I have to start practicing what I preach though…

DL: Where do you get most of your inspiration from?

RM: Mostly from other artists - designers, illustrators, photographers, writers, etc. But I do take cues from other things like toys and games and such… but then again, didn’t an artist create those things too?

My inspiration for this week was a book I bought called “The Acme Novelty Library: #17” by Chris Ware. Check it out!

Thank you all for reading and thanks to Devlounge for setting this up.

Devlounge: Hello Nick, how’s it going? Thanks for taking some time off around the busy holiday season to answer some questions for me. It’s really an honor. Much like we begin most of our interviews, mind giving our readers the “411” on who you are?

Nicolò Volpato: Hello AJ, it is a pleasure for me to be interviewed here at Devlounge. My name is Nicolò Volpato. I’m 24 and live in Rimini, one of Italy’s most famous seaside resorts. I’m a full-time freelance web designer and Flash developer.

You probably got to know me because I recently designed the latest version of PhotoMatt and contributed to the MintPages forum skin. However I’ve been designing websites for the last 7 years. Since 2004, I also run my own design studio called GNV & Partners, based in my home-town Rimini.

In my spare time I play around with my blog at www.jek2k.com. Since 1999, Jek2k.com is my home on the Web, the place where I post personal stuff, photos, articles and my playground, where I can experiment with new technologies. It has always played a key role in my professional carrier and recently it’s been earning me a lot of visibility.

DL: How’d you get started with design and build up your skill set?

NV: I got my first 56k Internet connection back in 1998 (in Italy we’re always two steps back than the rest of the world…) and I started playing with creating websites some months later. In October 1999 I published the very first version of Jek2k.com.

It began as a way to spend my afternoons, but all of a sudden it became a passion. I bought books, I read hundreds of online tutorials and I devoted a huge amount of time to learn and improve my skills.

I started with plain HTML, but after some time it was not enough and I added CSS. Then I needed a bit of Javascript and ASP to spice things up. One thing lead to another, until I was able to create a complete website from A to Z.

The same happened with Flash. I started with Flash 4 and since the very beginning I’ve been interested in Flash ability to build rich and interactive interfaces. So I learned ActionScript. I had no programming background at that time, so it has been hard to dive into a completely new language and understand programming logics. Luckily, at 17, I had enough time and passion to make it.

This is how I learned all the technologies I use today.

Then in 2001 I chose a University that helped me to build an in-depth knowledge of both traditional and online communication, with a special focus on new media and the Internet as social environment. The importance of theory is often under-estimated in web design, but I think it is really a plus for a designer to have a psychology and communication background.

DL: Let’s talk about your blog, jek2k. As I type these interview questions, I’m reading
your latest post on hitting 100,000 visitors since version six of the site was released
in June. Congrats on that, it’s a great accomplishment, especially for a short period
of time. What inspired the design behind the blog and the sick [awesome] illustration?

NV: Well, I really can’t explain myself how much success Jek2k.com has had in the last six months. I designed this latest version of my site to start playing with WordPress themes and some Javascript effects. I searched for a clean and professional-looking theme to start. I chose the Hemingway theme because it offered me a clean structure to build my design on. I kept many elements of the original theme, but I skinned them my way with CSS.

Then I added the background vector illustration of my girlfriend, which I made back in 2003, and made the main content semi-transparent to smoothly reveal the background.

Finally, and I think this is the most significant change, I couldn’t stand those typical sidebar things, such as Archives and Categories. So I moved them into a collapsible Javascript-animated drop-down panel, where they’re still easily accessible while leaving the layout much cleaner.

That’s it. I think Jek2k.com has been one of the first blogs to display such a modified version of Hemingway and a drop-down panel. Nowadays I see lots of sites like that and it is no more an original idea as it was 9 months ago when I started designing it.

DL: Besides running your own blog, you have your own studio, GNV & Partners. It’s apparent in your extensive collection of work that 1) you like large headers and 2) your all about practicing clean and valid xhtml and css. What do you think of the movement to standards based design which really took flight in 2006?

NV: I’ve been interested in web standards since some years now. I switched to XHTML and CSS in 2003 and since then I try to build all of my sites using only valid code. Moreover I try to write semantic markup and use table-less layouts.

I believe web standards must be considered the ground where we designers can build our sites on. They should be part of every designer’s daily work. Finally, in the last year, web standards have become a real standard. I think the blogging phenomenon and the Web 2.0 played a key role.

Blogging has made creating a personal website extremely easy and CMS allow everyone to publish contents in an intuitive way. The majority of blogging and CMS applications are based on web standards and produce valid markup, so there is a huge amount of young designers and web enthusiasts who are making their first approach to web design using web standards-compliant tools. They have no transition to face, no work routines to change. As the number of blogs increases day by day, so increases the number of web standards-compliant websites.

“Here we are witnessing a deep separation between Designers 2.0, who master web standards and take usability into consideration, and the all others, who keep doing their stuff the old way.”

Moreover the Web 2.0 definitely turned the web into a social environment. Developing services for the people means developing with web standards and usability in mind. So developers focused on making intuitive and friendly UIs (see AJAX and the many JavaScript libraries to enhance use experience). Designers left Flash and heavy graphics for clean and readable layouts, using standards to deliver interoperable websites.

However the job is not fully accomplished unfortunately. I live in a country where web standards are still considered a plus and usability is often ignored. Here we are witnessing a deep separation between Designers 2.0, who master web standards and take usability into consideration, and the all others, who keep doing their stuff the old way.

DL: You were recently called upon to redesign arguably the third most significant site in the wordpress world besides wordpress.com and wordpress.org, that being Photomatt. In the recent Fadtastic interview you discussed how nerve-racking the process was, so we won’t get into that, but what kind of feeling did you get knowing your work would be enjoyed by the millions visiting Matt’s blog from their Wordpress Dashboards?

NV: When I gave my final PSD design files to Matt I didn’t know he was going to release the new site that soon. I was a bit surprised when I saw my design on PhotoMatt the next day. I knew that thousands of people would see my design and I was quite nervous about that. Are they going to like the new design or hate it? I had already talked with Matt and I knew he liked the design, but I feared the people’s feedback. Luckily it was good. When I read the first good comments from users on his blog I relaxed a bit.

In the following days and weeks I’ve read many blog posts and articles about PhotoMatt’s redesign and that has been a great satisfaction.

DL: I also was lucky enough to witness your work pattern as I watched three mockups of Mintpages get refined each week based on user feedback. New designers always seem to struggle with taking and accepting feedback from others, because if a designs considered bad and gets hit with many disheartening comments it can take a new designer out of it. Mind explaining why it’s so vital to take feedback and build from it and not get frustrated?

NV: Well, I still haven’t found a way of not getting frustrated by negative comments. If you ever find one, give me a shout, because I need it too.

Apart from that, all we have to do as designers is to take every feedback in a constructive way. We shouldn’t get offended by a negative feedback and it doesn’t mean we are bad designers. It just means we can improve our design. After all, we learn from mistakes, don’t we? Frustration is just human, but we need to turn it into motivation. One thing that I think needs to be said: many times, especially in forums or in blog comments, feedbacks are given in a, let’s say, not-so-polite way. It’s easy to see comments like “I don’t like it at all”, “Your design sucks”, and even worse.

This kind of feedback is useless and for a young designer can be very hard to take. How can you make your design better basing on such a kind of feedback? Designing is finding the right balance between the designer’s ideas and the client’s needs, in a given context, with particular communications needs and peculiar problems and limitations. This should be kept in mind when giving a feedback, cause we don’t know how some design choices were made.

“While being confident about choices is good for a designer, feedback on execution can really help us doing our work better and focusing more on details.”

On the other hand designers should be open to feedback regarding execution: even the best design choice can be executed in a poor way. While being confident about choices is good for a designer, feedback on execution can really help us doing our work better and focusing more on details. This article deals with some interesting points for young designers and is a must-read in my opinion.

DL: What are some of your favorite resources, whether it be daily websites you read, books, design galleries, or music that inspires your design?

NV: I visit CSS galleries daily, CSS Remix is my favorite one. In general I don’t rely heavily on CSS galleries and design trends. They are an easy way to design a trendy website or to take inspiration, but they are also dangerous, because you risk to lose your originality and stick to a predefined style. This is a really interesting and provoking article on this topic.

I keep an eye on Solution Watch, Devlounge (of course), Jonathan Snook’s and Veerle’s blogs and Fadtastic, to see what’s going on in the web design scenario.

MintPages is a great place to exchange opinions and get feedback from other experienced designers and developers. I like browsing design, interior design and architecture books, to see how great designers and architects used space and shapes to build beautiful and useful objects or comfortable places. I like photography and art books to learn the use of colors and light to express emotions and feelings. I’d like to be able to do the same with websites.

DL: Your turn to share whatever you’d like. What do you like to do outside of designing?

NV: Hmmm….. designing? I spend pretty much all of my time in front of my Mac. This is for me much more than a job and love devoting hours and hours to browse websites and try new techniques in Photoshops or Flash. This is how I got to be what I am today.

Apart from that, I love spending time with my girlfriend, watching movies, playing around with my digital camera, doing the typical geek things (like configuring my LAN or disassembling some old PC hardware…) and collecting Star Wars toys.

DL: Out of all your work from 2006, what was your favorite project / design to be a part of?

NV: This is a tough question. I never really thought about this. I like to think that my best design is yet to come, this helps me finding motivation and struggle to always do my best.

To name a few, the MICE CD-Rom is the biggest project I’ve been involved in, in terms of time spent and people in the development team. PhotoMatt is with no doubt the most important project I’ve ever done and the one that earned me the most visibility. But the good old Jek2k.com is the site that gave me the biggest satisfactions in 2006 and without it there would have been no PhotoMatt, no MintPages and even not this interview.

DL: Once again, thanks for your time. It’s been a pleasure. I know I’m looking forward to seeing more of your work around the net in 2007 and beyond. Happy holidays and happy new year!

NV: Thank you for this opportunity. I wish a happy 2007 to you and all the Devlounge team. Keep up the good work!

Be sure to visit Jek2k to check out more of Nick’s work!

Devlounge: Hey Larissa, thanks for giving up some time around the holidays to chat with me. Mind giving a quick background on yourself so everyone knows who you are?

Larissa Meek: I’m an artist, web designer, bikini.com supermodel. I placed 4th runner up at Miss USA 2001. But I’m most likely known as the girl from NBC’s Average Joe: Hawaii… (Oh yeah, and I was a kid with asthma.)

DL: How old were you when you began designing sites and digital artwork? Did you “teach yourself” your skills, or did learn from a school or other resource?

LM: The year was 2001. I was 22 years old. A month before I had bombed my top 5 question at Miss USA then became a recently laid-off 3D animator.

I felt lost. I needed to work and there was very little opportunity for 3D animation in St. Louis, so I turned to the web as a way to promote my artwork and modeling portfolio.

I studied 3D animation in school so the familiarity of timelines and motion made Macromedia Flash an easy transition. Thanks to hundreds of books, great resources on the web and a passion for visual stuff I learned web design on my own. Today my focus is on css/xhtml based sites.

DL: Let’s talk about design first. You’re a senior designer at Agencynet, and you run your own portfolio and studio site, along with a blog. I’d say you’re a bit busy. What’s it like try to balance all three, and how’s work at Agencynet?

LM: AgencyNet is my first and foremost priority. It gives me the rare opportunity to contribute to stunning projects in an energizing environment.
I admire the people I work for and with. I can’t imagine working anywhere else.

I wake up every day and feel energized by doing what I love.
It never feels like work.

Since I started working at AgencyNet, I have stopped freelancing with the exception of the occasional favor or charity based site. However, larissameek.com serves as a testing ground for new ideas. I never want to stop learning. I wake up every day and feel energized by doing what I love.
It never feels like work.

DL: In terms of some of your artwork, a lot of it is focused on a woman’s life and body. Is there a reason for this reoccurring theme in your art?

LM: I think, as a result of modeling and growing up a little girl bombarded with images of female perfection I became fascinated with the female form.

I find the flowing curves more captivating than trying to figure out the defined muscular structure of the masculine form and I’m a sucker for fashion. It also seems that some of my works subconsciously become auto-biographical.

DL: You had the chance to spend 8 weeks in Hawaii filming the NBC show “Average Joe”. I do remember bits and pieces of the show, but I never watched the entire thing. What was that like being part of the “reality TV”
craze?

LM: It was the most fun and most emotionally difficult part of my life.
Reality TV is not reality. It is very much produced and seeded. Don’t get me wrong… It’s really fun but a lot of the situations are molded to have an outcome for the highest entertainment value. And then there’s the magic of editing.

I had a blast being on the Average Joe: Hawaii. I met oodles of really cool people and dreaded every “elimination” night.

The strangest part is going from obscurity to becoming semi-famous. At the height of the show I was walking into Hollywood VIP parties and talking to celebrities whom had been watching my show. About a year later people are like, “I know you from somewhere. What High School did you go to?”

I respond, “I think I sat behind you in math class.” (hee hee)

Also, contrary to the way the show ended, I’m still dating the guy I picked.

DL: Going from competing at Miss USA to a designer is a pretty sharp change in occupations. Did you find it a struggle to turn careers around like that?

LM: Coming back from Miss USA was a whirl-wind. Especially because I bombed my on-stage question which you can see on YouTube, but the more I think about it the more I realize that things happen for a reason. I love design and I love technology.

DL: You’re known for a multitude of different things, from web design, to art, to television appearances, but which would you prefer people recognize you for?

LM: For web design and art.

DL: What are some of your other favorite things to do in your spare time away from the designer world?

LM: When I’m not at AgencyNet I’m probably thinking about what to blog about next. Otherwise I like to break out my sketchbook or hunt for books on anything from fiction to computers to art.

DL: Are you happy you made the switch to designing? Any regrets?

LM: No regrets ever! I’m just amazed how I aimed to do something else and web design found me. The path it took me to get where I am now is something I could have never imagined. I just know that since I was a little girl I always wanted to work in something visually stimulating.

DL: We’ll that about wraps it up. It was an honor to conduct this interview with you. Hopefully I’ll be talking to me Miss USA’s in the future, but that’s another story :). Good luck in the future, we’ll be watching!

LM: Hey, thanks for the opportunity to chat! I love Devlounge! You guys rock. If I come across any available Miss USA girls, I’ll be sure to pass on their number, so long as they don’t get fired.

Devlounge: Hello Shaun, how are you? Thanks for taking the time to answer a few for us, I’ve had some things I’ve been burning to ask

Shaun Andrews: I’m doing great. Thanks for the opportunity!

DL: Alright, let’s get started. Mind introducing yourself for those who may not yet have seen Tick or your personal blog?

SA: Well, my name is Shaun Andrews. I’m a 24 year old web designer from a smallish city named Binghamton in upstate New York. I’ve been working on the web for a few years now and for the last 9 months I’ve been making a living as a contractor doing design and XHTML/CSS coding. Some of recent projects that I’ve been involved with are: Tick, the Molehill, Scrapblog, Pluggd, the DrumArchives, and XHTMLGenius. Of course I’m also tweaking and posting at shaunandrews.com, my little corner of the web.

DL: On the subject of Tick, we first previewed the application in mid July, and recently Tick opened to the public. Where did the original idea for Tick come from, and what made you want to put together an application like this?

SA: First off, thanks for the great write up. The Molehill team has poured many hours of sweat, blood and tears into building Tick. We’re very happy to see others finding it useful. The original idea for Tick came out of our own need to accurately track project and task budgets and keep our teams up to date on the project status. We searched the web for a solution, and although we found some great time trackers, none of them gave the feedback our teams needed to really work towards a budget. Many people make the assumption that Tick is simply another time tracker. While it is true that Tick tracks time, Tick was built with the goal of helping people hit their budgets and, as a result, have profitable projects. So we only track time to the extent that it helps achieve that goal.

While it is true that Tick tracks time, Tick was built with the goal of helping people hit their budgets and, as a result, have profitable projects.

For us, the big idea behind Tick came out of the realization that for a services company, time is your inventory. We began thinking about how companies that produce physical product track, price and sell their products. This realization changed the way we ran our business, thought about time, and back to your original question, drove the development of Tick. We have written a little more about this on the Tick website (http://www.tickspot.com/why/). If you work in the service industry, I think it’s worth checking out.

DL: By the way, how did that public launch go?

SA: The public launch was a huge success. It’s still early, but so far all of our expectations have been exceeded. Our preview period was immensely successful, with thousands of subscriptions created, and hundreds of encouraging emails. It’s great to see that Tick is providing a real solution to a real problem that a lot of people are struggling with. At the same time, we had more than a few people that would prefer a heavy time tracking application, which as we stated before isn’t our goal. This really helped us hone in on the folks that stand to best profit from Tick.

DL: Our preview article generated a pretty good amount of buzz surrounding Tick and I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of positive comments. It’s inevitable however that a few people will have negative things to say about the product. How do these negative comments effect the team as you work to complete and launch an application?

SA: Tick isn’t build for everyone. Tick was specifically designed for people who work in the service industry and struggle with hitting budgets. We knew going into this project that some people wouldn’t get it, but more importantly we know a lot of people were in need of it. Even though Tick is still young, we’re delighted at the level of passion our users have. Most of the criticism that product has received has been in comparison to time tracking or project management solutions. For the most part this doesn’t affect us much, as we understand that the reviewer/commenter may not understand the pain that Tick relieves. We’re not interested in going feature-to-feature with other products or compromising the foundation that Tick was built upon.

DL: Let’s talk personal: How’d you get into design & development?

SA: It’s strange really. I’ve always been into computers, but never specifically web design. I actually went to school for Computer Aided Drafting/Design, and then continued and received a masters in Mechanical Engineering with a minor in Mathematics. I spent a lot of time with math and physics throughout college, and I loved every minute of it. Somewhere along the way I began to realized that being a mechanical engineer just wasn’t for me.

I think I made my first website while I was in high school. It was a personal website with links to sites I thought were “cool”. I made it with Netscape’s built in WYSIWYG editor, and I only toyed with basic HTML. All throughout high school I played with HTML as a hobby. In college I began using the Macromedia studio (Fireworks and Dreamweaver 3 mainly) to create websites for bands and school organizations. Sometime during my junior year of college I discovered CSS. Since then I’ve been addicted. I got my first professional web job before I graduated from college. I moved to Miami, FL to begin working at Alienware Corp. as a web editor. After getting my feet wet I then moved onto to a much bigger role as part of a small web team for a branding agency name Propeller in downtown Miami. After leaving Miami for Jacksonville, I made the choice to start my own business and have been self-employed ever since.

DL: What are you hobbies and interests away from the desk?

Music. I’ve been playing drums for well over 10 years now and guitar for about 5 years now. It’s a safe bet that if I’m not online, I’m sitting at my kit or playing guitar.

DL: Let’s talk about your newest venture, XHTMLGenius. First off, killer domain name, I can see that going for thousands in the future ;). What made you decide to give it a shot, and how do you hope it will pan out (max clients per week, future plans, etc)?

It’s a safe bet that if I’m not online, I’m sitting at my kit or playing guitar.

SA: Yea, XHTMLGenius is a pretty cool domain name, but I don’t see myself selling it anytime in the near future. I also own CSSGenius.com and WordPressGenius.com. There are plans to launch those other two sites as companions when time permits.

The site came about during some down time between projects. I was looking for a way to bring in small projects to fill those gaps of down time. I saw a few sites popping up offering similar services and I knew that I could compete. I kept the site very simple and gave myself a budget of 5 hours - I really thought it would be wasted time, an experiment at best. I spread the word through Google AdSense and some forums and before I knew if I had a few jobs lined up.

The site has been a huge success and has paid for itself many times over. The great thing about XHTMLGenius is that there’s no negotiating or squabbling. The scope, price and timeline are all set up front. The client pays and I deliver. It’s simple and it’s been working great!

DL: Any things you want to get out while you have the chance?

SA: You can expect a redesign of shaunandrews.com in the coming weeks and some code updates to Tick in the near future.

XHTMLGenius has been getting a lot of love lately, and you can expect to see some other Genius sites in the future as well.

DL: As always, thanks for chatting with me. Looking forward to more of your projects in the future, and of course, we’ll be talking about them before anyone else.

SA: Thanks for the opportunity and keep up the great work with Devlounge!