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Author Archives: Conor O'Driscoll

About Conor O'Driscoll

Conor O'Driscoll is a designer and writer, who writes for AppStorm.net. He also enjoys writing about himself in the third person.

The Perfect Design Portfolio Site
May 29, 2012 8:22 pm 4 Comments

I know, I know, this ain’t one of those interviews that you all know and love, but I thought I would share a few tips that I have picked up whilst doing this blog. So, y’know, enjoy. If you really hate the fact that there’s a long-form article on the site, just write me a strongly worded letter. I’ve always wanted to receive a strongly worded letter.

Hey there. I’m Conor O’Driscoll. You may not know me, but I’m behind all of this. I contact all of the interviewees. I ask all the questions. I get all of the images for the posts.

Because of this, I look at a lot of designers’ portfolios. And when I say “a lot”, I mean a lot. For every one interview you see on this site, I’ll have looked at 4 or 5 portfolios. For every 4 or 5 portfolios I look at, I e-mail 2 or 3 designers. And for every 2 or 3 designers I e-mail, you get one awesome interview!

There are various reasons as to why I don’t contact someone after looking at their work. Most of the time, it’s nothing to do with how good their work is. Most of the time, it’s to do with how good their website is.

In this post, I’ll run you through some of the best and worst practices to make sure your site is good enough for me to contact you. Because after all, I’m a designer, just like you – I’m used to this sorta thing. So if I won’t contact you, what chance do you have with clients?

10 Handy Tips to Growing a Better Portfolio Site

So without further ado, here are my tips to having a workable portfolio site:

Actually HAVE a personal site.
I guess we’ll start with the basics. When I follow the link to your site on Twitter or Dribbble, I don’t want to find myself at the site of the agency that you and your friend set up, however great it may be. I want YOUR site. A site where I can send an e-mail and be 100% sure that it’s you who will receive it: not your business partner, not your secretary, but YOU. You’re a human being, so try and make that clear on the web too.

If you have to link to your business, at least have a personal e-mail in there somewhere, so I can e-mail alfredo@awesomeawesomeawesomedesignco.com, rather than just info@awesomeawesomeawesomedesignco.com.

Have your work on there.

I see this far too often. You’ve got this lovely little site which sells you as a fantastic designer and a great guy and the sexiest man on the planet, and there are social media links and e-mail buttons and it looks fantastic, but… there’s, uh, no work on there. I mean, sure, there’s a Dribbble link, but I’ve come here to check your work out, I don’t want to have to go somewhere completely different. At the end of the day, you’re being hired on your work, so you might as well show it off.

Jeff Rogers does big pictures pretty darn good.

Use big images.
I guess this one is really only for interviews and bloggers, but still important. Most blogs like to use nice big images for their posts. Here at OneMinuteWith, my images are 600px wide. Dribbble shots just don’t cut it, unfortunately. Images that are too small is a problem, but images that are too big really aren’t, as long as you can maintain a small enough file size. Live on the wild side: Chuck a few 1000px wide images in there – Bloggers like me will thank you for it.

Make it easy to contact you.
I can’t stress the importance of this. The primary goal of your site is almost always to get people to contact you, whether it’s clients, fans, or annoying interviewers like me. If it’s a struggle to find your e-mail address, I won’t bother – There are plenty more fish in the sea, why should I waste my time trying to catch this particularly awkward fish?

Chuck a mailto: link in there.

Having a contact form is all fine and nice and pretty and show-offy, and by all means, include one, but also give me the option of clicking a link that will open up my mail client and I can compose a message on my own terms. I send out a lot of e-mails to interviewees, and it’s a lot easier to keep track of a few e-mails in my Sent folder than having to remember whose site I’ve visited, and out of those, who I’ve actually contacted. Similarly, most clients send out a load of e-mails to a load of designers, and they’ll probably want the same level of organisation.

Mackey Saturday just throws ALL the contact details at you.

Social media, social media, social media.
Your clients aren’t Luddites who don’t understand the internet. Or at least, not all of them are. Many of them will want to connect with you on LinkedIn, or see what you’re saying on Twitter. As an interviewer, I know I always check someone’s Twitter before e-mailing them – It can be an incredibly useful way to gauge their personality quickly. As a freelancer, your social presence is your best asset, so please, for your own sake, exploit it like crazy.

Dribbble is your friend.
You’re a designer. You’re busy. You haven’t got time to update your portfolio every single time you churn out another retro hipster logo. What you do have time for, however, is to post it on Dribbble, get 100 likes and have everyone say how awesome your work is. Many clients, by now, know what Dribbble is, so put a link on your site to it, and you’ll only have to update your portfolio every 6 months. Everybody wins.

Just be human.

You’re a designer. You are in one of the most creative professions in the world. You’ve got hundreds of ideas swimming through your head all the time. You are an absolutely fascinating person. Judging by your portfolio, however, you’d never be able to tell. Don’t be another HTML/CSS/PS/AI bot, be someone interesting. Be funny. Tell stories. Open up a bit. Clients want to work with a human, and interviewers want to interview humans. So please, please, please, just be human.

Matt Chase's about page is full of personality

Include an image of yourself.
This sorta ties in with the bit about being human. You can write as many words as you want about yourself, but there’s something about a photo of yourself that can say something that words never can – It can make that connection that will seal the deal for you. It proves that you’re a human. It proves that you at least exist.

Unless, of course, you happen to be Visual Idiot. In that case, just stick an animal head on a stock photo and call it a day.

Simple is fine.
If you’re not a web designer, that’s cool. Just because you’re make pretty posters doesn’t mean you have to make pretty websites too. Don’t get scared and not make a site just because it’ll never be as pretty as WebDesignerX’s site. Just hop on Indexhibit, throw together a website, and let that be that. If anything, simplicity is a good thing – A simple white interface will make your actual work stand out better. So if you have a good portfolio, there’s no excuse for not having a good portfolio site – Go make one now!

A Disclaimer

“But Conor,” I hear your roar, “Your site hardly follows any of these rules!” Yes, I know – I did, after all, write that heckle. But my site isn’t the perfect portfolio site. By a long stretch. Also, I’m not really trying to get freelance work from it, nor do I particularly want to be interviewed. But if you are trying to get client work, then implement these tips, and you’ll go far, kid.

Your thoughts?

I’ve been rambling on for hours, but now I want to hear your opinion – Are my criteria fair? What else do you feel is essential to making the perfect portfolio site?

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to register www.awesomeawesomeawesomedesignco.com…

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One Minute With… Vitaly Friedman
May 25, 2012 7:20 pm Leave a Comment

Hi Vitaly, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

I love beautiful, thoroughly researched and carefully prepared content. I never give in easily and strive for quality in everything that I do. I proudly stand by all the articles and projects that we’re working on and always do my best to not disappoint and to impress and delight. That, and I co-founded Smashing Magazine and still work as editor-in-chief in my own company.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Vitaly Friedman.

I spend a lot of time during the day reading, exchanging emails, developing new ideas and making sure that the editorial process runs smoothly. I used to write more (and I actually wish I could write more often) but at the moment a lot of time goes into ensuring quality content and a healthy diversity and relevance of articles on Smashing Magazine.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

It might sound silly, but the main starting point for me was when I discovered the Flash website eye4u back in the day (1997 or 1998). I understood how rich the web as a medium can be and that everybody could actually be creative and put content online, making it accessible to a large audience worldwide. It was an intoxicating feeling, and it still is in a way. This moment literally changed my life and my career, forever.

You’ve been running Smashing Magazine for nearly 6 years now, where it has been at the very forefront of the design world. How have you seen the industry change in that time, and where do you think it might go in the next few years?

Now, that’s a very difficult question. Many things happened over the last 6 years, and I am confident that we are about to explore new developments that will again change how we build websites. Responsive Web design will play an important role in the future, especially server-side performance for mobile will become very, very important area. I feel that it’s a bit underrated these days, but I think it will become essential for meaningful mobile user experiences. Another thing that I am very excited about is storytelling and how it will be used to create memorable emotional experiences throughout different media and experience channels. It will be very interesting to see how far we will come with Web design for TV and other objects in our households.

Smashing Magazine just released their 3rd book, and even have a conference in the works. What challenges do these new projects bring, and do you feel a need to keep adding strings to your bow, so as not to become stagnant?

One of the core value that we’ve crystallized in our company within the last years is focus. We have to focus. The magazine is obviously the core of our universe, and we will keep focusing and working closely on improving the content in the magazine, reaching our audience and finding new audiences, ensuring the high quality of every single article and doing everything we can to provide value and relevance to Web designers and developers worldwide.

However, we love challenges and encourage and embrace innovation and experimentation. A couple of years ago we decided to produce a printed book; it didn’t quite work as we expected but we’ve learned from our mistakes and so the brand new Smashing Book 3 is by far the best book we’ve published so far. The book encouraged us to thoroughly review existing design practices and grasp what it actually means to be designing websites today, and what it will mean in the future. The Web has changed over the last years, yet our practices haven’t quite kept up with the pace of innovation in technology and design recently. This is why we wanted to produce a very forward-thinking, game changing book. I think that we can be proud of the final result!

The Smashing Conference, which we are organizing together with our dear friend Marc Thiele who is known for organizing very personal community events in Germany, is our humble attempt to organize a friendly, valuable and inspiring community event that will help us all become better at what we do. Our community has some very distinctive attributes, such as ongoing experimentation, learning, sharing and exchange of ideas. We always encourage Web design community to produce useful tools, resources or just write about design process, workflows, tools and how they are used.

Very often you see show-offs of the final designs, but what we actually miss are more discussions about the design process, how designs evolve. E.g. I’d love to see more articles explaining what variations or elements of the design didn’t make it to the final result, and why. What the context of the work has been, what requirements the designers had and how they dealt with that? It would be also great to learn how different designers organize their workflow and their collaboration with other designers and developers. This hands-on experience is something that is very difficult to find and explore on the Web. The Smashing Conference is an attempt to change it. We want to organize a very practical, valuable event from which every attendee can “grab” something “tangible” and then use it in his/her work.

As I’ve just mentioned, you are very much a design polymath – You write, design, speak, and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! If, in some hypothetical universe, you were only allowed to do one of these, which would it be, and why?

I love writing. We never think about it actually but I think it’s just fascinating how everybody can develop ideas, package them in a nice article and deliver them to an audience. I love developing my own ideas but it’s wonderful to work with our writers as well because you can explore different perspectives and actually drive our very knowledgeable, creative and forward-thinking authors in directions that they never considered before, even if at some point they find themselves in a “tough corner” and have to discover the right road to take first. Authors — who are rather our colleagues and not authors — do not work for us, we work with them. We develop ideas together, we give feedback, we ensure the quality with the tremendous help of our Experts Panel and we challenge them, we move them out of their comfort zone. I think it’s very important to not let the author simply write about the topic of his/her choice, but instead introduce challenges that they would need to resolve and think about thoroughly first. It can be very time-consuming, but (most of) our authors actually love the process because we make them explore things that they’ve never explored before. And that’s a real value they get from the writing process.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

That’s a fantastic question! To be honest, I always wanted to learn what the regular day of a product designer looks like. It must feel wonderful working with different “tangible” materials and constructing designs out of them. At some point in the past I was literally obsessed with chair and started learning about how one builds one and what are the main principles, qualities, attributes and common “design patterns” that chairs have to have. It’s been very, very interesting. Now that I am thinking about that… I should do that more often!

What design tools could you not live without?

I love paper and pen most, to be honest. I know my strengths and my weaknesses, and I am definitely not a visual designer. I love developing ideas on paper and transform them in a text editor or using CSS. It might sounds strange but I love WebKit Inspector most. And there are of course small tools that make my life easier every single day, such as Alfred App, TextExpander and… lots of keyboard shortcuts! Oh yes, I do love keyboard shortcuts.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design or blogging?

Understand your values and principles first, fully commit to them and follow them no matter what happens. Don’t be afraid to fail, and feel free to play. Find a way to integrate experimentation in your daily routine. And most important: be patient and be stubborn, if you want to do something and you want to become good at it, do it at least 3 months, 6 months, a year — no matter what happens. Because this is the only way to understand, learn and master any craft. Don’t try to find any shortcuts, but focus on hard, time-consuming and dedicated work. And before you notice it, it will pay off on a large scale.

Thanks Vitaly!

Thanks a million to Vitaly for talking with One Minute With. I loved talking to him, and hopefully you did too!

Why not check out Smashing Magazine, and follow them on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Ethan Marcotte
May 16, 2012 4:51 pm 2 Comments

Hi Ethan, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey! Thanks so much for inviting me on One Minute With.

I’m an independent designer/developer, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Over the years I’ve worked for myself and for agencies, and for clients like New York Magazine, The Sundance Film Festival, and Stanford University. Also, I wrote an article back in 2010 and a book in 2011 on “responsive design,” describing a way to design more flexibly for the web—to think about how our designs and content can flex and grow and, well, respond to the changing size of the screen, allowing us another way to design across different devices.

Also, I like robots. And swearing. I do both on Twitter as @beep.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Ethan Marcotte.

The short version? It involves a laptop, not a few Adobe applications, a few phones and tablets, a sketchbook, and tears.

I’m still waiting for the movie rights to be optioned.

Whilst we’re on the subject of your daily life, has your life changed much since your Responsive Web Design articles & book came out?

So here’s how I started to respond: “I don’t know as my life’s changed all that much.” But I realized that’s, well, patently false. There’s been a lot of interest and excitement around responsive design, which is fantastic and thrilling and weird and humbling. And as a result, I’ve been able to work on some impossibly great projects, travel to some wonderful corners of the Globe, and meet some generally great people. I feel incredibly lucky and fortunate, and I’ll enjoy this as long as it lasts.

How did you get into design?

I think it’s safe to say that when I started, most folks had found the web by accident. And I’m no exception. While I was in college, studying for a literature degree, I’d started messing around with Photoshop and HTML—nothing too fancy, just a few sites for some student groups. I enjoyed the hell out of it, but it wasn’t anything I ever seriously considered. But once school wrapped up, I thought, well, heck: why not try it professionally for a bit? Take a year or two off before grad school, see what this whole “web” thing is all about.

And man, that first job. I tell you.

The first studio I worked at was staffed by former musicians, architects, computer scientists, photographers—you name the discipline, it was probably working out of that tiny little Soho office in 2000. I’d somehow gotten hired to stand at this weird crossroads of every artistic medium ever, surrounded by a bunch of fun, ridiculously smart people, all of us trying to figure out how the hell this “web” thing actually worked.

So yeah. I fell in love with the web that year. And maybe a little bit with the people who work on it.

A few years ago, you left the world-renowned Happy Cog to go freelance. Why did you make that decision, and is it one you are glad you took? How does working freelance compare to working at an agency?

I wrote quite a bit about why I left back then, but it boiled down to wanting a few new challenges: to write a bit more, and to do a bit more public speaking. I still miss my coworkers daily, and we keep in touch as much as iChat and Twitter and the occasional phone call allows. But I haven’t regretted moving on one bit.

That’s not to say I wouldn’t ever take on another opportunity at some point. If the work’s exciting, the challenges involved enough, I’m up for anything. But I love what I’m doing right now.

Well, I’ve done healthy amounts of both: I worked freelance for a few years before joining up with Happy Cog’s West Coast office (née Airbag). The differences aren’t huge—I’m still doing plenty of client work—but I like having a bit more control over my schedule, over the projects I work on. There are scary bits, too, like ensuring you’ve enough work lined up, being more directly responsible for the health of a project, but even the scary bits are fun.

In addition to your design work itself, you’ve written an awful lot about design and development, and spoken at numerous conferences. If, in some crazy hypothetical universe, you could only do one of these things (Design, Writing, Conferences), which would it be, and why?

I’d write. As awful as that decision would be, there’s no question.

Where do you see yourself in, say, 5 or 10 years? Do you still hope to still be writing, designing and speaking, or do you want to have moved on to something bigger? Or do you happen to have another revolutionary web design practice up your sleeve?

Ha! I honestly have no idea. I’ve never been able to formulate a six month plan, much less one that looks five years down the road.

As for a new web design idea, I’ve totally got you covered. You ready? Here it is: imagemap all the things.

You’re welcome.

wait where are you going

What design tools could you not live without?

IconFactory’s xScope. TextMate. Stewart Brand’s How Buildings Learn. My Quattro sketchpad and a well-chewed pencil. Photoshop, for better or worse. Things, also for better or worse. My iPhone’s camera. Adam Greenfield’s Everyware. Any Charles Mingus album. (Extra points are awarded if it’s the “In Paris” compilation.)

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

I’m paraphrasing Jeffrey Zeldman here, and badly, but something he said once sums it up for me: always show up early, be nice, and stay hungry.

Thanks Ethan!

We’re really grateful to Ethan for spending a few minutes with One Minute With. Hopefully you found his responses as interesting as I did!

Why not check out Ethan’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Jacqui Oakley
May 10, 2012 4:17 pm 2 Comments

Hi Jacqui, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

I’m an illustrator based out of Hamilton, Ontario, Canada which is a city just outside of Toronto renown for its steel factories and donut shops. I was born here in Canada, but soon after was whisked away by my British family, growing up in England, Libya, Zambia, Bahrain and then back to Canada as a teenager. That was quite the culture shock at the time, but by now I’m nearly used to Canadians (except for the whole hockey thing).

I’ve been doing freelance illustration for about 10 years and I also teach part time at the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto. The bulk of my work has been in magazines, but lately I’ve been working more in book publishing and advertising and doing more hand-lettering too. Some of my clients include Sony, Rolling Stone, AOL, LA Weekly, The Boston Globe, The Financial Times & ESPN.

When I can I like to work on personal work for art shows. I’ve been exhibited in Toronto, L.A., San Francisco, Philadelphia, San Diego and Shanghai. Lately I’ve really been interested in doing bigger paintings and collaborating with other artists I admire, so I’ve been trying to do more group shows. Any excuse to paint and to travel somewhere new is welcome.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Jacqui Oakley.

I stumble out of bed around 9:30 and with coffee in hand get to tackling my email inbox. I’ll then usually move onto either working on final illustrations or linears (rough pencil drawings) for clients. Illustration work tends to move really fast with the deadlines often being just a few days from start to finish, so there’s usually always something to keep me busy with. If no jobs are in there’s always business/admin work to catch up on; invoicing, contracts and promoting. Of course when I’m teaching I’m also coming up with new projects and marking students’ work. I tend to break for lunch around noon where I luckily get to catch up with what my husband’s been working on and try to wind down with a bit of a TV show, (lately it’s been The Wire or Twin Peaks). He’s a graphic designer at Poly http://polystudio.ca/ who works from home too. Since we tend to work a lot it’s great that we’re just across the hall from each other in our respective studios, so we can be a part of each other’s workdays, offering a fine balance of encouragement and criticism. It helps so much to have someone to bounce ideas off of or to get out the frustrations of some of the more difficult clients. Of course most of our clients are gems. As most freelancers know, evenings tend to be a time for work too, or at very least taking time to switch over to doing paintings for shows.

How did you get into illustration? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as an illustrator?

I got into illustration quite by accident. I always loved art when I was a kid but never knew quite what to do. I remember my friends wanting to be actresses or singers and I always felt like I was the odd one out. So later, after high-school, I randomly enrolled in an art degree program but found it wasn’t challenging me enough. I wanted and needed feedback and criticism to get off my ass and become a better artist. I visited my friend at Sheridan College’s illustration program in Oakville, (just outside of Toronto), and I was blown away by the talent there and the focus on learning classic skills such as life drawing. The next year I switched over and was gripped with the idea of being an illustrator.

With illustration I enjoy the fact that that I’m not just accountable to myself and my own whims. I need to communicate to a wider audience and I get to inject art and ideas into the lives of an average person rather than solely focusing the smaller realm of art galleries. Illustration is a great opportunity to participate in a larger discussion. Also, day to day my projects are constantly changing so there’s little room for boredom. You’re given a problem and you have to figure out how to solve it visually and conceptually rather quickly. This sometimes pushes your work in unexpected and interesting directions you might not have come up with yourself. I always love the idea of the ‘black-box” contest: here are a few specific elements – lets see how you’d add your voice to the mix. Illustration is constantly like that, which is sometimes frustrating but often inspiring.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

After accepting a job from a client, and having received the pertinent project information (article, brief, etc.) I start off brainstorming with words and small doodles of random ideas that come to mind, then maybe collecting a bunch of reference images, before then moving onto roughs and linears. I tend to start going through folders on my computer and go online searching out imagery and inspiration that can get me excited and open up the possibilities of a project. This can be vintage illustration, design, textile patterns, vintage poster design, etc. With each job I try to add something that I’m excited by at the moment whether it’s a colour scheme, a new line technique or a new concept which will always show in the final illustration. Not all jobs are the most thrilling so it’s up to you as an illustrator to find your entry point into the solution.

Once a linear is approved, sometimes after some revisions, I blow it up to the size I’m going to work with and transfer it onto paper. I used to work in oils, but these days I usually block out a few areas in acrylic paint, sometimes with Frisket film, trying to keep it loose and get some texture in there with dry brush. Then I go onto inking lines, and then maybe a few spots of colour again in acrylic or coloured ink. Sometimes, especially for smaller spot illustrations, I’ll ink the lines by hand, then scan and add the colour digitally. At the end I’ll place the image up on my server and send the client a link to pick it up.

You’re best known for your vivid, organic illustrations with awesome textures. Was it a conscious decision to find a style you liked and stick to it, or did it simply end up that way? How has your style developed over time?

Thank-you! ‘Style’ is really just a constant evolution to find what feels right to you and will keep you excited and involved. I’m constantly looking at design and imagery that I can bring into the mix. Early in my career I started off being excited by ornate imagery and the detail in Art Nouveau work and the collaged textured work of artists like Kurt Schwitters and Robert Rauschenberg. I also really like work or furniture that has an aged worn feel to – I don’t tend to like work that feels too clean and glossy. I’m also really inspired by vintage illustrators and comic book artists and the design in vintage posters and ephemera. So, really with my work it’s finding a balance between detail, and graphic design while trying to keep a loose hand-rendered feel. Hopefully it’s a path that keep me excited throughout my career.

I find the larger the pot of work you’re inspired by the more unique your work will be and the more you’ll have figured out what feels like ‘you’. Over years and listening to other people’s feedback, you figure out where your talents lie and what aspects of your work resonate the most with others, and then hopefully you build on those and work on the things you’re a bit more unsure of. Also, a ‘style’ isn’t only figuring out what imagery gets you excited but also what compliments how your solve problems conceptually. As long as you stay interested in art and design, those inspirations will seep into your work and your work will evolve naturally into something you’re excited by and something that plays on your strengths.

As a young illustrator it’s really easy to get overwhelmed by the incredible amount and variety of work out there. It’s hard to know exactly which route you should go and also what’s going to earn you a living. You do need to be inspired by what’s going on around you but you don’t want a ‘style’ that’s already been done or that’ll be shortly outdated. As long as you figure out and keep working on your talents and keep evolving and stay interested, you’ll find out what works for you. Illustration is always a balance between the personal and the collective. You want to have work that feels unique to you and stands apart from the crowd, but it still has to communicate something to the masses. It’s an interesting situation to play with.

Most of your work is done with brushes, paints and inks. At a time when both design and illustration have gone almost entirely digital, how important is it to you to keep alive the older, more handcrafted traditions of the past?

I don’t reality feel like it’s my job to keep alive the older traditions, I just tend to be more excited by the techniques of older artists and try my best to come close to their talent. I also just enjoy working by hand and the spontaneity that comes with it. When I’m painting and inking I feel so much more physically involved with the work and I am able to better connect to what I’m doing and solve problems better. I also like the possibility of ‘happy accidents’ that can lead you off into an unexpected direction. That’s not to say I don’t admire digital work. There are a ton of illustrators, some who are close friends, who do the most amazing work all on the computer. For me, I just always revert to liking the feel of paint on paper.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Ha! Good question. I’d love to switch up with someone who has a totally different career and a different creative take. Since my job is such a solo occupation it would be interesting to see how a group of talented creative folk collaborate on something so big and multi-faceted like a film. Maybe I’d choose to investigate the partnership between the director Jim Jarmusch or Wong Kar Wai and the incredible cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Or, if I am brave enough to see what’s going on inside his head maybe my pick would be the director Alejandro Jodorowsky. He comes up with the most surreal and unique imagery in his films but has also collaborated with amazing creative people. In the original and unmade version of the film Dune he brought together such a super-team of creatives including Dan O’Bannon, Jean Giraud (Moebius), Salvador Dali, Orson Welles, and even music by Stockhausen and Pink Floyd. Thank God there’s finally a documentary coming out about this.

What design tools could you not live without?

I’ve been working reality long hours lately and since I’m tethered to my desk without much company I do like to have a good audio book on to keep me company, preferable a long-winded fantasy or vintage science fiction or horror book. I think it’s my hope that anything with fanatical imagery and descriptions will seep into my work. Also, I’m an avid podcast listener. Other than that even though I work mostly by hand I need Photoshop to scan my work and tweak it here and there. I also use it tons for moving around elements in the linear stage. The rest of my tools would just be ink, paint, the occasional piece of Frisket film a new crisp detail brush and a nice cup of tea.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in illustration?

It’s tough at first going out on your own. Remember that everyone has had really slow times. Just keep promoting yourself and doing good work that feels right to you and it’ll pay off. It’s a bit obvious, but don’t forget that you enjoy art & design. Sometimes when art becomes a daily routine it can seem like a chore. So try to remember to work on personal projects when you can, collaborate with friends, continue looking at things to keep getting excited and add to the vocabulary of your work. It’ll come through in the end.

On more thing: as an illustrator the fact that your job is so tied to your personal interests is both a blessing and a curse. It’s hard to separate your personal life from your professional life especially when you work from home. You want to put in long hours since you enjoy what you do, and sometimes you need to due to tight deadlines. So trying to maintain some semblance of a schedule is key. On the other end of things, you get to draw for a living and collaborate with interesting creative people, which is pretty amazing. You’re part of a long line of illustrators that have commented on and even changed society which is pretty incredible to be part of.

Thanks Jacqui!

Many thanks to Jacqui for taking some time to talk to One Minute With. I really enjoyed interviewing her, and hopefully you enjoyed reading it!

Why not check out Jacqui’s site, and follow her on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Mike Jones
May 8, 2012 6:44 pm 1 Comment

Hi Mike, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Love to. So, my name is Mike Jones, I am from the great city of Columbus, GA – Representing the South! It’s about 2 hours southwest of ATL, and we house one of the largest military bases in the country, Fort Benning. I am married with 4 kids and one dog (Hey Karen, Jake, Alexis, Elise, Carson & Chewy!) and I have been doing design for about 12 years now. I am the Senior Graphic Designer at OmegaFi, and I am the Co-Founder of Columbus Creative. I also do my freelance work under EightOne (my personal brand), and I write a blog called “Buckets of Barbecue“, because I love BBQ & food! I am not what you might think a typical designer would look like – I am like Draplin: a big ‘ol dude, used to play Professional Arena Football for the Columbus Lions. I love my Church & tend to put a lot of my faith in my work, but I get inspired every day by a lot of different folks on Dribbble. My favorite things to design are logos, military insignia, hand-drawn type & t-shirts. So that’s me: God, family, food & design!

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Mike Jones.

My typical day starts out with waking up, prayer, then getting the kids out the door for school (props to the wife for making that happen – I am not a morning person at all.) Then I get to work, get a cup of coffee and check Twitter, FB, email & Dribbble to see what’s going down. I then get to it, I turn on turntable.fm and get my Christian music jam on and see what’s on my to-do list. Then have some lunch – BBQ, if I can – and finish up the day, all while staying in the mix and keeping up with the goings-on of all the social media craziness. I leave here at about 5:25 to go pick up my kids from school – we get home, I cook dinner, hang out with the family, feed the baby, put all the kids to bed, watch TV and hang with my beautiful wife, check social media & Dribbble, play some Battlefield 3 on XBOX (Bucket826 is my Gamertag) with my buddies and then get to bed with the wife, unless I have freelance work that I need to work on – all ending around 2:30 AM. Then I do it all over again!

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I got into design early on. I would say I knew I wanted to do something with computers and drawing but did not know what ’til it was time to pick a major in college (Go Wolves! – University of West Georgia!) I have always been able to draw really well, and it was fun, so I figured I would find something that I would get paid to do that never seemed like I was working. That’s everybody’s goal, right?!

I will say that most of what I have learned about being a designer came from after college in the professional world. If I didn’t know how to do something I saw and liked, I would seek out the person that did it and pick their brain. It’s very rare that another designer won’t share a technique if your motives are humble and true. I basically picked the brains of designers that had rad skill sets. You are never to old to learn something new. So I still practice that today – if I see someone’s work on Dribbble, one of my most inspiring stops of my day, I will reach out to them and introduce myself and ask “How did you do that?”

I can’t specifically pinpoint an exact event, but after our first conference last year and the good response I received from that and from all the Dribbble love I have been getting, it just made me want to go create more and just strive to get better everyday. I love design. I want to bring great design to my town and make a name for design in Columbus!

How do you approach a new project? What’s your design process like?

My design process… Well, it starts out with asking a lot of questions to the client, then I get to researchin’ – I go to the web, look to see what competitors in the market look like and what they are doing, then I make notes on all that, get out the trusty ol’ Moleskine sketchbook (I have to agree with Von Glitschka that drawing needs to be the foundation of every design) and start sketching concepts – so loose, then more refined, and then I present my sketches to the client – some don’t do this, and I guess I would know not to do it when that kind of client arises, but for now it works. They may or may not see something that sparks their “Oh yeah, that’s the right direction” response, but they might. Usually, they do and I go from there. Then it’s refining my sketch, redrawing for the last time and scanning into Illustrator (Adobe love – I am the Manager our Columbus GA user group.) I vector it out, throw it up on Dribbble to get feedback for myself & for the client. Then, finalize and deliver – Good times!

You create awesomely detailed lettering with a slightly retro feel. Where do you get inspiration?

I get inspired by so many things & peeps. I could sit here and name off a ton but the desigers that inspire me most are Jeff Finley (I learned about doing hand-drawn lettering from him), Von Glitschka, Fraser Davidson, Todd Radom, Mackey Saturday, Emir Ayouni, Aaron Draplin, James White, Claire Coullon, Gert van Duinen, Nick Slater, Glenn Jones, Ryan Hamrick, Rogie, Francois Hoang, to just name a few. And all for different reasons! Dribbble is a great place to be inspired and inspire others – It’s part of my daily routine. Other things that inspire me: my kids, food (Oh yeah, food!) and, well, look around us – God is the best designer of them all, so his creation inspires me daily. The world around us – from our friends, to the label on the coffee cup, can bring you a spark of creativity! Keep your eyes open. Also I mentioned research in my previous answer – I love learning from what people used to do back in the day when computers where not used. Vintage has its place you can learn a lot and take a lot from those kinds of old designs and repurpose them.

You run a design conference, Columbus Creative. How is organising this different to your usual work? What new challenges does it bring?

It’s nuts, bro! I started this with my good buddy Daniel Severns last year. We are Columbus Creative, a Co-Op designing solutions to help non-profits get their design & web needs met. We also are the local Adobe Users Group and we started doing a conference last year to raise membership for our group and get our name out in the community. We had Jeff Finley of GoMedia and Von Glitschka of Glitschka Studios fly down and speak on design for the day. We got inspired to do this from 2 people: Francois Hoang who puts on Montreal Meets and Jeff Finley who puts on WMCFest. I thought, “Well, if these guys can do these rad events then why can’t we?” And we did just that. It’s a fun and tiring battle – You already saw what my daily routine is like, now add to that a ton more work during the Winter and Spring! There’s calling the vendors, coordinating funding through backers & sponsors, getting all the speakers to commit and all the swag designed and ordered. It’s not easy, especially with only the 2 of us doing all of it. But when it’s all said and done, we put on a rad event and bring something awesome and different to Columbus, GA! (I keep saying GA, because since Jeff is one of our speakers, people assume we are in OH, where he is from…)

We want to get big enough to where we can make it into a two-day event and then eventually into a weekend long conference. It will happen, just watch! This year we bumped it up a bit: We added 2 more speakers, and lunch! And next year, it will be our first 2 day-er with breakout hands on training sessions as well as film screenings by my buddy Spencer Howard who runs Lightscameralists.com. So we are def. ready to up our game and get it to the level of WMCFest and Montreal Meets. All is all it tiring but a heck of a lot of fun and I get to meet some of my favorite artists to boot! I will give this piece of money-saving advice (Karen, don’t read this part): When you are booking tickets make dang sure your speaker knows he need to be at the airport – no-shows are very expensive! So, to recap, it’s not that organising the event is different to what I normally do, it just adds to the amount of what I normally do. Watch for us to get on the design conference map really soon.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Fraser Davidson – His work is so freakin’ boss! And it would be interesting to see what life would be like as a normal-sized person, haha! I would love his skill set. Bro doesn’t even need a sketchbook! Plus, I would get to chill in the UK for a day and eat some good eats. But it would only be worth it if the skills stayed on the switchback, haha!

What design tools could you not live without?

Software would be Illustrator & Photoshop. Books: The Bible, Vector Basic Training and my Moleskine sketchbook. And BBQ!

So finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

You want to be a designer? While school isn’t the be-all-and-end-all of being a designer, it will ultimately rank you higher in helping place you in a job, but with that said, you could have a degree and your portfolio could suck, so yeah. Have a great portfolio, do the kind of work you want to get – If you want logos, do logos for everybody you know and make each one your baby. Sketch, sketch and sketch some more – Keep your sketchbook or scratch pad with you. You never know when or where inspiration will strike. Don’t ever hesitate to ask questions of someone who is better than you at something. And don’t forget to research, and know what you are trying to design for. And last but not least, love what you do! Be passionate about it. Don’t just get a paycheck, make waves: start a conference, do something that starts getting you noticed, or at least gets you out of your design comfort zone!

Thanks Mike!

Many thanks to Mike for sharing his thoughts with OMW. I genuinely had a lot of fun interviewing him, and I hope you love the interview as much I do!

Why not check out Mike’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… David Cran
May 3, 2012 7:16 pm 2 Comments

Hi David, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Thanks Conor, I am glad you like my work. I was born in Australia, too late to be a baby boomer, but too early to be of Generation X. I did however go to The Emily Carr School of Art And Design in Vancouver with Douglas Coupland who coined “Generation X”.

I have lived and worked in Australia, New Zealand, USA and Canada. Growing up in Australia in the 1960’s was like growing up in the 1930’s in North America. In Queensland they did not even have daylight savings time because they feared that their curtains would fade from the extra hour of daylight.

In the schools, we used desks that had actual ink wells in the corner and this was when I first started to draw with a fountain pen. When I got bored I would put the hair of the girl in the desk in front of me in the inkwell and watch the capillary action.

Once, as a boy, my Grandmother had a fortune teller read my tea leaves and she told me that I would work with computers when I grew up. This was very puzzling to me and I pictured myself dusting off my white lab coat and loading a reel of tape on to some giant machine.

My first exposure to computers came in 1978 when I graduated from Mercer Island High School in Seattle and a friend had an Apple II. At that same high school I was diagnosed as artistic by an incredible art teacher, Ron Adams who told me that some people actually got paid to make images. Later in art school I had a Commodore PET, then an Amiga and a short while later the first Macintosh.

My style has been labeled nostalgic, retro and vintage, but my influences simply come from the graphic images and pop art that I grew up with. I specialize in logos, branding, screen printing and illustration.

I am half Irish and half Scottish, so I like to drink, but I don’t like to pay for it.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of David Cran.

I get up early no matter what. I read the newspapers online from every town I have ever lived in. I go on Dribbble and Flickr. I read my e-mails, but I never answer them in the morning. I make myself an espresso on my 1963 Atomic stove top coffee maker.

Then If I am in Vancouver I walk one of the numerous trails without a cell phone. This is when I start planning how to draw the ideas that have come to me during the last night’s sleep. If I am in Seattle I visit Bruce Lee’s grave and then go canoeing in the arboretum.

I then return to my home studio and hit the computer. I listen to music all day.

My wife or my son Riley will occasionally stop by to critique my latest creation, Riley being a full captain with the Kerning Cops.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

Although I had always had a fascination with logos and branding, I went to art school to major in photography and film making. The darkroom was located next to the graphics department, but that area was considered off limits to any self respecting fine artist. Graphics was for geeks with sheets of Letraset, but I soon noticed that all the hottest girls in the school took typography.

One day while I was waiting for my film to develop I wandered downstairs into the printmaking department and I liked it so much that I never left. Screen printing then became my obsession, which would later lead me to create colour separation software called Screenprint Separator and then inkjet film positives. After art school I married one of the girls from typography and I needed to make money, so I founded one of Vancouver’s first t-shirt printing companies. We made everything by hand until I borrowed some funds from a client and bought my first Mac with a laser printer. Business took off and we were soon printing 80 percent of the shirts sold at Whistler and Blackcomb mountains.

Then my friends from art school who were by now working in Vancouver’s burgeoning film industry started asking me to design and print props. In those days there were no colour printers, so we screen printed everything like signs, newspapers and fake cereal boxes for use on TV shows and movies.

The demand for movie props drove me to draw my own fonts, because in the early days there were only about 10 fonts for the computer, 3 of them were “clown heavy”, “barf bold” and “Helvetica”. Soon I was designing fake logos for television episodes of Wiseguy and 21 Jumpstreet where I met a wonderful guy named Johnny (Depp).

This led me to doing real logos and business boomed. Soon I bought one of the first colour computers, the Macintosh II with a blazing 12 megahertz and a massive 40 megabyte hard drive. I used to load that beast into my car and drive it home every night so I could continue working.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

That is a tricky question. Sometimes an idea comes quickly from out of the ether. Sometimes I have to think for a week. I always thought that as I got older, the good ideas would be harder to find, but this has not turned out to be the case.

I rarely look at other logos for inspiration. Digital photography has proven useful for Illustration. When I draw in vector, I often start from a blank page and start experimenting until I have something interesting.
Then I make numerous corrections until it looks right. I listen to my customer. I think about of my customer’s customer.

You have to be willing to scrap some work no matter how much time it took.

Your son, Riley, is also a graphic designer, and a fantastic one at that. How important was it, to you, to pass on the torch to the new generation? Do you ever hope/fear that he will one day surpass you?

I raised Riley to be an artist. Music was a big part of that. Its something that we have in common in a huge way. He can really play the guitar and I thought that he might become a professional musician. Now, he has entered the graphics world. I could not be more proud of his work and great success. Certainly the Lost Type Co-op has become a web phenomenon.

He has already surpassed me in many ways, and that is why I had a son in the first place.

I came from a family of accountants, writers, lawyers and soldiers so I am happy to see Riley continue with my graphic heritage.When I told my Dad that I was going to art school, he said in his heavy Australian accent “Is there any dancing at this school, son?”

You’ve had a long and illustrious career spanning over 30 years. Having seen dozens of trends come and go, and new technologies change the industry, where do you see the design industry going in the next, say, 5 or 10 years?

For the first decade I worked on a computer that was not even hooked up to the internet. My first scanner was black and white. My first copy of Photoshop was given to me by Adobe on a floppy disk. We used to add texture by taping prints from the laser printer to the road outside the studio and waiting until after rush hour to retrieve them.

During all of that, I thought, “Wow, this is great!” I would wish for a few special tool additions to Illustrator, but I really could not imagine the changes that we see now.

The way we can send what we make over the net has created a whole new community that never existed before. This connection will continue to strengthen graphic design as a career – we can now work globally.

I feel that Illustrator and Photoshop have about all the features that anyone would need. The next big drive should be a massive change to how user friendly graphics software is. I can’t imagine learning Illustrator and Photoshop from scratch today. It might be easier to learn the operations manual of a Trident submarine.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I would be a designer at Guigario or Carrozzeria Ghia SpA. I have a passion for vintage cars and most weekends you can find me covered in grease with a small gash on my forehead.

What design tools could you not live without?

Well, I tried running Photoshop on an abacus once with no results, so I could not carry on without a Mac.

Digital camera, Dribbble and Flickr. Chardonnay. My assistant mouse-riding lovebird named Apple.

Oxygen.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

This life is not for idle types or wimps.

Graphic design can be cruel.

Work your ass off, but be polite, even when you are tired and crabby.

Don’t build a giant ego.

Don’t copy other designer’s work – they will find you.

Never answer e-mails first thing in the Morning (think about it first).

Don’t use Helvetica.

Above all, consider yourself lucky to have this job, keep your sense of humour and don’t sit for long periods.

Stay out of Portland.

Thanks David!

Thanks a million to David for chatting to OneMinuteWith! I loved talking with him, and hopefully you enjoy his answers as much as me!

Why not check out David’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Visual Idiot
April 30, 2012 8:27 pm 3 Comments

Hi Idiot, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey, Conor! I’m your usual web designer/developer hybrid, all self-taught. I guess I like to mess around on the Internet more than most, though. By day, I like to work on my blog and various other side projects (Gradients, Motherfucker, and Spiffing CSS, to name a few), and by night, I like to do the same.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

Honestly, I never really got into design, but I do remember being in secondary school, choosing the subjects for the upcoming GCSEs (exams), and my art teacher telling me “you’re not an artist, and you’ll never be an artist; you can’t draw. Don’t take my class.” I never did take his class, but it did give me a goal. Since that day, I’ve always tried to make it as an artist of sorts.

I got in to web design by accidentally viewing the source of a site one day, and feeling like a CSI:Miami hacker; it intrigued me. I just spent more and more time reading magazines, books, blogs, and just playing about.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your design process like?

Depends on what the project is, I guess. If it’s an article for my blog, I just write the idea down on this little whiteboard I’ve got, and when I’ve got time, I’ll just write it up, design it, and code it. Just like that, all in one mad dash. No browser-testing, no fancy IA work, nothin’. Actually, all of my personal projects are like that. It’s more fun.

If it’s a client project, I start by taking two aspirins (since it’s going to be a headache), and have a sketch or two, then I just dive into Photoshop and go nuts. I’ll probably come up with about 5 or 6 different concepts before runnin’ my favourites back to the client. If they’re happy (hah!), then it’s right into Espresso we go to code that bad boy right up. Then I need those aspirins again, because I actually try to browser-test.

With your name, your blog, your Twitter feed and your self-initiated projects, you seem to maintain a high level of humour in your online persona. How important is it, do you feel, to be a character in this industry, rather than just another HTML/CSS bot?

So, so important. As long as you can confidently convey your message to other people, and be proud with the name that’s in that copyright line of yours, it’s all good.

Where do you see your career in 5, 10 years? Do you still hope to be making viral sites and popping aspirins, or do you want to have moved on to something bigger/better/smaller/worse?

Hopefully, I’ll be working on my startup. Not sure what it is yet, but it’ll change the future of social B2B communication. I’ll never stop making my little sites, though. It’s just too fun.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Oh, it’d have to be the Oatmeal, if only for the power to illustrate velociraptor comics.

What do you do in your free time? If you have any, that is, considering how many websites you seem to pop out…

I’m an avid lover of many things: my guitars (and a whole host of other instruments — I love music), my dog, Molly (she’s even at the bottom of my Hire Me page), and martial arts (I do Jiu-Jitsu, which means I end up with a broken rib every Thursday).

What design tools could you not live without?

Software: Photoshop, Espresso, Google Chrome, Gradient.app, Adium, Reeder, iA Writer, Wallet.app, and probably a whole load more

Hardware: Anything Apple make. I’m a sucker for the aluminium.

Books: nothing in particular, but my library card is pretty worn out, so I’d say that.

Websites: Twitter, Forrst, Dribbble, and anything in my RSS (which is so long, it’d take me an hour or two just to start the list).

Notepads: UI Stencils, and good ol’ plain white paper. No fancy moleskines for me.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Don’t give up, and keep involved with the community. We’re a nice bunch of folks, apparently.

Thanks Idiot!

Thanks so much to Visual Idiot for giving us an insight into his world! I loved talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Visual Idiot’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Sean McCabe
April 26, 2012 7:35 pm 3 Comments

Hi Sean, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

Hey! I’m Sean: a lettering artist, type designer, and interface crafter hailing from San Antonio, Texas. I run Bold Perspective with my partner and co-founder, Brian Purkiss. We’re a design firm primarily focused on web design and branding. During the day, I’m handling design and the business side of things while Brian codes up a storm as our developer, bringing our designs to life.

You may know me as “seanwes”. Little-known fact: Wesley is my middle name, hence the handle. Lettering is something I’ve always been very fond of, and while it’s something I’ve done since middle school, I’ve only recently in the past couple of years really pursued it with a vigor.

I’m not sure if I’ve determined the catalyst, but if I had to pinpoint an event, I’d say it was meeting Kyle Steed for the first time in 2010. Kyle is one of the most genuine and humble people you’ll ever meet. I had the privilege of talking with him over coffee where I experienced the contagiousness of his passion. His enthusiasm for doing what he loved was very inspiring. He advocated a disregard for external validation and instead promoted a simple dedication to creating for it’s own sake and recognizing inherent value irrespective of peer approval. I’ll always appreciate the time he took out of his life to invest in mine.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Sean McCabe.

I’ll be honest, I usually check my email, Twitter and Instagram on my phone from bed before my feet even hit the floor. A typical day begins with taking my wife to work at the coffee shop in the morning. It works out very well for me because I have a convenient source of unlimited espresso—something I take daily advantage of.

Work at Bold Perspective typically starts at 8am. We’re pretty casual in the first half hour, catching up on our Twitter feed, maybe doing some light reading as we wake up. Client emails are taken care of first, and then we get to the fun stuff.

We really get into our work and usually eat lunch at our desks without stopping. While we work hard, we offset it with regular mid-afternoon Xbox breaks. It’s times like these when working for yourself is definitely a blast! We love what we do, and we always get the work done, so we’re able to be fairly flexible outside of that. Some days we may sleep in an extra hour and others we’ll stay to work a bit later in the evenings. Recently, we’ve instated what we like to call “Bold Perspective Friday” where we take a break from client work and focus on growing our business and improving some of our Labs products like wpLifeGuard.

We’ll typically call it a day around 6pm, which usually makes for a 10-hour day. Compared to a typical day job, we’ve usually put in about 40 hours by Thursday, and that’s what allows us to have Fridays as “extra” time to invest in growing our company.

While lettering is most of what I share online, it’s actually something I do almost entirely on nights and weekends. I’ll sit down to a delicious home-cooked meal after work, made by my wonderful wife, and we’ll watch a tv show or two. After that, my time is pretty much consumed by lettering until midnight or 1am. If I’m not working on a commissioned piece, I’m working on a personal piece. I always make an effort to create, no matter what.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

My dad introduced me to computers at a very young age. I was fascinated by technology. I never was very into videos games as a kid. I was more interested in making things and learning how things worked. I knew I wanted to do something in the technology industry, but wasn’t sure what. My dad taught me some programming languages, I knew enough about computers that I started up an IT business in high school and was repairing computer full time for a number of years, but none of what I was doing felt like THE thing.

I freelanced web design in high school alongside my computer repair business. I have always been very creative, but at the same time very logical and meticulous. Design fit this niche for me so perfectly, and I really began to enjoy my freelance work as a web designer. Eventually it got the the point where I was getting more work than I could handle. I saw this as an opportunity to expand. I called up my friend, Brian, and two months later we took the leap into full time web design with Bold Perspective.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I have a lot to say on process and I feel that it would probably be best to point to a couple of places I’ve written on the topic for those want to go more into depth.

With lettering, it’s a question I was getting asked more times than I could handle. It lead to me writing the Learn page on my website. It goes over my typical process for a lettering piece and answers several general questions about getting into lettering.

For design, I wrote Establishing a Process (Pt3 of the Enabling Successful Projects series). It goes over everything from the benefits of displaying a process to setting client expectations and breaking down your process into steps that are digestible and easy to comprehend.

You’re certainly known in the design industry for your hand lettering – Do you find that it’s useful to have a niche, rather than being a jack-of-all-trades? Did you approach design with that aim, or did it naturally evolve?

This is a great question. When it comes to design, I tend to err more on the side of letting the content dictate the design rather than imposing my own style (though I see either as being very valid approaches). With lettering though, I think I’ve naturally come to develop my own style and voice. I think it’s helpful to have a core element that is distinctly your own, but still maintain a variety within your work.

It’s worth noting that you will always play your best hits. So make sure you are displaying the type of work that you want to continue making on your portfolio. When you have variety in your work, you’ll be less likely to get sick of getting asked to recreate one particular style over and over.

Not only do you design awesome stuff, but you also write about design, release fonts, and much more – How important is it, do you feel, to contribute back to the industry that fostered you?

I think it’s extremely important! I am completely self taught myself, and without the generosity of this fantastic community, it would have been very difficult to glean a education. The open and helpful nature of the design community is what makes it so great. The selflessness of those who share their knowledge is invaluable for those of us who are wanting to learn real, relevant skills without racking up huge student loans.

I think a formal education can be a great thing, but it’s certainly not a prerequisite. If you don’t learn HOW to learn in school, you’ve learned nothing. While schools can teach many fundamentals, I’ve found that there are many critical gaps that are left unfilled. It’s instances like these where it is crucial that you proactively seek to further your own education. Resources like Design Professionalism and Method & Craft are literal gold mines with a wealth of knowledge that is overwhelmingly helpful.

It is for this reason that I share my process, and for this reason that I write on the topic of design. If what I share is able to help someone else succeed in this industry, I consider it an honor. It really is the least I can do, and I will happily spend the rest of my career doing my best to give back.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

I would have to say it would be the late Doyald Young. The man had such a love and devotion for his craft. I really do love the thought of loving what I do as much as he did at his age. The understanding he surely gained in his many years of experience would no doubt be of incredible insight.

What design tools could you not live without?

A full set of Microns and a trusty 2B pencil. While I try, I’m certainly far from perfect, so a good eraser is equally as important! When it comes to computers, I use Photoshop and Illustrator quite heavily. I would love to see Photoshop get a viable competitor, but it certainly pulls its own weight. I’m a keyboard shortcut fanatic, so if you look over while I’m designing in Photoshop, it may look like I’m typing an essay.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Ok you ready for this one? Your portfolio isn’t big enough. I’m serious. Coming into this industry as a new design can be very daunting. Very quickly you’ll be aware of the front runners—those with great success and large followings—and it’s very easy to be discouraged. It’s tempting to look for the fastest and easiest way to get some recognition. Want to know the secret? There is no fast way. Everyone you see who you think has “made it”, has poured blood, sweat, and tears into what they do. They’ve spent many years consistently dedicating themselves to their craft in order to get where you see them now. (By the way, there’s really no such thing as having “made it”. I wrote about it in Arrival is a Fictitious State)

If there’s one piece of advice I’d like to leave you, it’s this: Do good work and continue to do good work. Only with a large portfolio and a vast amount of work will you be able to discover your own unique voice, and your individual style. Only with persistence, will you improve, and only with dedication will you gain recognition.

Thanks Sean!

Thanks a million to Sean for talking to OMW! I really enjoyed talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Sean’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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One Minute With… Neil Tasker
April 23, 2012 7:43 pm 1 Comment

Hi Neil, thanks for taking time to chat with One Minute With. Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work.

First off, thank you for interviewing me! I am a 22 year old letterer and designer living in Michigan. I usually do custom lettering and sometimes a tad bit of illustration to mix in.

Walk us through a typical day in the life of Neil Tasker.

Nothing too special, Usually wake up around 9am and check out emails/respond and eat breakfast. Usually from there I begin to work on projects, or continue them from the night before. I play a lot of tennis, and usually break from working during the day and walk down the street to where the courts are conveniently located. It is really refreshing to exercise and come back to what you were working on. I usually work till 11-12 and then call it quits for the night.

How did you get into design? Was there a defining point in your career, and if so, how did it shape you as a designer?

I actually don’t have that typical story of “I have been coloring since I could hold a crayon.” I never planned on being a graphic artist or artist in any sort. I had went off to college in South Carolina to play tennis and to major in Spanish, and that wasn’t working out, so moving back to Michigan, I had to register late for classes at college aka pretty much every class was full. Scrolling through the list I saw graphic design, and under that the course was typography. I had no clue what that even was, but decided to take it as a filler, and that first day of class, I left smiling, thinking “people actually get to do this stuff?! and from on there, I have loved every aspect of typography.

How do you approach a new project? What’s your creative process like?

I’ll get a brief from a client and we discuss what they like/dislike and from there I begin sketching for hours, trying different letter forms, and go back in forth with the client through sketches, until they love what they see. From there it is scanned into illustrator and outlined with the pen tool, and usually hours of tweaking goes on in that stage. Then you have the final!

You are best-known in the design community for your awesome lettering – Did you go into the industry hoping to carve out that niche for yourself, or did it just evolve? How important is it, do you feel, to have a niche in an industry so full of awesome designers?

I knew I had wanted to do lettering from the get go after that typography class and I had hoped to carve out that niche for sure. I am still trying to find my own style and always trying to push to better myself. I think it is really important for you to find an area of design that you absolutely love doing. You will always be willing/enjoy putting in the hard work and practice. Those two things are a great recipe for really standing out amongst the crowd in any situation.

Your lettering is distinctly retro, with beautiful swashes and perfect curves – Where do you get inspiration?

I look at a lot of old type specimen, from books to anywhere when traveling and also on the internet. There is a ton of old lettering on Jeremy Pruitt’s Pinterest, from patches, signs, papers etc. It is the most beautiful stuff I have seen. I also love looking at Dribbble and see all the beautiful things everyone is making.

If, in some Freaky Friday-like situation, you could live the life of another designer, illustrator or creative, for a day, who would it be, and why?

Claire Coullon: I love watching her post pictures of her process online to the final versions, and she is the nicest girl. She will take the time on hundreds of Dribbble shots to give really helpful feedback and is always there to help/want you to succeed.

What design tools could you not live without?

Pencil and paper for sure, and Illustrator. A book called Scripts by Louise Fili is also one of my favorites, it has lettering from different countries, and a lot of really helpful knowledge in it.

And finally, what tips would you give to anybody who is looking to get started in design?

Really look and try different areas of design to see what you really have a passion for. When you are doing something you love, you are willing to put in whatever it takes, and your hard work will meet many opportunities!

Thanks Neil!

Thanks a million to Neil for sharing his thoughts! I really enjoyed talking to him, and found his answers really interesting!

Why not check out Neil’s site, and follow him on Dribbble and Twitter?

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