Q. Can you tell me about Clear:Left, the company you are the Managing Director for and what you do for them?

A. Clearleft are a little like an architecture company for the web. As well as designing how the site will look, we also work out the strategy, plan where everything is going to go and how each interaction is going to work. We do this though site maps, wireframes and prototypes, the blueprints and scale models of our profession.

We’re basically user centred designers so we build products that focus on the needs of the user. This may seem obvious but so few companies actually do this. Instead they build their sites based on what they think people want, or according to their own personal preferences and biases.

Q.You’ve spoken at a variety of conferences. Which was the first place you were able to speak, and what has your experiences of speaking at conferences been like?

A.The first conference I spoke at was actually SXSW, one of the biggest events in the calendar. It was an event that I really wanted to attend and you got in for free if you spoke, so I was basically trying to save a bit of money. I put my name down to speak and to my surprise got picked. Getting up in front of a room full of your peers for the first time was absolutely terrifying. However I managed to get people laughing and by the end of it was really enjoying myself. I think having a quaint English accent helped. I could have said anything and they would have though I was charming and intelligent.

Q.You worked on two books, both were co-authored, can you tell me about the experiences you had in working on CSS Mastery, and Blog Design Solutions?

A.Writing a chapter for a book like Blog Design Solutions was easy and it lulled me into a false sense of security. With CSS Mastery I wrote the majority of the book, excluding the two case study chapters at the end. That was really hard work. Writing the first draft was OK but then I had to work on a second and third draft which took almost as long. Then there was tech editing, copy editing, image creation, source file creation and a whole bunch of other stuff. So the whole thing took about 5 months flat out work.

Q.You constantly write about web development and standards on your blog, AndyBudd.com, what got you interested in web development and web standards?

A.Well, I used to write a lot about standards a few years ago. Back then most developers were writing crappy table based code and only a handful of people cared about web standards. So people needed to write about the benefits to get the word out. During that time the language was immature and there was still a lot of discovery and innovation going on. Each week a new technique or browser bug would be discovered. These days web standards have become more widely adopted and the technology has matured so there is much less need to shout about it from the rooftops. In fact that’s the whole point of standards. Once they are a standard, people stop caring about them and they just slip into the background.

These days I’m much more interested in usability and user experience design. However things are finally starting to hot up again with the gradual adoption of CSS3 and HTML5.

Q.Of course a follow up to the previous question is, what do you think about blogging and how has it impacted or effected your life?

A.I was extreme lucky to be in the right place at the right time so my blog became the catalyst for my book, my public speaking and the company I run. Without that initial seed who knows what I’d be doing or where I’d be working today (you want fries with that?)

Q.What was it like to write CSS Mastery, and has the book been the type of success that you wanted it to be?

A.Writing CSS Mastery was a massive pain in the butt and after finishing it I said I’d never write another book again. That being said, the book was a huge success and something I’m very proud of. I wrote the book to help people jump over the learning curve I went through and profit from my mistakes. So I’m really pleased when I meet people who say the book has helped them out in some small way.

Q.Can you explain a little about Silverback, what it is, and who it is for as well as your involvement in its creation?

A.Silverback is a lightweight application for usability testing on the Mac. We do a lot of usability testing at Clearleft and always had to use a video camera to record the sessions which was a real pain. We tried a few software solutions but they were all a bit clunkey and difficult to use, so we ended up building our own. We basically realised that the average desktop or laptop came with all the hardware you needed to make a portable usability lab. Namely a browser for running the test on, a video camera for capturing the users reactions and a microphone to record what they had to say. So Silverback was born.

Q.You’ve also been one of the driving forces behind dConstruct, a designing the social web conference in the UK. Can you tell me a bit about the event, your experiences with it, and how it got started?

A.At the time there were no other web design events in the UK so we kept having to fly over to the States to attend any decent conferences. We always ended up having a great time, meeting loads of useful contacts and learning a lot, so we wanted to bring some of that back. That’s essentially how dConstruct was born.

Interestingly we’re doing exactly the same thing with our new conference, UX London. All the good UX events are in the states and it costs a lot of time and money to go. So we wanted to bring all these great speakers over to Europe and give people here a chance to benefit from their knowledge and experience.

Q.What are some of your favorite books, ones that you’ve enjoyed and would recommend others read?

A.I assume you’re meaning web design books and not Where’s Waldo? I think the books the inspired me most were Jeff Veen’s “The Art and Science of Web Design” and Jakob Neilsen’s “Designing Web Usability“. Both are well out of date now, but still worth a read. More modern books include “Don’t Make Me Think“, “Information Architecture for the World Wide Web” and “Web Redesign: Workflow that Works“.

Q. I love your main home landing page on Snook.ca. It says, “I am a father husband developer designer writer speaker entrepreneur I am Jonathan Snook”. For those that don’t know you, and don’t think your statement is enough of a glimpse inside what makes you tick, can you tell us a bit more about yourself, and maybe a bit on why you think those words define you?

A. My splash page was actually inspired by Bryan Veloso’s personal site , which I thought was a great approach. I wanted to have something simple that fed people into the main site and that described me better than just “developer”.

Q.Living in Ottawa, Ontario Canada, you live far from what some would consider the more popular areas of web development and design, can you tell me what it is like being a web developer there and has it effected your business at all?

A.Any city is likely to have a web development community of some size, it just might be a little harder to find. As it turns out, Ottawa has a great community of people including some higher profile folks like the people that run Shopify who are heavily involved in the Ruby community, and Derek Featherstone who is well known for his accessibility work.

There’s plenty of business here but it doesn’t sway my business one way or the other. I have clients from around the world and right here in the city, which has given me a great deal of flexibility.

Q.I would love to know more about your other projects. I am a big fan of Snook.ca/Jonathan, but you also have some other things on the go. What are WithCake.com and Haylia?

A.With Cake was originally a blog site where I talked of my development with CakePHP but it made more sense to have that stuff within Snook.ca. In its place, I put up a free job site for CakePHP developers and companies looking for developers. It’s a simple site to help the community that has helped me.

Haylia is a blogging site specifically targeted to the adoption community. I’ve, unfortunately, let the site lay dormant instead of finishing off the functionality and putting it live. This is on my to-do list for this year and would like to finally open the doors on a project that means a lot to me, having two adopted children myself.

Q.You also have partnered up with some other talented designers and developers to create Sidebar Creative. Can you tell me about the other members of the group and how that came about?

A.Sidebar Creative was an idea that came about a couple years ago between Dan Rubin and Bryan Veloso and then extended to myself and Steve Smith. The initial idea was to establish a collective that could come together to work on larger client projects. In the end, though, we’ve discovered the desire to work on our own projects and have been putting together sites ever since. We’ve also recently taken to putting on a semi-regular traveling workshop. Our first one was in DC last fall and we’re looking to do a 2 or 3 in 2009.

Q.You are one of the few developers that also has a flair for design. Usually, people can do one or the other. Do you have any idea why you are able to do both effectively, and do you enjoy writing advanced code more than designing an interface?

A.I’m always happy to hear people like the design work I do. For me, design is about solving problems and, in that sense, is much the same as coding. I have days where I enjoy designing more than coding and vice versa. It’s one of the reasons I really enjoy freelancing, as it has given me the flexibility to do both.

I’ve also tried to learn from designers I admire, picking up plenty of inspiration from those in the community and learning from people who get it right (whether they’re in web design or not).

Q.You have written for some popular websites, and blogs, including Digital Web Magazine and Sitepoint. Can you tell me about how you were able to get your writing on those prominent sites?

A.As it turns out, it’s relatively easy. Magazines (and book publishers) are hungry for content. If you’ve got a decent topic, get in contact with them. You’ll be surprised at how easy it is.

Q.You have co-authored two books, Accelerated DOM Scripting with Ajax, APIs and Libraries as well as The Art and Science of CSS. What were your experiences like in working on both of those projects? Any interesting or funny stories stick out in your mind?

A.Writing verbosely is hard for me and that’s not a good thing when you’re trying to write 300 pages worth of content. I also heavily underestimated the level of research and testing that would be involved. It’s one thing to build something and do some testing in all browsers to make sure it works. It’s another thing to have to write about the nuance of each step and know that you can prove every word of it. Even then, you’re bound to get something wrong.

With that said, I still have the desire to write again. There’s a sense of pride that comes from having your name on the cover of a book sitting on your bookshelf.

Q.You have also made the conference circuit, having spoken at a variety of events all over the world, including Web Directions North, Future of Web Design, SXSW, @media, and more. Which has been your favorite, and are you planning on continuing to speak and attend such events?

A.It’s hard to pick out a specific event and say it was my favourite. Any time I get a chance to attend an event, it’s a good time. I do wish to continue speaking and attending but am being selective in how often I speak. I’ve already got two events lined up including the Atlantic Internet Marketing Conference in April and An Event Apart in December — plus we’ll have the Sidebar Workshops.

Q.You’ve recently said that you don’t want to be a manager and have employees because of a lack of confidence in your skills in that respect. I have to admit that your admission of that surprised me. It would seem then that you would do better working for a company and be managed then, but earlier in the post, you talk about how you were going to sign up with a company, and realized that you have what you want from your career, so will you always be a one-man company working for yourself?

A.It’s a bit of a conundrum, really. Yes, I’d probably do well working for a company and being managed. I had been doing well in that regards up until I decided to go freelance. Freelance, for me, is about freedom and that’s not something you can easily get when you work for somebody else.

Will I always be a one-man show? Who knows. Maybe things will change in the years to come and maybe they won’t. But as long as I’m happy and I’m still able to feed the family and provide a future for them, I can’t complain.

Q.I have a feeling people interested in balancing design and development skills could learn a fair deal from you. Have you thought about taking time off freelancing to set up a course to teach your skills to others?

A.Currently, I share what I know through speaking, workshops, writing and, of course, the blog. I’d like to break out into doing more screencasts and even podcasting. I’ve been really impressed with Ryan Irelan’s screencasts and have been thinking of doing something similar. Like everything else, it’s a matter of not having enough time in a day.

Q.Book or E-book? You seem to be thinking about both, and while we all know in a perfect world, you would do both, you might only end up with enough time to work on one or the other. Which is more likely to be worked on in 2009 and what would it or they be about?

A.Interestingly enough, both may actually happen in 2009. I’ve put together an outline for a publisher to do another book on JavaScript but it’s still in preliminary stages, so I’m not sure if it’s going anywhere.

I’ve started writing the e-book and I hope I can maintain the momentum to get something published sooner rather than later. I’ve nearly completed the outline, although I suspect it’ll evolve as I build out the entire book. I’ve also begun writing the first chapter. Things are looking good right now but I know that I may ultimately lose interest along the way. We’ll just have to see what happens!

Q.What are some of your favorite books, ones that you’ve enjoyed and would recommend others read?

A.I actually don’t do much book reading, except to review technical books. I’ve always been the kind of person who learns more from doing. So, no recommendations, sorry!

Q. SP: Firstly, can you tell us a bit about yourself? How long have you been freelancing for now? And how many jobs have you had in that time? Did you freelance when you had a full-time job, or have you just started since you became unemployed? Also, what qualifications and skills do you have?

A. Well, I have a traditional graphic design background; followed the “proper path” and got a degree at Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. However, during my first stint in the industry, I was more or less hurled in to the big, wide world of Web. I have since accumulated 6+ years of experience, working with various Web development companies, as well as taking on a couple of in-house positions. I’ve worked on numerous client projects ranging from little brochure-ware sites to mega-budget labyrinths. And in terms of roles, I’ve done the lot — from multi-tasker to team leader, cutter-upperer to creative lead. I even dabbled in programming.

Like many others, I began to feel disillusioned, disheartened and dispensable in the work place. After much soul searching, I decided that I have enough experience under my belt to give contracting a go. Armed with a retrenchment package and a contract gig with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, I left the security of full-time employment. That was in May 2002.

I’ve kept busy the last few months, but I have yet to see the monetary rewards.

I didn’t freelance before leaving full-time employment. I prepared for the challenge by doing a short course in small business, speaking to friends who’d taken similar paths, consulting recruitment agencies, and just letting friends within the industry know of my intentions.

Q.SP: Who is your typical client at the moment? What kinds of sites have they asked you to develop?

A.I haven’t been in this long enough to have a “typical client”. However, most of the people who enquire about my services are small business owners who are after more than the simple template solutions typically offered to small budget clients. They don’t necessarily require a big, technically advanced site, just a smart one that’s effective.

Q.SP: How have you found the work you’ve had to date — has most of it come from completely new clients, or companies you’ve worked for previously? Did you have a good portfolio before you began, and has this helped you win new jobs?

A.So far, all my enquiries have been through word of mouth. They are new clients. I don’t see myself as competing for the same market as my previous employers.

Without a doubt, having an extensive folio helps. I also find having an online version as well as a portable printed version useful. Potential clients generally want to have an overall feel of your style, and they gain confidence in you if they know you’ve tackled a good range of work.

Q.SP: How do you find new clients that are interested in your services? Through recruitment firms? Freelancing sites like eLance? Friends? Cold calling? And how has the economy affected your ability to drum up new business?

A.In all honesty, I haven’t really got around to promoting my services, although I have a pretty clear idea of who I should target and how I should go about it. I plan to do a combination of things. I expect to make some cold calls, advertise my services through marketing materials, and do a few proposals. I’m not in a position to tell you which is more effective, but I suspect that different approaches for different markets will be necessary.

I’ve registered with a couple of recruitment agencies, but I can’t rely on them to get me work, especially in the current environment.

I’ve never bid for a project on eLance. The system seems to benefit the client more than the service provider. It looks as if it’s a very competitive arena. You’re asked to invest a lot of time and effort as well as fork out a substantial membership fee, and at the end of the day, you may not get the job. For me, it just doesn’t seem worthwhile.

My friends and family had been an invaluable asset. They’ve nudged projects my way and are helping to spread the word.

In terms of getting work in general, I find that I have to be more resourceful and intentionally keep my options broad… not limit my services to just Websites. Offering print work, logo design, banner ads, invitations and illustrations will only increase my chances of landing a project.

Q.SP: Considering the skills you have, which ones do you consider to be the biggest asset for securing clients?

A.My industry experience is definitely my biggest asset. I am able to consult and offer solutions because I’ve learnt the dos and don’ts through my previous work. I was also able to gain extensive client liaising, presentation, and project management skills. Every little bit helps!

Q.SP: Do you freelance internationally? How do you compete with international freelancers and the availability of abundant talent often times willing to work for a fraction of the cost that you were used to seeing while you worked for a company?

A.You don’t have to compete internationally to have to confront issues in regards to costs. And pricing is never an easy question to answer because it’s all rather subjective. Personally, I set my rates based on what I know I’m worth to an agency, and how much my target market is paying for similar services. It’s not necessarily a disadvantage to be a little more expensive than your competitors, as long as you can justify that the additional cost covers services and benefits that your competitors may not be offering, for example consultation time, research or maintenance.

I’ve adopted a process whereby I ask the client what their budget range is, understand their requirements, and then offer them a solution I can deliver that falls within that range.

I guess it also helps to remember that some jobs just aren’t worth it. For example, are you really willing to spend a full week developing a site and be paid only slightly more than a KFC family meal deal?

Q.SP: How many more or less hours are you working on a daily/weekly basis compared to your old job?

A.Well, some weeks I’m really slack and may only put in 3-4 days of work. Other weeks I may only get 3-5 hours sleep for a few consecutive days. But then you have to understand that the time I spend is rarely on paid work. Mostly I’m getting my act together, sending out applications, putting together a folio, contacting people… things like that.

I think it comes down to discipline. I’m working to the deadlines I set for myself. When you work alone, you have to provide your own motivation. I also find that by keeping productive, I am able to stay optimistic.

It’s very easy to loose self-confidence because the work isn’t coming in. The temptation to sleep in ’til noon and wake up only to stare blankly at the tv with its mesmerising day-time entertainment is greater than you’ll ever imagine. If you don’t have the strength to snap out of it, working from home is probably not for you.

Q.SP: Do you have a social life? How do you go about managing the demands of life, work and play?

A.Yes, I’m proud to say I do have a social life. Although I’m far more budget-conscious now and have to resort to cheaper forms of entertainment, such as a video night in instead of a night out at the movies, or sponge off my friends for a free meal at their place instead of eating out. Set your priorities: if something is important to you, you’ll find a way to fit it in.

Q.SP: Do you make as much money now as you did in your old job? If not, what percentage of your income are you able to generate from freelancing?

A.No, I most definitely do not earn the kind of money I did in my previous job! At the moment, I’m spending more than I’m earning and that’s the harsh truth.

Q.SP: Do you make a living from what you’re doing now, or do you supplement your freelancing income with other work?

A.Taking on casual work was always part of my plan. I think it’s smart to because it means you’ll eat even when you’re struggling to get a project. It also doesn’t put you in that desperate place I mentioned where you will take that job that pays little more than the price of a KFC family meal deal.

Q.SP: Are you planning to make freelancing your sole source of income? In what sort of timeframe are you hoping to achieve that?

A.My ideal working scenario is to secure a part-time design position (2-3 days a week) with a company and freelance during the spare days. I’ll re-evaluate my situation in another 3 months, but I’d like to give myself a year before I decide whether it’s a fruitless endeavour or something worth pursuing long term.

Q.SP: Do you think you can continue working as a freelancer and generate enough income so that you never worry about finding another regular job?

A.I believe it’s achievable. However, I’m doing this to find out whether I have what it takes and whether it is everything I imagined it would be. At this point in time, it’s still the goal I’m aiming for.

Q.SP: How do you manage the business end of things — keep your books, figure out taxes/deductions, etc?

A.As mentioned earlier, I did a short course in small business. I also consulted an accountant and picked her brains to bits. I told her that she’ll be responsible for my taxes, and asked her how she wants me to keep my records. She’s absolutely fantastic, very obliging, never condescending.

Q.SP: Have you found that freelancing has required you to become interested in areas you wouldn’t have cared about, or didn’t have to worry about, before? For instance, are you now interested in marketing, accounting, and client management, seeing as your livelihood is at stake, and the responsibility for your success rests wholly and solely with you?

A.Yes. Freelancing is very much running your own business. I’m fortunate I guess. Fortunately, marketing, client and project management aren’t far removed from what I did on a day to day basis in a full time position. Accounting really throws me, though. I just don’t have the head for it. In my mind, professional assistance is worth every cent when it comes to this area.

Q.SP: How much do you rely on the advice of other professionals? When looking for advice do you mainly use the Internet, or do you prefer to pay for professional advice from business advisers, accountants, lawyers etc.?

A.I paid to get accounting advice, but when it came to general issues, I found recruitment agencies useful. They can tell you whether your folio is up to scratch, whether there’re much opportunity out there, your market rate, and what kinds of skills and qualifications are most sought after.

I can’t say enough about the resources on the Internet, and the wealth of knowledge you can gain from the people around you. Absorb whatever you can, but decide your own path.

Q.SP: Do you use other freelancers to provide skills that you don’t possess? What kind of advice can you give about working with them?

A.I haven’t yet, but I wouldn’t hesitate to do so, if and when the need arose.

My tendency would be to select people I’ve worked with before, so we’re both comfortable with the way the other works. I think it’s imperative to make the arrangement very clear: to have in writing who is responsible for which sections of the job, what the project involves, what’s due when, and who’s getting how much. Communicate with each other often.

Q.SP: How much easier or more difficult is it to freelance than you thought it would be?

A.It’s pretty much what I expected: both the perks and the depressing parts. The more research you do, the more realistic your expectations will be, and the less likely you’ll be to find yourself disillusioned and disappointed.

Q.SP: Are you happy that you decided to work for yourself instead of finding another job or changing careers? Is there more or less stress?

A.It’s too early for me to have any regrets. I’m still enjoying it as a challenge. I definitely stress more about monetary, but I’m so much more enthusiastic about the work that I do that the stress is worthwhile!

Q.SP: How do you manage the pressure of meeting all your deadlines and, at the same time, worrying about the business that might not be coming in?

A.It’s all part of being organised, having a strategy, setting priorities, and being focused. I’m accustomed to juggling numerous projects and tasks through my experience in full time positions. Most people will realize that this is true for them too: they’ll cope. Things are less daunting when you don’t contemplate what needs to be done, but instead, just do it.

Q.SP: What advice would you give to someone who was thinking about going out on their own and being a freelance designer for a living?

A.I feel it’s very important to have clear goals. Know why you want to do this, what you wish to get out of it, and how you’re going to achieve it.

Stay optimistic. Don’t lose faith in yourself. Enjoy learning from the experience.

And remember: if all else fails, you can always return to a full time job!

This article has given a great insight into getting started as a freelancer. I’m sure many people will see similarities with their own business and will have picked up a number of tips. We’d like to thank Cindy for taking the time to talk to us, and wish her every success in the future.

Q. For those who are not familiar with you or your work, could you please tell us about your background and how you got into web design?

A. Sure! Well, it all started on a cold and windy night, with candles lit and a glass of wine… just kidding! I was in 5th grade when I first started building Web sites. I was so interested in why people had Web sites, that I figured I could make one too. After a couple of years, I started getting away from Angelfire Web sites and began learning more about CSS. This is when I started building more personal Web sites and got into making fan Web sites. The first fan Web site was for Beck, which I developed when I was a freshman in high school. My first client came when I was 15. It was a small business in my hometown of St.Charles, Illinois. It was an interesting experience for me because I wasn’t really fluent with design. After that, I took a couple of years off to focus on other things. Then, when I started college I got back into it a little bit. This was right around the “.com boom”, so I had a lot of people interested in my skill set. I attempted to start a small company, but got distracted with school, women, and enjoying weekends with friends and beers. Finally, I launched P41 Studios, which is my primary focus right now. Soon after, I began writing on Hell Yeah Dude. So, as you can see, design and the Internet have both always been in my life.

Q.Do you think formal design education is necessary?

A.Now that is a great question! In my opinion, it really depends on the person. With that said, I think that people learn better having a hands on approach. Don’t believe me? Well, lets say you want to bake some cookies. You don’t just learn by looking at the pictures and reading the instructions. You learn how to make the cookies when you start preparing the batter! If you want to learn design, nothing is stopping you.. There are a vast number of resources online and in books that can teach you how to apply design concepts. I learned from a book that I bought in 6th grade. In my case, I felt it would be of stronger value for me to go to school for business and learn about management. It helped me to begin building networks and also introduced me various types of people.

Q.How did you come with an idea of ‘Hell Yeah Dude’? When did the website launch?

A.In all honesty, I guess I just came across so many Web sites that didn’t care about quality. My approach to everything, from my business model at P41 Studios, to what I write on Hell Yeah Dude, is focused on helping others. I wanted real, intellectual content. I wanted to talk about the stuff that other people were not talking about. On my site, I want people to feel free to be who they are, and to enjoy the content that will hopefully spark interest and inspiration. It has really become a collaboration of all topics. The Web site launched in September of 2007, and the name Hell Yeah Dude was inspired by my college life.

Q.Why is ‘Hell Yeah Dude’ unique?

A.The topics can be about anything. Most people don’t realize that I am documenting my life in what I write. I feel that I not only convey interesting and inspiring content, but I also connect with the reader in a more personal way by drawing from my own experiences. I will never stop learning new things. The day that I stop learning, is when I will grow wings! The topics I choose to talk about are very relative to my day-to-day life. I worry that others may have only one goal: to drive traffic and get tons of advertising.

Q.The idea of ‘Hell Yeah Dude’ revolves around the Wikipedia thoughts and the Digg user theories. Could you speak more on how it’s going to be realized?

A.If I am understanding the question correctly, I think there are a couple of differences between what I talk about and what is developing as the Web. I talk about the theories of design. I talk about the “rules” that we should all keep in mind when creating, to better help ourselves develop successful products. But, the user-generated, social media driven life that most are seeking right now, is something that I think, will either cap off and die, or continue to grow into something bigger. We’ll see how things go.

Q.You are the only author on the website right now. Are there going to be more? What qualities does one need to possess in order to be a part of ‘Hell Yeah Dude’?

A.I am the only author at the moment, but I have had plenty of people want to write, which is great. Unfortunately, most only wrote one article or so and then stopped. Originally, the purpose of the Web site was to have all types of people documenting their journey in learning like I was. But, most people would rather start their own Web site than contribute to something larger. In this sense, I didn’t portray that enough on Hell Yeah Dude, and the idea failed. But now I realize that discussions are just as powerful as having other people write long articles. With that said, I have been concocting a new design for Hell Yeah Dude that will accommodate this new direction. In order to write, you just have to be passionate, that’s all!

Q.What are some of the topics you plan on talking about on Hell Yeah Dude in the nearest future?

A.I would love to do more speaking events, and also to expand on the brief topics I mention on Hell Yeah Dude. All of the articles do relate to each other. I would also love to talk more about business related topics. Also, about marketing strategies that actually work, which doesn’t include making an e-book on how to increase ROI on twitter…haha!

Q.Any current design trends you find intimidating? Why?

A.This is probably going to sound slightly arrogant, but I don’t actually find any design trends intimidating. I have been doing this for so long, that if you asked me to create a Web site that was just like another one, I would have no problem being able to do it. It’s all about setting your goal, and then building a strategy to reach it. In design, you don’t always have too many options, so it’s like all of the designers are picking up different brushes, but are painting on the same canvas. I do remember the first time I saw a “fat footer”, and that was something that really struck me as a good idea. Trends fade away, but good idea’s stay.

Q.As a web designer, what are the key principles you follow in your daily work?

A.In the words of my longboard skateboarding self… keep charging. To charge something means to put everything out there, and to go at it using all of your energy, without hesitation and without worry. Every day, I am working on building my skills and making them better. I don’t think I could ever stop improving myself. Every day I push for innovation. I follow grid layout, keep Web standards, and enjoy organizing CSS. So basically, my key principle is to continuously grow, improve, and move forward.

Q.Tell us about how your design process flows. What toolset do you use? Any special software or hardware?

A.No special software, the Adobe suite, and Coda. That’s about it. I spend time gathering inspiration and browsing industry driven Web sites for styles that I can steer away from. I guess you could say that my design process is mostly research, and then careful execution.

Q.What is good design to you? What’s the key to it?

A.I really appreciate a form of design, when I can go back to whatever it is at a later time, and still find something new and interesting about it. Something that really continues to amaze me time after time. Those designs are usually by people that are doing it because they love it, and are using their work as a way to express themselves.

Q.Where do you get inspiration?

A.All over the place. I browse a lot of graphic design Web sites. I also love to look through design books and magazines like “Print” and “EYE”. But, sometimes I will just look at an old book cover and become inspired. Inspiration is relative, and anything can spark it.

Q.What are a few websites and web-related books you admire and why?

A.I really admire the 37Signals blog, because Jason writes about intellectual topics, and gets a lot of really great discussions going. I think a lot of people would just think that the content wasn’t entertaining enough and leave. But, Signal vs. Noise has so many contributors. I love The Brilliance as well.

Q.Latest font that you like?

A.Definitely Lucida Grande and Avenir.

Q.Best music for you to listen while working?

A.For those mornings when I am looking for inspiration, it’s a lot of M83. Later in the day, I get my hips moving to some Notorious B.I.G. remixes on hypem.com

Q.Favorite drink during work?

A.I drink a lot of coffee and juice. The amount of which they are drank depends on the day.

Q.What advice would you give to beginning web designers?

A.Don’t quit. If you love it, you will naturally grow and develop in what you do. You can never put too much effort into something you have a passion for. Don’t stop learning new things. It doesn’t have to be radically different from what you do now. But, remember to acknowledge the fact that there is always room for improvement.

Q.Mark, I read that you founded your own company as an independent graphic designer and lettering artist in 2000. What did you do before you decided to go solo?

A. I did a couple stints at advertising art studios in Minneapolis as a graphic designer, but my main thing for the first 15 or 20 years of my career was as an art director for magazines and other publications such as Metropolis, a weekly tabloid in Minneapolis, Minnesota Monthly, Minnesota Public Radio’s program guide and regional magazine, TWA Ambassador and Utne Reader.

Lettering was something I had been doing since high school, and I always looked for ways I could apply that skill in redrawing or redesigning the logo or doing lettering for a feature story when it was called for, and later on when I was doing packaging and product designs for Minnesota Public Radio.

During all this time, when I was working as an art director or graphic designer, even back in college, I dreamed of designing typefaces. An ambitious early effort was submitting a design to ITC in 1978, but it was rejected.

When I got my first Mac in 1984, I found out how to make bitmap fonts for it using a developer tool from Apple called Font Editor and, later, a commercial program called Fontastic by a company called Altsys. In 1986, Altsys released Fontographer, a program for creating PostScript fonts. I thought I could use it to design fonts to submit to ITC, where they would be turned into “real” fonts for typesetting machines. Drawing a typeface by hand with paper and ink was laborious and time-consuming, and I thought Fontographer would be kind of a short cut. While I was playing around with this idea, the typesetting industry was turning upside down, and these PostScript fonts were starting to take the place of “real” typesetting.

By the late ’80s, this stuff had almost completely taken over, and all these new companies and people were making fonts and selling them directly to users on floppy disks and CDs. I was freelancing at the time and put some effort into creating fonts for this new market. In 1992, I submitted what I was working on to Mark Solsburg at FontHaus and he picked Felt Tip Roman, Proxima Sans, and Kandal. Felt Tip Roman was closest to being done and only took a couple of months to finish, but the other two were multi-font families and took another two years to complete. During that time, my partner and I had a baby, bought a house, and I got a full-time job again, so it was becoming harder to find time to work on fonts. And once these fonts were released, the small amount of income they brought in — even though one of them, Felt Tip Roman, was a minor hit — didn’t seem to justify the time and effort it took to make them. I set the dream aside for a while.

Q.Both Proxima Sans and Kandal were very accomplished typefaces; they were also very respectful of tradition, especially by early 1990s standards. Who taught you how to do it?

A.Unless you count a couple of lettering classes I took in college, I’m completely self-taught when it comes to type design. Ever since I can remember, I’ve been drawing letters, often out of boredom or when I was supposed to be doing something else. It’s the default thing I do when I’m doodling. I fell in love with type while working on the newspaper and yearbook in high school. By the time I was in college, this combination of love for type and obsessively drawing letters led to the idea of designing typefaces. I read everything on the subject I could get my hands on — books by Frederic Goudy and Adrian Frutiger in particular. By the early ’80s, I had several typeface ideas going. Proxima Sans and Kandal came out of that period. I made a lot of false starts before any of my fonts were published, and there are many ideas from back then that never made it beyond the drawing board.

Q.Having put your type designing career on hold for a while to take care of your young family… what prompted you to change course again and become a full-time type designer?

A.I never really decided to become a full-time type designer. I had hoped it would happen, but I didn’t really expect it to. But then in early 2000, a friend told me about this guy who was looking for fonts to sell at a newspaper trade show, which was to be held in St. Paul that year. I looked at what I had and finished four fonts that had been on the shelf from the ’90s — Refrigerator, Blakely, Felt Tip Senior, and Sharktooth. Nothing came of the guy at the conference, but now I had four fonts that were ready to sell. I discovered a sort of font consignment web store called Makambo and started selling them there. That didn’t last long — their parent company pulled the plug — but MyFonts, which hadn’t been around long at the time, contacted all the people selling fonts on Makambo, including me, and I started selling on MyFonts in spring of 2001.

But, to back up a little, something extraordinary happened at the end of 2000. My partner, Pat, was a contestant on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. She did well enough to enable me to take six months off my freelance design business to work on new fonts. During that break, I created Coquette, Anonymous, and Mostra. I went back to my freelance work, but my font income began to increase and my dream of designing type full-time started looking a little more possible.

In 2002, I was invited to be part of the second Indie Fonts book, which P22’s Richard Kegler was then preparing. I felt that the number of fonts I had on the market was too small for the number of pages I had to fill, so I went on a crash program to finish 35 new fonts before Indie Fonts 2 was released in July 2003. I added new weights to existing fonts and introduced Goldenbook, Changeling and several others. But I still wasn’t making enough to do type design full time yet.

What made that happen was releasing Proxima Nova in 2005 — a redesign of my earlier Proxima Sans — which nearly doubled the number of fonts (by which I mean single weights) I had on the market. At that point, I was making enough from selling fonts that I didn’t need to do web or print design anymore.

Q.You master a wide range of lettering and type designing styles, many of which are rooted in the American visual culture of the near and distant past. Who are your main heroes and examples? What is your favorite style or period?

A.Most of my influences I can trace back to when I was starting out in the ’70s — Push Pin Studio, ITC (Herb Lubalin, Ed Benguiat, Tom Carnase and all those guys), Jim Parkinson’s lettering and typefaces for Rolling Stone, Phil Martin’s Alphabet Innovations, Michael Doret, and some of the stuff that Letraset was doing back then. I really like the idea of recreating or re-imagining earlier periods through lettering and typography — taking something old and making it new. I tend to gravitate towards ’30s and ’40s lettering styles, but I also enjoy working in other styles.

Q.For a designer, what is the main difference between doing a lettering assignment, say, for branding or packaging, and designing a complete font? Is it different now from what it was like when you started out?

A.With lettering, each letter only needs to look good within the context of the particular word of phrase you are drawing. With a font, every letter needs to look good with every other letter in the font in any conceivable combination. With lettering, the shapes of the letters are freer, not bound by the requirement to be interchangeable and modular.

Q.There’s a general tendency in American typography and illustration to create images that refer to shapes and tastes from the past. Do you ever feel trapped by nostalgia? By irony?

A.Not really. I personally like to see a mixture of old and new. The world around us is not all new or all old, it’s everything all at once. The idea of creating only things that look new and different seems limiting. Anything totally new ends up looking hopelessly dated sooner or later anyway. Very few designs are truly timeless and I don’t know if it’s possible to design something like that intentionally. If I want nostalgia, I’ll watch an old movie or look at old photos. When I decide to work in some period style, it’s usually because I just like the way it looks. Every era comes and goes, and a lot of beauty goes with it. When I look at old lettering, I try to think what was in the artist’s mind, try to bring back lost ideas, things that could be appreciated in the present, although maybe not in the same way. But I enjoy fresh, new things, too. I don’t really see a conflict. I enjoy the contrast.

Q.I remember seeing your early work as an illustrator and lettering artist when I became interested in Garrison Keillor’s Lake Wobegon stories on Minnesota Public Radio. Tell us about your relationship with Public Radio.

A.I started working with them in the late ’70s as a freelance art director for their program guide. Later, I worked there full-time for about five years; I was responsible for all their design and graphics. This included packaging and products for Garrison Keillor’s A Prairie Home Companion radio show, and there were lots of opportunities for me to do lettering with that since the show often evoked an earlier time. While I was there, government subsidies for public broadcasting were being taken away. One of the things Minnesota Public Radio did to try to make up the difference was to publish a mail order gift catalog. It was called Wireless. It became so successful it had to be spun off into a separate company, Rivertown Trading, in order to preserve MPR’s non-profit status. After I left MPR in 1985, I continued doing projects for both companies, especially anything to do with Garrison Keillor, and eventually agreed to work full-time for Rivertown Trading. In 1999, Target Corporation bought Rivertown Trading, renaming it “target.direct”. I stuck around for another year, but by then, the company I’d grown to know and love didn’t seem to exist anymore and I left.

Q.Many type designers who like to evoke past styles are avid collectors. How about you?

A.I don’t know if I’m a collector so much as a pack rat. There are a few things I collect on purpose, like type specimen books and printed ephemera, such as old magazines. Lately, a lot of this “collecting” has been supplanted by digital photos. I carry a small camera with me at all times now. If I see some interesting bit of lettering or typography in an antique store, I take picture. It’s not quite as nice as having the real thing, but it sure saves space.

Q.You’re also, at times, an outspoken commentator on things typographic. Probably the most linked-to article on your website is a fiercely critical article on Arial. Do you actually get emotional about type? What was the most amusing or striking reaction to that piece?

A.What upsets me most is simply ignorance about type among graphic designers — about its history or how it’s used. But I try not to take it too seriously. There are more important things in life to worry about. And for people who do care about type, thanks to the web it’s easier than ever to learn about type.

I like to think my Arial article has contributed to that. Almost all the feedback I’ve gotten has been positive. One funny story I got was from a designer who said he secretly substituted Helvetica whenever his clients asked for Arial on their jobs. They never noticed.

Q.Of your own fonts, which is your favorite? Why?

A.Coquette is my favorite. It’s one of my more original designs and I learned some important things when I did it. It started out as a logo idea for the Signals mail order catalog. The idea was rejected, but it kind of grabbed hold of my imagination and I sketched out what it might look like as a typeface. It seemed to bubble up from my subconscious fully formed. I can identify things that were probably in the back of my mind, like Typo Upright and Kabel, but there are a lot of things, like the little ball on the inside of the “o” that I’m not sure where they came from. One thing about it is that even though it’s new and original, it has this kind of familiar feeling, as if it’s always been around. It’s a bit mysterious. The other thing I learned from it was not to rely so much on geometry. My early attempts to digitize it failed because I tried to construct it with perfect circles. Compared to my sketches, it looked stiff and lifeless. Once I let go of the circle, and learned to trust my eye, it all fell into place.

Q.Proxima Nova has become a huge success. Are you working on another major text type family?

A.Yes. Lately, I’ve digitized a lot of older fonts that I didn’t design. I’ll continue to do some of that, but I want to get back to doing my own designs. I’m working on a big family that has both serif and sans-serif members. It’s partly a revival, but I don’t want to say too much about it. I don’t know how long it will take to finish, but I’ve got the foundation in place. I started working on it a few years ago and set it aside in order to get OpenType versions of some of my other fonts out. Since then, I’ve been itching to get going on it again. I expect by the time this interview is published I will be working on it again.

Q.Finally, the self-serving question: in what way does your collaboration with MyFonts influence the way you operate?

A.MyFonts isn’t the only distributor I work with, but it’s the only one that sends me an e-mail every time I sell a font. It might not seem important, but those e-mails help in a funny way. It may sound superstitious, but when I’m not working on fonts, my sales go down. When I’m working on them, sales go up. So, if I have a day when I haven’t gotten many MyFonts e-mails, that means I need to get back to work on fonts. I know it sounds silly, but it works.

Q. How did you get started designing type?

A. There was a point at design school when I realised that I loved drawing letterforms, so much so that I would prefer to make typefaces than become a graphic designer. I think it was when I was drawing/copying Bembo letter by letter, trying to understand how it was put together. I noticed that the arch of the ‘n’ subtly curves into into the right-hand stem—all the way down into the serif.

For some reason that struck me as being quite amazing. It is a detail that would seem rather innocuous, yet lends so much warmth and character to the overall printed impression. I still have that sketch, I wrote “cheeky Bembo!” next to it.

Q. Why Type Design (as opposed to, say, bear wrestling in the circus)?

A.Because I love it! Why else would I spend countless hours doing it?

Q.What’s your favourite part of the design process?

A.I have two parts that are my favourite, if I may. The first is the initial sketching & drawing, figuring out the how & why of the face. This is the most creative, engaging part of the process. The second part is finishing a typeface, getting it on the shelf or delivered to the client. This is good for two reasons: the job is complete & I can get paid.

Q.What is your biggest type-related pet peeve? (from Lauren )

A.I have several. (Please bear in mind that these don’t keep me up at night. I have other ‘peeves’ that are non-typographic & far more important.) One would be the endless, ill-informed comments a few people make on the internet. The internet seems to bring out the worst in people! Certain type-design software is buggy & frustrating, which is a hindrance to getting work done. Graphic designers that butcher existing typefaces in the name of ‘innovation’ or ‘doing something different/cool’ makes me roll my eyes. By this I mean adding a serif, chopping a serif, rounding a terminal, adding an ugly swash etc, etc. The worst one is seeing really good typefaces being used badly. This is always disappointing.

Q.What one thing would you like every designer to know about type? (from Roger Gordon )

A.How to use type properly. I don’t necessarily mean adhering to the strictures of The New Typography or The Crystal Goblet or The New Brutalism or whatever. What I do mean is that 1) most typefaces have environments in which they really shine, certain uses that they will never fail, 2) others have environments in which they will always fail, typically in places where they were never meant to work, and 3) a select few work beautifully in the most absurd situations.

A competent typographer/designer knows the difference between 1) & 2). It honestly isn’t that hard to do. A truly excellent typographer/designer knows how to use 3). This is someone who can make a typeface perform like a star. It is much harder to do—but, by Christ, you know when you see it!

Q.What era of type to you most draw inspiration from?…it seems very 70’s. Off? If you were to choose a specific era, which one? (from Cody Curley )

A.The 1970’s? Are you kidding? There have been many centuries of typeface design; I don’t think that I have ever been directly influenced by the 1970’s. Recently I have been exposed to some 18th-19th century specimen books—the typefaces in there really blew me away. I love looking at old work, trying to understand what has come before & why; how one person’s work influences another. I suppose I find the historical/obscure type much more interesting, therefore influential, than most of the work that is happening now.

Q.Does where you’re from influence your type? (from George Coltart [he says he went to school with you.])

A.Kia ora George! (It has been a long time, mate.) Being from NZ does influence my type, but I’m afraid I don’t know exactly how. Perhaps I’d need to travel some more to get some perspective, live in another country & work there, like you. There really isn’t much of a typeface design culture in New Zealand, which may explain something. This means I am effectively self-taught, so I don’t subscribe to any particular style or way of thinking, the distance allows me to be much more selective in my approach. I can look at, say, Spanish metal type from the 1700’s and remain rather objective about it. I am afraid that this doesn’t answer your question, sorry.

Q.You have Feijoa, National and FF Meta Serif under your belt; what next?

A.Right now, I have several typefaces on the go. In no particular order, FF Unit Slab (a slab serif companion to FF Unit), Newzald (an economical text serif), Valencia (a warm Modern), Karbon (a pared-back sans serif), National Condensed & Compressed (familial additions to National) and Aperture (a sans for small sizes). There are also a few other exciting things that I hope to be involved in, but you’ll have to wait for that.

Q. What got you interested in the premium themes market?

A. Mmm… I don’t know to be honest… I think it was a mixture of wanting to explore, needing a challenge, seeing a gap in the market and ultimately creating a source of passive income that could compliment my freelance earnings. Plus - to some extent, developing premium themes was a natural progression of my own identity as a well-known WordPress freelancer. It just all made sense at the time and since I love a challenge, I jumped at the opportunities available to me.

Q. Who were some of your main inspirations in getting started in this industry and why?

A.Well, at the time, only Brian Gardner was really doing premium themes and I can definitely say that he inspired the idea for me. But even though, I have buckets of respect for Brian, we’re always going to run our businesses very differently and therefor I can’t say that he was the sole source of inspiration for me; he did over spark the idea and after that I went off on my own journey into the world of premium themes…

Q.If you could start Premium News Themes again knowing what you know now, what would you do differently?

A.I wouldn’t change much to be honest; I really think that we’ve done really well and WooThemes’ success is evidence of the hard work that Magnus, Mark & myself has put into our business. I guess the only that I’d change is that I should’ve reinvested a bigger percentage of our income into advertising at the beginning, as I can see now what a big difference an extended ad campaign can make to theme sales.

Q.What advice would you give to someone looking to get into the freelance industry?

A.Work hard! Value every small-time client you get in the beginning, because you never know when they’re the next Facebook or something. And lastly start a blog, where you can market yourself as a trusted freelancer and showcase your awesome design work.

Q.What online tools do you recommend for freelancers and why?

A.Basecamp - for managing all of your personal & client projects. Google Reader - to catch up on what your favorite role models are saying. FreshBooks - for invoicing clients and managing your incomes / expenses online. And then lastly - a blog & Twitter combo to broadcast your views to the world.

Q.You recently bought a shared office space, how is that working out for you?

A.The offices are really great and it has been a welcome change from having to work at home. At the moment though, the offices are still costing me more than it would when I was working at home, but the benefits far outweigh the cost involved.

Q.How did you go about finding others to share the office space with you?

A.At the moment, it is only Cobus working with me in the office, as I’m still waiting for the majority of my furniture to be delivered. The original idea was to run a type of Rent-A-Desk operation whereby I’d get like-minded freelancers to join me in the office and pay towards the monthly overhead. But things has taken a big change in the past week, which will most probably see me announce a new partner in my “official” design agency - {radiiate} - whilst I’m also looking to hire a full-time designer & PHP developer to take the {radiiate} team to 4 peeps.

Q.What is the best piece of marketing advise you have ever heard and how has it helped you?

A.“There’s no such thing as bad publicity.” Richard Branson has always lived by this mantra and I really try to implement it into my business decisions. I think that my success as a blogger has a lot to do with this mindset, as I’ve never been afraid to speak my mind. A few people really don’t like me online, but every time someone would publish a negative blog about me or my businesses, I’d see a traffic spike. So I’m not suggesting that you should go out and piss people off, but you shouldn’t be overly concerned with supposedly bad publicity either.

Q.What kind of things can we expect to see from Woo Themes in the future?

A.Big things! August will the first month that we’ll be releasing our monthly new themes to subscribers and the quality of the future themes should be an indication of where we’d like to take WooThemes. Our new themes will also start focusing on different niches, whereas we’ve focused on the news / magazine look in the past. Once everything is settled, we’re also looking to get more involved in the community with some free themes, maybe some plugins and also involving some other respected designers / developers on a few collaborations.

Our launch of WooThemes three weeks ago, was only the start and the next 4 - 6 weeks will see us building on that success!