Por la extension del mundo de las comunicaciones Gente en Movimiento será una breve sección que lleve el registro de movimiento en cargos clave y tareas de relevancia en el mundo.

Nuestro primer breve incluye en forma especial a dos mujeres nacidas en Bulgaria que las une el desarrollo de actvidades sin fronteras, la inteligencia y la hermosura. Va que no.

Irina Gueorguieva Bokova

Irina Gueorguieva Bokova

Designada por los 58 miembros del Eecutive Board de la UNESCO como candidata a Directora General. Cargo que sería confirmado en la Coferencia General el 15 de Octubre por los 193 miembros del pleno. Sería la primera mujer con  este rango en la Organización.  No dudamos de la confirmación en el cargo de este organismo especializado en contribuir a la paz y la seguridad a través de la educación, la ciencia, la cultura y las comunicaciones respetando la identidad y diversidad de los pueblos. Esperemos que a través de su gestión la Organización también promueva el mestizaje, la libertad de expresión y las comunicaciones sin fronteras que vemos como elementos consustanciales de un mejor diálogo y de la paz entre opuestos.

Maglena Kuneva

Maglena Kuneva

De connotada vida política en Bulgaria, fue designada como Comisaria Europea en Asuntos del Consumidor a principios de 2007 para velar por los derechos y protección de los consumidores de la Unión Europea y hoy aparece en medio de las noticias por el inicio de una recopilación de antecedentes sobre los productos Iphone y Ipod de Apple y según engaged.com la comisaria  Meglena Kuneva, ha afirmado que “no dudaría” en pedir la retirada del mercado de los iPhone y los iPod si constatan que hay riesgo de explosión. Asimismo ha recordado que no importa lo grande o conocida que sea Apple para actuar. No dudamos que los seguidores de Apple deben estar tranquilos de la seriedad del análisis de esta organización para defender sus derechos y tampoco dudamos que Apple acelerará con sus desarrolladores y comunicadores la solución de este problema que aun cuando marginal se arrastra desde hace un tiempo.

Traducción Oficial

Simon Høgsberg. Self-Portrait.

The look of Simon Høgsberg, BA in photography and a freelancer photographer in Copenhagen. Featured for amazing works in projects like “We’re all Gonna Die”.

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Thorugh my lens: The idea of this section is to gather the diversity and life opinions, perspectives, options and the development of photography at the professional and educational level worldwide.
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Max: Simon, we are interested in get a closer on your vision and your sense of photography. For us it is an approach open to your focus. Let’s start with the most trivial: What do you want to reflect with the people at your work? We suposse that you have a major purpose, is that true?

Simon: If I have an overall purpose of photografing people, it is to prove how fundamentally similar we are, despite superficial diferences. I feel we have difficulty in understanding and accepting this fact – especially people in the Western World, who are convinced that we are the center of the world.

Detail of Simon's work "We are all gonna die".

Max: Do you seize the moment randomly or do you make a research with a plan of work?

Simon: I try to follow the impulses or gut feelings or whatever goal-oriented apparatus I’m equipped with throughout all creative processes I’m engaged in. Sometimes the project I’m looking for turns up at my front door and all I have to do is let it in. At other times I’ll have to put on my shoes and go look for it.

Max: Do you have any preferred camera for your work?

Simon: The camera I prefer is Canon’s Mark III. It’s wonderfully close to medium format.

"I try to follow the impulses or gut feelings or whatever goal-oriented apparatus I’m equipped with throughout all creative processes I’m engaged in. Sometimes the project I’m looking for turns up at my front door and all I have to do is let it in."

Max: How do you market yourself and control your finances (invoicing, etc.)?

Simon: I don’t control my finances – at the moment my finances seem to control me. It doesn’t matter too much, though. When the situation gets too tough I’ll just pull myself together and look up some commercial work. The old story of every curious-driven guy in town.
As to the marketing bit I do way too little to get noticed by the right people – the right people, in this case, being the ones with easy access to money.

Max: What professionals have inspired your work, can you tell us their names?

Simon: I can give you three names of visual artists who have – among many others – inspired me:
Their names are: Sophie Calle, Peter Funch and Marc Horowits.

Max: Which blogs/websites are your most important reference?

Simon: That would be… TED.com for sure.

There’s not one single person but many people whose comments and views influence the way I see things. I try to be in touch with such people on a daily basis."

Max: What message or advice would you give to those who are starting out in photography?

Simon: The advice I would give those who are starting out in photography would be this: Make sure to be more interested in what you don’t know than in what you do know. And one other thing which is just as important, don’t let your fear of change persuade you to stay where you are. Stagnation is death.

Max: There’s someone that give you constant advice or feedback, or do you work completely alone?

Simon: There’s not one single person but many people whose comments and views influence the way I see things. I try to be in touch with such people on a daily basis.

Communicatheo recommends:

Natalia Nogueira, Living the Design

Idioma Original

Tradução Oficial

Javier Cancino Díaz

Delving with Javier

We are pleased to publish a second part of the interview to the designer and professor Javier Cancino. The current interest is that there are different views on the future survival of books and printing products such as flat printings, rotating and traditional distribution channels such as bookstores.  It is still more critical to justify the educational offering from a social and economic perspective for the thousands of designing students who are entering and practically graduating outdated because there are already hundreds or thousands of schools in emergent and developed countries.  Hence, our interest in seeking the lights of those with years of experience and Javier is one of them.
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Living the Design: The idea of this section is to gather the diversity and life opinions, perspectives, options and the development of design at the professional and educational level worldwide.
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Max: Javier, facing the rapid change we are living in technology; how do you see its effects in the designing market, design itself and clients? Do you see the change of our traditional substrata layers: call it paper, from 10 years ago up to today what is the challenge for those within this market, for the printing businesses and the newspaper mass media? Do they need to adapt or specialize? Do you see the future of those who graduated from their schools three years ago? On the other hand, do you think it will go slower to accommodate production? It is extensive and I ask you to answer whatever you would like in that context.

Javier: In January I made a long trip to India and coming back I was in Zurich, Switzerland.  And I was impressed with the amount of books that are published. The perception left is that while more technological devices appear more books are designed. We spent almost all our lives in front of a screen — the computer, the TV, and today the cellular phones also.  In this context the printed books are a relief. At least until today, our relationship with the books begins when we are children with the ritual of reading in bed, besides the fact that generates a wonderful bond between parents and children. The book introduces us to a fantastic world; it opens the children’s imagination and incorporates new ideas and ways of thinking. Roger Fawcett-Tang tells us that designers like Bruno Munari and Paul Rand created their own children books.  “Even though, the computer games and play stations or the DVD seems to be the favorite children’s entertainment today, the Harry Potter’s phenomenon has demonstrated that the children continue reading and are capable of falling in love with the books as ever.”

“Even though, the computer games and play stations or the DVD seems to be the favorite children’s entertainment today, the Harry Potter’s phenomenon has demonstrated that the children continue reading and are capable of falling in love with the books as ever.”

Diving into a book is one of the major pleasures in life, the books are a vital part in our lives; our whole existence is formed, illustrated and inspired by books.  The tactile experience is a pleasure that could not be underestimated.  I always tell my students that once a book is designed, it does not longer have its own dimensions and takes on a multidimensional character. It is a beautiful object that makes us believe that a future without books is unthinkable and unlikely.

When the television appeared it was said that the radio will cease to exist and to date we would not know what to do if we wouldn’t be able to listen to a good radio station during the tacos hour on top of our cars.  Now in my country, Chile, although there are excellent good printing shops, it is unfortunate that they are very expensive (high cost) and this factor slows down some projects.  But your question has a second part regarding the future of the designers who graduated three years ago.  In my workshop introduction class which I give at the three universities where I teach – Universidad Católica, Finis Terrae and Andrés Bello – one of the points I mention is that in Chile there are thousand of designers coming out of school and therefore we should strive to be the best, strive for excellence, go to the limit.  It is a brutal competition, today you will lift a stone and there is a designer, but the good thing is that of the thousand of graduates, most of them were educated on the “job skills” concept otherwise they will be left behind very quickly.  They become producers, and my students get prepared to become people with great ideas, those that will finally be remembered and make a difference in the future.

Detail of a work by Javier

Diving into a book is one of the major pleasures in life, the books are a vital part in our lives; our whole existence is formed, illustrated and inspired by books.  The tactile experience is a pleasure that could not be underestimated.  I always tell my students that once a book is designed, it does not longer have its own dimensions and takes on a multidimensional character.

Max: I want to go back to the previous point.  Do you think that the designer graduates from the different universities and institutes will come out with a different market offer or is there a “cultural gen” which reflects the Chilean designer?

Javier: mmm …! I will retake the words of Tejeda, “the universities have an enormous interest in knowing exactly what conclusion to reach or what place to take after studying design.  It is as if the most important thing is to prove one’s productivity.”  And right now I am going to change your words a little bit.  I say that it is a horrendous order that destroys the creativity from the beginning.  It is an industrial and scientific system where the accounting is indispensable and the creation just a minor detail.  The schools are more concerned with something they call “job skills,” in which they definitely make believe the students that they are some sort of employment agencies and not a place for acquiring knowledge.  For me, the graphic design and probably architecture are vocational careers, at least in our country, but is becoming harder and harder to work in these disciplines and the space for development is scarce.  Thus, I don’t think the schools are offering any market difference; I think that the guys are finally making their own path, the echo of forming collectives or alternate works that are sometimes unsuspected.  I, personally, am extremely criticized among the most anachronic scholars due to my rupturing views.  I said many times that we should take the problem to the limit, even if we fail while trying and this is celebrated by the younger scholars or the ones who know me better and are entertained with that bet.

Max: To delve into your academic vision on the courses you teach and the way you relate to it, you mentioned Professor Tejeda on your first interview, the need to rehearse and the value of the concept, can you  elaborate on the importance of the concept in the design?

Javier: As I mentioned in the beginning, rehearsing is what counts.  From that process we can observe and generate a concept or an idea.  A concept is a cognitive unit of meaning, an abstract or mental idea which is defined sometimes as a “unit of knowledge.”

We understand the experiences emerging from our interaction with the environment through concepts which are constructions or mental images by incorporating them into classes or categories associated with our previous knowledge.

The formation of the concept is closely linked to the context; this means that all the elements, including language and culture, as well as the information perceived by the senses accessed at the moment in which a person constructs a concept of something or somebody also influence the conceptualization.  The knowledge of the experience is always concrete; it refers to a thing, a situation or something unique and unrepeatable; the experience is always subjective.

The word “concept” comes from the Latin verb conceptum and this from the verb concipere which means to conceive.  Concipere derives from capere, this is, to take or capture something.  To conceive is to unite two (o more) entities to form a third one distinct from the previous ones.

An idea (from the Greek Ìέα, from eidon, “I saw”) is an image that exists or is formed in the mind.  The human capacity to contemplate ideas is associated with the reasoning ability, self-reflection, creativity, and the ability to acquire and apply the intellect.  The ideas lead the way to the concepts and are the basis for any type of knowledge whether is scientific or philosophical.  The idea is comparable to a concept, and it has a meaning.

Another work that demonstrate the special concern of Javier combining typography and white space -Contraforma- essential elements of a page layout.

Max: As a designer, have you had a reference for your works:  schools, designers, styles you have utilized as references, encouragement, or guidance.

Javier: Of course, first the Architecture and Design School of the Universidad Católica de Valparaíso.  I also enjoy the work of Stefan Sagmeister, Experimental Jetset, Wearebuild, Anthony Burrill, Banksy, Marian Bantjes, David Földvári, Vince Frost, Erik Spiekermann, Pentagram, the cultural movements such as the Dadaists, the Surrealists, the badly called cursed poets who were the Symbolists, the study of many and varied typographers and/or book authors who do not only talk about typographic design but its uses.  Another actual reference is the IdN Magazine which is updating us with all types of forms that takes graphic design in their different fields in which we can intervene, the Adbusters magazine.  To tell you the truth, I am constantly looking for books and reviewing new websites of young designers.  I also mentioned some musicians who somehow have also influenced they way I work, guys such as Peter Gabriel, Philip Glass, Bob Dylan, Miles Davis, Jack Johnson, and even get feedback from Fauna, the collective I am a member and from my own students who are the ones that mostly encourage me in this trade.

—– End of the interview—–

Communicatheo recommends:

Javier Cancino Diaz, Living the Design – Part 1

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Volunteer translation by Maria Tenorio

Maria Tenorio has a bachelor degree in Business Management and an MBA in Banking and Finance. She specializes in bi-directional English-Spanish translations. Particularly, the translation of commercial publications, legal work and the similar with utmost accuracy and fidelity and have translated voluminous documents (legal and financial) from Spanish into English. She also translates legal documents for Immigration purposes for friends and help other immigrants within the community with language barriers at schools, hospitals and the like. If you want to contact her for work, please write to joboard@communicatheo.com

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Idioma original

Natalia Nogueira

The look of María Natalia Nogueira, 35 years old, artist, Bachelor in Art and Design. Natalia has experience in engraving, painting, drawing, graphic design, and packaging design.

Max: In respect to art and design, do you remember the moment when you said, this is what I want to do with my life, and why? What attracted you? What was your motivation?

"Digital art revived my desire to produce designs because in between school and work, there wasn’t a single moment of my life left for paintbrushes (in reality, paint and stamps)."

Max: In particular, how did you encounter digital art and how did you make the switch to it? What were you involved with? Do you feel in your element?

Natalia: I got into digital art by sheer chance. I have a family business and ever since I was a girl I participated in packaging design. During the years I completed all my works through airbrush and rotring pens until I bought my first Macintosh computer in 1996 and entered the world of design programs: Photoshop, Illustrator, among others. This was how I discovered the program Painter, that a few years ago was acquired by Corel, and started to create my first drawings with the help of a graphics tablet and magnetic pencil.

Digital art revived my desire to produce designs because in between school and work, there wasn’t a single moment of my life left for paintbrushes (in reality, paint and stamps).

This way, I have a little bit of time, even if it’s only a half hour. I sit and draw something, I save it and pick it up at another time, and I don’t have to clean paintbrushes or bother with materials.

Digital art granted me the greatest satisfaction.

Max: Natalie, in the formation of a designer, according to your opinion, what should be emphasized in the context of accelerated changes?

Natalia: I believe the basic information they teach us in art school, how to master the command of color, form, proportion, composition, calligraphy, communication, and the handling of artistic materials; we also have to add the use of new technologies related to design.

If today we count on new tools that simplify the work methodology of the past, the eye must be trained to employ a correct use of these tools.

Max: What is your ideal work environment, do you work in a group? What other areas enrich your work?

"I believe the basic information they teach us in art school (..) we also have to add the use of new technologies related to design."

Natalia: I have always worked alone and I don’t know if I’d be able to work in a group. I like to be calmly seated, silent and very focused, listening to soothing music.

My work improves when I listen, when I read, when I see. I enjoy history a lot; I like to incorporate antique details in my drawings. When I listen to music I try to interpret the message and if it finds its way to my heart, a drawing is born. I like to look at other people’s art and it could happen that I discover something I want to bring to my own works, for example I can take a palette of colors from some decoration or piece of clothing.

I enjoy the discovery of art in everything I see, whether it be objects, pieces of furniture, drawings, clothes, stickers. We live surrounded by art!

Max: In the development of your work, what limitations do you encounter among your clients or at the professional level?

Natalia: For now, none.

When I first started I felt the rejection of a few colleagues who underestimated my artistic capability and gave all the credit to my computer. I can’t deny that it unsettled me to admit I worked with the comp and then witness the faces they made.

Today I can say that I feel confident about what I do and I have the satisfaction of having gained the respect of many artists who have learned to accept this new tool.

Max: What do you like to work with today in software (no more than two), in hardware?

Natalia, combines digital painting, typography and motion graphics.

Natalia: Corel Painter, Macintosh.

Max: Briefly, from your experience with digital design, what do you hope for the future in regards to printing, books, and the use of paper?

Natalia: Today I am satisfied with the copies made in photographic laboratories. There are many types of papers and canvases on which we can experiment with our works. Large-format plotters have succeeded in reaching an optimal quality of impression that only a little bit ago was done by the smallest equipment.

Max: How is music serving you in your work?

Natalia: I can’t work if I don’t listen to music. I like everything but when I draw it has to be calm music, classic or Celtic.

Drink me & eat me by Natalia Nogueira

Communicatheo recommends:

http://www.natalianogueira.com.ar/

Eduardo Cuducos, Vivendo o Design

Elliot Jay Stocks, Living Design

Javier Cancino Diaz, Living the Design

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Volunteer translation by Ashley R. Gonzalez

Ashley R. Gonzalez currently attends the Ohio State University in the United States and will graduate with two majors in Spanish and World Literature next summer, 2010. She has academic experience in Mexico and the United States. Furthermore, because of her Mexican heritage, she has been exposed to the Spanish language from an early age. If you want to contact her for work, please write to joboard@communicatheo.com

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Idioma Original

We remember and pay homage to the designer and illustrator Heinz Edelmann who passed away during the afternoon of the 22 June in Stuttgart, Germany.

“Heinz Edelmann (left, 1934 – 2009) next to Neil Aspinall (right, 1942 – 2008), Road manager of The Beatles Company, Apple Corp (…)” from: http://bit.ly/hsNxX

Heinz Edelmann, born in 1934, in Czechoslovakia, passed away at 75 years of age. His designs and illustrations will leave behind a mark in the form of visual language that will remind us of what the youth of the end of the last century called, an era of dreams. Perhaps this was the peak of the modern era. In 1968 he was a director of art and illustrator for the Beatles film “The Yellow Submarine”. In 1989 he won the competition to design Curro, the mascot of the 1992 Universal Exposition of Seville. Among other jobs and multiple book covers, he designed the first German edition of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of de Rings, which for some has another artistic value.

Yeloow Submarine Artwork

Yeloow Submarine Artwork

Artwork for Yellow Submarine (soundtrack). Flickr: bradleyloos

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Volunteer translation by Sara Roden-Scott

Sara Roden-Scott has a Bachelor’s degree in French and Hispanic Studies. She went on to do a Master’s in Technical and Specialised Translation in Spanish and Italian. At the moment, she works as a full-time project manager for a translation company, for whom she also does some freelance translation work. This mainly involves the translation of certificates, newspaper articles, websites and marketing texts. However, she also does a lot of voluntary translation work that covers other fields. For example, she has translated many clinical trial papers from French, Spanish and Italian into English for the Cochrane Library and has also carried out financial texts for Kiva. Other voluntary organisations, for whom she has done some work, include Veterinaires Sans Frontieres, Ashoka and the Sakthi’s Children’s Home. joboard@communicatheo.com

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Idioma Original

Tradução Oficial

Javier Cancino Díaz

The Javier Cancino’s look, designer and educator, 47 years olds, on the vocation and teaching in Chile.

Max: Today, you have an intense teaching life.  How and when do you come about to it?

Javier: It was the year 2000, in the Andrés Bello University in Santiago de Chile.  I came to give an elective course that we named Editorial Workshop.  I was the Art Director of the Paula, Urban Culture and Faces Magazines.  They were important magazines in the printing media of the time in this country.  The most difficult part for me, before, was that the course was given on Saturday from 09:00 hours till 12:30 hours.  I thought I was not going to have any students.  This was a course after Friday nite “rolling (carrete).”  I saw it very difficult.  Moreover, it was only an elective which forces people to get up really early on Saturday.  However, it was a success.  I had a good number of very good students and besides, they never missed a class.  I think that was what made that they offered me the Graphic Design Vertical Workshop course.  However, even today it is called Editorial Workshop.

Max: Javier, per your opinion, what is the reason of giving so much importance to the education of a designer in a changing context.

Kerning, grid and counter forms. One of many jobs where Javier explores multiple resources harmonizing the page layout.

Javier: To me, this is not a so simple matter.  I am going to take the words of a great master of the Chile University, to whom I respect and admire very much, Mr. Guillermo Tejeda and later I will answer the question.

“Rehearsal is what is worthy, Montaigne so says it:  When you step into what you don’t know, then you start to rehearse.  Savater brings this phrase when recopying some of his essays.  Mostly, I often write rehearsing, ignoring where is it that I am going to stop, and that means making writing alive.  However, the universities or the context funds have a great interest in knowing exactly what is the conclusion we are reaching or a place we are reaching after a research, a text, a workshop, etc.  Many times, they are sending forms in which each mailbox is a decision excluding others.  Thus, there is no one to rehearse anything, and for that matter they are proud.  That is one of my greatest incompatibles with the established cultural system.  It’s as if the most important thing was going to demonstrate its own productivity before even starting, because this way, we are forced to a series of tasks which we need to know before hand that we might think it will know.  A wonderful order destroying the creation from the beginning.  An industrial, scientific system in which accounting is indispensable and creation just a minor detail.  Mine is the essay.”

When you walk towards what you don’t know is when you start to rehearse.

Therefore, I absolutely share this point with the graphic design study field.  In my workshops one rehearses, experiments, make mistakes, even I will try to say that this space is for pleasure and not business.

My students learn by doing and you need to be awake, observing, because today’s youth is different from my time; they are living something very distinct.

I propose things such as reading, understanding what they read, reflecting, and taking charge, and then proposing from that point of view.  Then it is born from an observation, concept, or idea, which comes out of the reading.

Max: Since you teach at three universities, do you think that the designers from the different schools graduate with a different market offer or a cultural gene is implanted resembling the Chilean designer.

Javier: mmm…! I will retake Tejeda’s words, “the universities have a great interest to know exactly what conclusion or place we will reach after studying design.  It seems as if the most important thing to do is to demonstrate their own productivity.”  In addition, here, I am going to change his words a little bit.  I said that is a horrendous order which destroys the creativity from its start.  An industrial system or scientific in which accounting is indispensable and creating is just a minor detail.  The schools are mostly concerned with something they call “labor competencies.”  Definitively, they are embedding in the students that they are also a sort of employment agencies and not a place where you acquire knowledge.  For me, graphic design and probably architecture are vocational careers; and at least in Chile, to work in these careers is becoming very difficult and its space is scarce for its development.  Therefore, I do not think the schools here are offering any difference from the market.  I think that the youth are finally making their own road, the echo to form collective or alternate jobs that sometimes are unsuspected.  I’m quite criticized by my “breakaway” position in which I see more anachronistic.  Many times, I said that we should carry the problem to its height, even though you may fail in your attempt.  The younger academics celebrate this position or those who get to know me more by entertaining that bet.

Definitely, they make believe the students that they are some sort of employment agencies and not a place where they go to acquire knowledge.

Detail of printed page designed by Javier.

—– End of part one—–

Communicatheo recommends:

Elliot Jay Stocks, Living the Design

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Volunteer translation by Maria Tenorio

Maria Tenorio has a bachelor degree in Business Management and an MBA in Banking and Finance. She specializes in bi-directional English-Spanish translations. Particularly, the translation of commercial publications, legal work and the similar with utmost accuracy and fidelity and have translated voluminous documents (legal and financial) from Spanish into English. She also translates legal documents for Immigration purposes for friends and help other immigrants within the community with language barriers at schools, hospitals and the like. If you want to contact her for work, please write to joboard@communicatheo.com

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Tradução Oficial

Traducción Oficial

Web 2.0 presents us with a lot of content that is lost among the apparent chaos. We are immersed among a sea of stories, publications and views, among other very interesting that we are unable to be accompanied. By inviting designers to share their experience or their routine in the world of graphic design we have a lot to discover. Not to mention of how many of us do not identify with this profiles. We thank Jacob Cass and Elliot Jay Stocks, for join to Communicatheo.

Designer In the Spotlight is a weekly feature presented by Jacob Cass every sunday to help particular individuals in the design community get their name ‘out there’ and to educate the community as a whole. In his blog Just Creative Design , Jacob presents posts and news specifically of interest to graphic designers.

Elliot Jay Stocks

Designer In the Spotlight: Elliot Jay Stocks

Written by Jacob Cass on Sunday, December 21, 2008 – 12:00 am. Spanish Translation by Camila Jafelice.

1. Please tell us more about yourself, your background, education and what you do as a designer.

For years I thought I was going to be an illustrator, since I spent the majority of my childhood drawing, and used to draw and design various things for school, like posters for drama productions, pamphlets for open evenings; that sort of thing. In my early teens I really got into comic books in a big way and started writing and drawing my own, which I used to print and sell to school friends. I was pretty sure I was going to pursue a career in comic book illustration, but then I discovered music. I formed my own band and then got into digital art (very late, actually – not until 1999) and started designing CD covers. Then I realised I needed a website and my interest in the medium was fueled.

I went to University and studied for a degree in Contemporary Media Practice, which was very vague but allowed me to focus mainly on Digital Media. My web design knowledge at this time was next to nothing (I couldn’t write HTML at all) and I focused straight away on Flash.

Over the course of my years at university, I started doing sites for friends’ bands and so built up a portfolio quite quickly. When I left uni I was very lucky to get a job at EMI Records, who (I think) were pleased by the musically-orientated portfolio.

Clockwork

Twiistup

2. How long have you been designing and what made you become an artist / designer?

Oops. I think I’ve answered that above! But also: I’ve been designing ‘professionally’ (i.e: from when I graduated) since summer 2004.

3. Where do you work and what is your daily routine?

I work for myself, and I work at home, in the heart of the English countryside. In terms of a routine, I start work around 8.30 to 9, although I never actually begin any ‘real’ work until 10. I spend the first hour catching up on email, RSS feeds, Twitter, general web surfing and research. I’ve recently written about why we should all write off that first hour. (You may also be interested in this article of Jacob Cass on the best time of day to do things as a designer).

4. How did you market yourself in the beginning of your design career and how has that differed to how you market yourself now?

I’ve been fortunate in that I’ve had to do very little marketing. I submitted my personal site to a lot of CSS galleries when I released it in April 2007 and that had a huge snowball effect, in terms of it getting featured and linked to from a lot of other sites.

When I started writing for magazines and speaking in public last year, I did have to push a bit to get myself out there (by phoning up and emailing magazines like .Net and asking to speak at events like Oxford Geek Night. These days I’m lucky enough to be invited to appear at events and write for magazines, and I haven’t yet had to ‘look’ for work – all of my clients have come to me first. I’m very grateful for this, and I know it won’t last forever!

Portafolio de Elliot

5. What are your tools of the trade? This could include hardware, software and traditional tools.

As of last week, I’m now the proud owner of a new MacBook Pro and 24″ LED Cinema Display, so that’s my hardware. Software-wise, I use (unsurprisingly) Photoshop for all design work (coupled with InDesign for print stuff), and I build sites with TextMate. Other apps I use on a daily basis include Transmit for FTP, MAMP for local development, Things and iCal for task management, Scrivener for copywriting, and LittleSnapper for capturing design inspiration.

6. How do you manage the business side of design such as accounting, invoicing and bookkeeping?

I have an accountant who takes care of my tax return paperwork; I just keep a record of my earnings and expenses, which I give him at the end of the year. Most of the ‘business’ side of things I have to deal with (apart from dealing with clients) revolves around booking in (and re-arranging) projects in Things and iCal. Never underestimate the time this takes!

7. Where do you get your inspiration and how do you keep up to date with what is happening in the industry?

I try to get as much inspiration from the offline world as possible, because I’m a firm believer in how getting your inspiration from only one place will make your designs stale. I’m taking more and more inspiration from print these days, but I also frequent a few ‘gallery’ sites for web-specific inspiration. Best Web Gallery and CSSBeauty for instance.

Mithum

8. Can you please guide us through a typical project from start to finish.

The client gets in touch to say they’re interested in working together; I email them back with details about my availability, daily rate, and general process; they give me a bit more information about the project; I send them a series of questions to answer so that I can get a decent brief; we discuss and finalise the approach we’re going to take; I produce wireframes and get feedback (and modify where necessary); I produce designs and get feedback (and modify where necessary); I then either hand over my PSD files and a rough styleguide if it’s a design-only project, or I begin coding the site (and modify where necessary). Occasionally I’ll outsource some development stuff to a friend if it’s particularly heavy back-end code.

9. What are your top 3 websites / books and why?

Ooh, that’s a tough one! ‘I Love Typography‘ has done great things for promoting an interest in typography and it’s a great source of inspiration. There are sites I frequent (like the ones I described above) but I’m not sure if they’re my favourite. From a design point of view, I love visiting Jason Santa Maria’s personal site because of the way he ‘art directs’ each post. I’ll also happily pour over anything created by Miguel Ripoll, who’s my favourite designer. Oh, and Tim van Damme has done some superb work recently, like http://24ways.org

10. What is the biggest piece of advice you would give to someone just starting out?

Work for ‘the man’ before going freelance straight out of university or college.