Spicy Web Designer Interview with Sam Devos

Sam Devos is a web designer from Hulste in Belgium. He studied Multimedia and communication technology. Sam has been designing websites for about the past 4 years since 2005 and his design work has improved a great deal so far since he started. His portfolio includes a wide range of web and print design work

1. How did you get started in web design?

I started in web design through my education which calls MCT (multimedia & communication technology)

2. When did you start designing websites?

I think I made my first back in 2005 which was a personal portfolio site but looked like shit.

3. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

Finding job opportunities actually :p, improving myself on every design (I get often frustrated if I don’t achieve the design level I wanted), having a look at my site 2 years later and still finding it modern

4. Do you code any of the web sites that you design currently? If so, what language(s) do you code in?

Yes, I just can do the CSS /XHTML coding. I may do some JQuery in it but just for animations then.

5. Did you study design at school or are you self-taught?  If you went to school, how has your education helped you become a better web design professional?  What other skills has it helped you to gain and what else has it taught you about design in general?

Well school offered me the basics in Photoshop illustrator ,but  in my opinion you have to teach it yourself I don’t think arts can be taught…   it just using your eyes, and be good in picking colors  I guess. , but school helped me a lot in doing the web coding (CSS/HTML). Besides that I look a lot on design portals finding inspiration and of course buying some computer arts magazines.

6. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

Well that’s not a simple question I can speak about for myself but I think it’s get harder and harder today to be  notable between all those other companies.

7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a web project? Why are they your favorite tools?

I use” color cop” a lot for picking out the color code (#FF675F) on an image etc. Very useful if you see a damn cool color. And oh I use the web developer toolbar for FireFox very often, this comes handy if you don’t know what width to use on certain websites that must be viewable on 1024 screen sizes etc.. and for viewing some interesting CSS code beyond sites.