Jeremy Kratz from Little Rock mixes a little coding into his design projects

Jeremy Kratz is a web designer from Little Rock, Arkansas in the United States. He first started designing websites back in 1997 when he was in junior high school and in college he studied Computer Science which is when he began designing websites professionally. Jeremy is very comfortable when it comes to scripting and programming as well as design. He has learned a number of lessons since he started building sites and is focused on delivering his best on any project he is involved with.

1. When I was checking out your portfolio of web design work I noticed that you list ASP.net and JavaScript and I wanted to ask you how comfortable you are with coding and scripting in general?

My degree is in the Computer Science field, so I have a fairly strong programming background. I’m very comfortable coding and scripting; I typically spend about half of my work day on programming.

2. How long have you been designing websites?

I designed my first website back in the Stone Age – around 1997 while in junior high school.

3. Are you a “self-taught” web designer? If you are not then what did you study when you went to school?  And lastly has it helped you to become a better designer in general?

I was self-taught up until college. While most of my courses were focused on programming, I did take a design minor to balance out my experience. The basic-level graphic design courses I took toward the beginning of that track gave me a solid understanding of the fundamentals (alignment, repetition, etc), which have really helped me become a better designer.

4. What are your favorite tools when it comes to designing for the web?

Photoshop for graphics, Visual Studio (or its free Visual Web Developer version) for coding, and Firefox + Firebug for fixing everything I screwed up.

5. Since you began designing websites professionally how would you say you’ve matured in the web design business and what lessons have you learned along the way?

The main area where I think I’ve matured has been on the business/management side. It’s easy for someone to build a website, but it can be difficult to attach a price to it, meet a deadline, and keep a client happy along the way. This is something I continue to work on.

As for lessons learned:

• Develop a thick skin. It’s very easy to emotionally attach yourself to a design, so it can hurt when someone criticizes it. Try to filter out the noise (‘your site is lame’) from the useful (‘the sidebar text is hard to read’). It also helps to look at work samples from the person who is criticizing you; I’ve found that the most antagonizing comments come from those with little or no design experience.
• Don’t be afraid to turn work down. If you have too much on your plate or if a project seems too big to handle alone, it’s OK to refer them to someone else or give them a later time when you’ll be available.
• Document everything. Unfortunately, there are clients who will try to take advantage of you. There are some people who will think that your work is overpriced and will refuse to pay you. You can avoid a lot of headaches if you document your rates, estimates, scope, changes, etc with email correspondence.

6. I see that you have a strong programming background and also that you took the time to learn design.  Which do you like better, programming or design?

I’d say it varies from day to day. If I’ve been doing a lot of programming, I’m ready to do some design work. If I’ve been working on a design, I like to switch to programming for a while. I don’t always have the same preference, but doing both helps keep me from getting burned out.

7. What languages do you currently program, code and/or script in when working on web projects?

I do a lot of work in ASP.NET/C#. Recently I’ve done some work with Django/Python, and I’ve done PHP off and on when needed. I used to hate writing JavaScript, but jQuery has taken a lot of that pain away.

8. When did you start designing and developing for the web professionally?

I started professionally while still in college. I did a lot of freelance projects for various departments around campus, which was a great way to earn some discretionary funds.