Sarah and Gennah from Wildwood Creative discuss their passion for graphics

Sarah Enid Moule and Gennah NeSmith are both from Perth, Australia running Wildwood Creative, a small web and graphic design studio. Sarah has been designing websites for the past 7 years and Gennah started to design websites back in high school. They both admit to not being “coders” but they know the basics of JavaScripting, HTML, CSS and jQuery plug-ins in general. Sarah learned more about designing from the internet and is a self taught designer and artist and a few low level certificates and Gennah studied at TAFE (a Technical College) and Murdoch University and earned a certificate in Multimedia and a bachelor’s degree in Multimedia. Together they run Wildwood Creative with over 6 collective years of experience and have some killer design skills which they formed earlier in 2009. Keep an eye out for this tag team of designers as they continue to blaze new trials in the web and graphic design industry from their head quarters in Perth.

1. How did both you and Gennah get into web design? How long have each of you been designing websites for?

Sarah: I started getting into web design about 7 years ago, so I could build myself an online portfolio for my artwork. Once I started learning, I fell in-love and re-designed my website about once every 2 weeks! Consequently… I got bored of my own website, and now I make them for other people!

Gennah:  It all started in high school.  I was introduced to HTML and loved it. Something about using notepad to create something with structure and meaning, displaying things in such a way that made people more motivated to read, learn, and click!  I’ve studied off and on, played around with stuff in my own time.  The last few years I have been making websites for companies at a bigger web corporation, which defiantly lets you decide you are doing the right job!   I have been designing websites for 6 years.

2. Do either you and/or Gennah do any scripting on website design projects? If so, what languages do you script in?

Sarah: Not me! I do some very basic JavaScript but apart from that I mostly make the sites look pretty!

Gennah: We are not really the scripting type.  We know HTML, CSS and enough to jQuery to use plug-ins.

3. Being a two-woman web design company what do you find as an advantage of operating this way? Are there any disadvantages?

Sarah: So far I haven’t really noticed many pros or cons. I’m not big on celebrating the whole “two women taking on the world” thing. We are just two people; passionate about what we do who are always hard at work!

Gennah: We haven’t come across any yet.  At this point I would like to note, we are not feminists or do not want to be seen as two women taking on the world, rather two people who love making graphics, artwork and websites.

Sarah: Haha, yeah what she said! To be honest… I’m a pretty poor excuse for a female anyway, so really we are doing all women kind a favor this way hehe.

4. Where and what did each of you study while you were at college or university and is either of you a “Self-Taught” web designer?

Sarah: I am a self taught artist and designer. I did a couple of low level qualification certificates but everything I know I have learned from the internet. It’s the best university ever! I think when you are really interested in something; nothing can get in your way!

Gennah: I studied at eCentral TAFE(Technical College) and Murdoch University. I have both a Certificate in Multimedia and a Bachelor in Multimedia.

5. Would you said that both yourself and Gennah have different styles of design and if so how do you balance this in the web design projects that you complete?

Sarah: Definitely! Gennah is more of a corporate designer, she likes things neat and clean and shiny, where as I love designing crazy fun sites with lots of color and exciting photos. We are both able to do either style though which is great, but we play to our strengths. If one of us feels like a break, we high-five and change over, then give each other feedback and support.

Gennah: Sarah’s design is very friendly, free and artistic.  She is very good at using color to make things stand out and work well.  My style is more corporate, a little more boring but still neat and user friendly.  This is a good dynamic to have!