Featured Web Designer interview with Andrew Reifman

Andrew Reifman is a web designer from Atlanta, Georgia in the United States.  He studied and earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of Georgia.  He bills himself as a designer primarily and not a developer and confides that one of the most difficult things he’s dealt with on a web design project is programming.

Andrew likes collaboration with others and he also likes the social interaction of working with a team of people.  Lately he has been working with MailChimp, also known as The Rocket Science Group as their web designer.  When he isn’t busy working he likes to shoot pool and working towards mastering Javascript.  Here is what Andrew had to say about his passion for web and graphic design, where he sees himself in 5 years and his experiences using social media.

Luc asks: In your design experiences to date, what has been your favorite project to work on and why?

Andrew says: Aside from working on my own site, which is always fun to do, my favorite project(s) to work on has been for MailChimp. Working for MailChimp has been very different from previous work experiences because my only clients are the people I work with. It also happens to be that my coworkers are very fun and open to being as creative as possible.

Luc asks: With your background in Fine arts, how and why did you get into web page design?

Andrew says: I was an undecided art major for several years in college. I reached a point where I had to decide which art career I would pursue. It was between continuing with a focus in drawing or entering the graphic design program. I decided that I would like to get a paycheck on a regular basis and was accepted into the graphic design program. For two years, I produced mainly print and identity work, learning very little about web design.

I was really introduced to web design as an intern. Over the next few years I immersed myself in web design, following blogs, viewing CSS galleries daily, and keeping up with trends. Design made up 50% of my job, front-end developing the other 50%. Being a developer really helped grow my abilities in design by knowing what could and couldn’t be done. It also allows me to remain in complete control of my projects from start to finish.

Luc asks: To date, what are the most difficult things that you’ve dealt with on a web design project?

Andrew says: The most difficult thing that I’ve dealt with, and still deal with to this day is programming. I’m a designer first and a developer second. In design, if things don’t work, it’s really a matter of opinion. Nothing breaks in a design that prevents you from seeing your project on the screen. Code on the other hand, forget to close that one div and your whole projects decides to explode. This was definitely a more frustrating issue when working with dynamic sites using Ruby. Now I work with more static sites, and this whole issue has gotten a little easier for me to handle.

Luc asks: Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

Andrew says: In 5 years, I hope to still be loving graphic design. I would love to go back to my design roots and do both print design and web design. As liberating as freelance can be, I imagine myself still working for a design firm. Once again, I’m big on working with other people, and I really need human interaction during the day. I don’t want to become a design hermit.

Luc asks: What are your favorite web technologies to work with currently?

Andrew says: jQuery is awesome. I’m really getting into CSS3 and I’m anxiously waiting for the day when every browser recognizes it. I’m looking at you Internet Explorer.

Luc asks: What role does using social media play in building your freelance web design business?  Do you find that people are responsive to following you on twitter, linkedin and other social media networking websites?

Andrew says: I’m a pretty moderate user of social media, nothing too hardcore for me. My greatest learning tool over the last year or two has become Twitter. There is no other place on the internet that you can receive as much inspiration and information from other designers. Follow the right people and you will have an endless supply of inspiration, tutorials and informative articles. At the same time, Twitter can also be my greatest source of distraction. I will admit that I need to do a better job of giving back to the design community and post more tweets of my own. Sorry about that folks, working on it.