Spicy Web Designer Interview with Jason King

Jason King is a not-for-profit web designer. He is originally from the UK but he currently resides in Melbourne Australia. While in London, UK, he was a circuit rider (a roving IT worker that supports the caseload of small not-for-profit organizations) and most recently he has been doing web design in the not-for-profit sector. Originally he started as a Librarian before turning to not-for-profit web design to make a difference.

1.  How did you get started in Web Design?  When did you first start designing websites? How did you first become involved in not-for-profit website design?

I used to be a librarian in the north of England but there were few jobs and little money in that. So in 2000 I moved to West London and began a new career as a circuit rider. You may not have heard the term, so what’s a circuit rider? Simply put, they’re a roving IT worker who supports a caseload of small not-for-profit organizations.

I noticed that almost all of those small charities were struggling with their websites, for various reasons: lack of funding, lack of staff time, unreliable volunteers, wrong decisions, poor documentation, and cowboy web designers. So I taught myself to build websites to offer my clients a web design service that understood their needs and limitations.

2. Where do you draw your inspiration from when taking on new web design projects?

I’m not a graphic designer; I’m more of a small project manager, CMS implementer and HTML/CSS coder. So my designs aren’t beautiful but they’re simple, functional and reliable and standards-compliant.

The smaller nonprofits tend to be somewhat conservative in their tastes and unaware of what can be done online these days. They’re may not be brimming with great ideas or have good images or even a usable logo. They need time and a certain amount of hand-holding to come up with a good project brief and to prepare materials and content. I encourage charities to look at example of good practice web design and to think hard about what works and what doesn’t in their field.

3. How do you price your web design work especially because you are focused primarily on NFP agencies?

I hate the whole business of quoting for work, it’s difficult to balance what’s fair with what keeps me fed and difficult to accurately judge how much time is likely to be involved. I’ve under-quoted far too often in the past – I’m trying to reverse that trend!

Just because an organization is nonprofit doesn’t mean it has no money. All nonprofits should have a strategy and a budget for their IT systems and for their web communications. I’ve sometimes helped organizations to put together a funding proposal and written the bids, so that they can then contract me as their web designer.

One of the best resources nonprofits have available is the support of volunteers and it is possible to find talented, professional volunteer web designers (e.g. via www.it4communities.org.uk) or have work done pro bono by a design agency. But volunteers can’t be expected to give long-term support or deliver a complex, unfunded project.

4. Do you normally work with other freelance web designers on projects?

Occasionally I do, and intend to do so more in future. One limitation of working solo is that you’re not likely to win the larger contracts, plus there are obviously gaps in any one person’s skills and abilities.

I often work with non-techies. For example, on a recent web project there was a project manager, a graphic designer who provided the banner and color scheme, a person employed to write original content and a copy editor to make it presentable, plus I had to liaise with a data inputter. In a situation like this the role of the project manager can be vital in keeping everyone on track.

5. Where did you go to school and did it help you in your career as a web designer?

I took a librarianship degree in Leeds. Librarianship teaches you to organize, categorize, present and describe information in ways that make it easy for its target audience to find and comprehend. Those lessons continue to be useful, especially where planning website architecture, implementing the tagging and categorizing of content, and anything database-related is concerned. Librarians have had to become much more tech and web savvy in the last decade because nowadays the bulk of information is online.

I never attended web design courses. Few of them seemed up-to-date with current ways of working and anyway I’m too impatient to sit and listen. I learn most of my skills from books, from magazines like .Net and other peoples’ blogs.

I recently mentored another web designer, teaching them how to customize WordPress to act as the CMS for their website redevelopment; and I’ve taught classes in web design. Teaching can make an enjoyable break from coding and it’s a handy additional source of income.

6. What web design sites do you frequently visit to stay on top of new topics in the field of web design?

I’d recommend the Boagworld podcast and the various emails and blogs from Sitepoint. Smashing Magazine is great for so many reasons. Take a look at TechSoup for nonprofit technology articles and discussion, including about web design.

I have to plug the Making Links conference in Melbourne, Australia in November. This year we’re putting on a whole day of sessions about nonprofit web development. Or if you’re in the US maybe you could go to the NTEN nonprofit conference instead.