Spicy Web Designer Interview with Navdeep Raj

Navdeep Raj is a web designer and animator from San Jose, California in the United States of America. He has been interested in animation and design since he was 11 and today he is a Practice Lead at SourceN currently. He has been designing websites for the last 5 years to help him showcase his 3D.

1. How did you first get started in web design?

My first hand on design was on 3D. When I was 11, we happen to get a magazine that had a demo version of Amapi 3D, a software that lets you build objects in 3D. Both of us loved the way models were done and soon we discovered 3DS Max. We spent a few years on various versions of Max till date we have just been learning trough trial n error. This ended up with the works you find on our site.

Apart from 3D, we got into web design just because we wanted a website to showcase our works. This happened 5 years ago… we had to go through a lot of sites for references which inspired us to do more on the web as the web acts as a medium of exposure where we can get both feedback and criticisms about our work.

2. Why are you passionate about great web design?

Web design has such a huge scope out there. Been working on the web for so long, I just feel that I fit in this domain more than anything else…

3. Out of you and your brother Navin, who is the more logical and who is the more creative of the two of you?

I am the creative and Navin is the code geek. Initially both of us were on 3D design but eventually we choose what we could do the best. Me and Navin are brothers, so we always work together. Trough this both of us understand anything on both the design and the code perspective. Better designs can be produced only when you understand a developer’s perspective of any design, and vice-versa. Therefore on any projects we work on, we first discuss the best possibilities of both the worlds and then start doing what we do the best….

4. I see that you two do a great deal of 3D visualization and artwork.  How do you feel this enhances sites that you design?

To me, design is the only thing that gets registered in the mind when a user leaves the site. The stronger the design, the stronger it stays in the mind. So I make sure that every minute detail to anything in a design is taken care of.

Been working on the real 3D design, it’s very easy to understand stuff like shadows, lights etc. I would say this is just another design trend which everyone loves and as trends change, we will…

5. What are some of the challenges you face working with 3D when it comes to the web?

The cool thing is everyone loves this style and the bad thing is to build it. Building 3D on flash is pretty easy and quick but when it comes to xHTML & CSS, the main issue is filesize. Standard background repeats can’t be used for 3D elements cause of the angle of light/shadows. Another notable thing about bringing 3D style content to the web is that it’s tough to convert a 3d rendered image into a dynamic textbox for example…

6. What is the greatest challenge you are faced with when it comes to web design in general?

Woooo! IIIIIEEEEE I can say anything on the web is doable but getting IE to understand us with standards is highly impossible. With the coming versions of CSS & HTML, I think life could get simpler.

7. Do you feel that you educational background(s) have helped to become stronger designers overall?

I strongly believe education has nothing to do with what we are doing. Our education might just help us understand things better, but without passion you will never be able to excel in any field of work. All you need to have is passion in whatever you are doing to be successful, as passion drives you learn new things, overcome challenges and become a better person that who you are currently, and eventually passion is the driving force that makes you talented at your work.