Website Inspiration Blog | SpicyWebDesigners.com by Luc Arnold

Alex Carabi is a web designer from Stockholm, Sweden. He began designing websites using GeoCities at the age of 10 years old and from there learned HTML and then progressed to CSS, XHTML and web standards. Alex is currently studying economics while he does freelance web design work and is proficient in English and Swedish.

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

I designed my first site on Yahoo! GeoCities, a WYSIWYG online editor about 9 years ago, at the age of 10. I don’t remember who introduced me to the service, but once I’d created my own piece of online real-estate, I was hooked. I created tons of personal websites back then, all because of a desire to put a piece of myself on the web, available for all too see.

At 13 I borrowed an HTML book from a friend, and together we started experimenting and slowly developing our HTML skills. Initially I used free templates, which was the easiest way to make professional-looking websites with my limited HTML experience. Slowly I started building a client base, making sites for friends, bands and soccer teams from school. After a year or two I grew bored of templates and wanted to create, design and produce entire sites. I read up more on HTML and started producing table-based sites for local music schools and bands.

After a while I started realizing the limitations of table-based layouts. It was extremely messy to update and maintain sites, it didn’t help search engine optimization and my sites could look strange and even unreadable on certain browsers. I read up on CSS, XHTML, web standards; the works. From the word go I didn’t feel as confined as before, and I began to view web design not as simply an obligatory publishing option, but as an art, as a science.

2.  When did you start designing websites?

See above!

3.  Do you feel that your education has/is helping you to become a better web designer? How or how has it not helped you?

I’m studying economics at the moment, so my education definitely hasn’t helped the artistic side of web design. But I think my education has had an impact on the usability side of things. Economics and business are all about getting your product/service sold, and key concepts from marketing, client orientation and customer service have crept into my web design processes. However, I believe the best education a web designer can have is to simply browse the web. After browsing hundreds (if not thousands) of websites and portfolios you start understanding what works and what doesn’t. Additionally, there are so many rich (and free) resources out there when it comes to web design: blogs, videos, tutorials, galleries…the list goes on.

4.  What is the biggest challenge that you personally face as a web designer?

The biggest challenge I face as a freelance web designer is maintaining a steady stream of clients. As a student I’m not 100% dependent on my web design income, but as any freelancer will tell you, you just wish you knew when that pay check will come.

5.  What web technologies could you not live without?

From web site planning to delivery, the tools and technologies I use are Photoshop, Illustrator, text-editor (I use an oldy: Arachnophilia), FTP client, all the major available browsers, IE Tester (to check compatibility with IE 6). And Skype, which has made client interaction so much easier.

6.  Are there any CMS systems that you normally work with (example. WordPress, ExpressionEngine, Durpal, etc.)?

For really simple sites (without news posts etc) I use CushyCMS, an easy-to-use content management system which gets the job done. For heavier sites I use WordPress. The possibilities are seemingly endless with the system, and with such a large community the amount and quality of plug-ins are fantastic. But I’ll tell you, learning to set up local hosts, MySQL databases etc for a web design guy like me, with no prior PHP or programming experience, it wasn’t exactly a pain-free experience!

7.  Can you tell us more about your process when you plan a web design project for a client?  What does this stage normally entail?  What is required from the client?  Do you create mockups?

Generally, the planning of the website entails me asking the client what the target audience is, what the website’s purpose is and what values they want to convey. Moreover, I do a significant amount of research about the company (when possible), to fully understand what they’re all about, what they offer and what they stand for.

When it comes to the planning of the design I start with the layout and the structure of content, either with pencil and paper or directly on Photoshop. I do this in grey scale so that the entire focus is on content and usability. I’m firm believer that content, and the accessibility of the content, is the most important element in web design. After all, most visit people visit web sites to find information. However, conveying the right values and impressions with the web site’s appearance is of course extremely important as well, if not as important. Therefore in the next step I add colors, graphics and typography to the design. When this step is completed, I usually send a mockup to the client for approval before slicing the site and starting the mark-up in CSS and XHTML.

Peter Wimrén is a web designer who is originally from Sweden who made the move to London in the UK and has his sights set on coming to America to pursue his web design career in a place where he can be at “the forefront of web production and online design” as he puts it. He graduated with a degree in Art Direction for the web and decided to move to London to continue to pursue his career and things have being booming ever since for Peter.

1. How did you first get started? How long ago was that?

I knew from quite an early age that I wanted to design and it never changed. In Junior High I had my first experience when we had work experience for a week. I did not want to go to one of my parent’s workplace so I made a deal with a classmates dad and came to his print shop. We did mainly screen printing and signage.

Throughout high school my books where full of drawings and the only subject I really aced was art class. When going off to College I studied Graphic Design and media and as with high school I only really excelled in the subjects I liked, color studies, typography etc. We also had 3 months work experience so I worked at an ad agency making smaller pieces of work.

After graduating I started work at another place doing the same. This was around the time the Internet really started to kick off in Sweden and more and more clients wanted web work done. As no one at the agency I worked did stuff like that I decided to go back to school and learn it.

2 years later I graduated with a degree in Art direction for the web. I then did some freelance stuff but never really got a steady job to learn more. So I decided to go to London, I got a job working for free as an apprentice for 6 months doing freelance stuff on the side. After the 6 months they gave me a job and when I decided to go to America 4 years later, the company I worked for and one other partner company offered me to come on board as a director. So a few months ago I signed a contract to stay with the 2 companies for another 3 years in exchange for 15% shares in each company. The freelance work has taken a bit of a step back but I still do my fair share of jobs on the side. For obvious reasons I try to spend more time building the 2 businesses I now have a stake in. We will for instance be releasing some free Wordpress themes and other goodies soon.

All in all I have been working with design since 2000 but I knew what I wanted to do from a very young age.

2. Do you work with other freelance web designers or do you prefer doing all the work on your projects yourself?

As I only do design and front end development I usually have to work with other freelancers on projects. It usually works out quite well; as you hire someone for their time or specific talents they let you sit in the driver’s seat and head up the project. I deal with the client and manage the project and the freelancers. Likewise, when I’m approached by freelance developers for my services I leave project management to them.

3. I noticed the FOWA badge on your site? How are you involved with them? I know that Elliot Jay Stocks another web designer I’ve interviewed has had some involvement with them.

I’ve never had the pleasure of working with the guys over at Carsonified, but as they were giving out free tickets to the FOWA London 2008 if you advertised the event on your website; I gave it a shot. Unfortunately I did not receive a ticket, some other lucky guy got to hang out with the “cool kids”. Who knows, maybe I’ll run into one of them at the Ecommerce Expo in a few weeks time.

4. Where do you get your ideas for the websites that you design?

Everywhere! As I work with print as well, you try and mix the 2 formats and the inspiration works both ways as well. I read quite a few design magazines and books. You are exposed to so much advertisement on a daily basis in London that it is impossible not to be influenced.

Of course you also spend hours and hours looking at other people’s great web design. Not to copy but to look at colour combinations, layouts, clever ways to display information and solve problems. The main CSS galleries are a great source of inspiration but I also try and look at other countries and their way of approaching design. There is a great deal of good design coming out of Asia, unfortunately many of them are made in flash so it is tedious surfing at times.

I think you can get inspired by most things actually, but in the end you need to try and find a design that fits your client’s needs and brand guidelines.

5. What are your favorite tools (software, pen and paper, other?) to design a website?

I use a pen and paper to gather my thoughts before starting to design. I usually do my wire framing on paper and all logo work starts on napkins, bar coasters or paper. Photoshop is the tool I use more than anything on my computer. I always keep about 2 or 3 versions below the newest software to avoid bugs and quirks (and keep costs down). So at the moment I work with Photoshop and Illustrator CS, Dreamweaver MX for my CSS and FTP. I use flash 5 to trace all my drawings, after which I work with them in Illustrator. I have not yet wrapped my head around using the pen tool, it takes to long compared to flash. I guess I could train myself to get faster but it’s like the saying goes; “If it’s not broken, don’t try to fix it…” And some other good freebies are firebug and IE tab (add-ons for firefox), PIXresizer for clients with loads of large images.

6. How do you usually price your web design work for clients?

I usually try and get as much information as possible about the project and what the client is trying to achieve. I then try and estimate how much of my time that would involve. I generally get one or two developers quote how much time they would charge me for their involvement, I use different developers for different jobs. And at the end of it you guess, it is always a guessing job. Some you get right, some you get wrong and you end up spending much more time than you estimated.

It is a lot easier when the client is working towards a budget, then you can tell them how much of what they want they can get for their money.