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.
