Dino Latoga is a web designer from the Philippines. He has been designing websites since about 2000 when he was introduced to it by a friend. Dino is a “self taught” web designer who learns and continues to learn from books, magazines and other websites about web design. He develops websites using a blend of Javascripting, XHTML and CSS and also designs for specific web software platforms like WordPress, Blogger and Typepad.
1. How did you get started in web design?
I really don’t remember the exact year but I had a friend who was really into skateboarding at that time and he showed me a website that he created for their skateboarding group. I was like amazed at what he did. There were these cool automatically created JavaScript rollover effects and I think they were something extraordinary. That’s the story on how I totally got interested into creating websites.
2. When did you start designing websites?
Like my answer on first question, my friend introduced me into creating websites and as far as I can remember I think that was between the year 2000 and 2001. The first website I created was made in Adobe Image ready. Adobe Image ready has this thing that lets you create cool rollover effects. Creating websites back those days was much easier than today because you don’t really have to write the HTML part anymore. Programs such as Fireworks and Image ready has special table based HTML generators which makes work much easier.
3. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?
I think the greatest challenge in the web design industry is catching up with all the emerging latest technology and putting yourself above all the designers out there. It’s a huge crowd so in order to stand out, you must be totally passionate and hardworking.
4. Do you ever refer to yourself as a Front-end developer or a web designer? Do you code any of the web sites that you design currently? If so, what language(s) do you code in?
I refer to myself as both. I do all the design and I also do all the coding. When I’m designing a website, I always think ahead of the coding part. For example, do I want to make the edges of this box to be rounded or not? Will it require extra mark-up when I convert it to HTML? I always find the need to ask myself those kinds of things. It saves me time in the future. I wouldn’t want to be going back to the designing process when I’m in the middle of coding something. I really like to be organized at things. This is based on my own personal experience so other people’s experience may vary.
I’m really good at writing HTML and CSS. In fact, I’m very good. It’s one of my expertises which I learned to do on my first job. I learned it all in a book called “HTML Utopia: Designing Without Tables using CSS” from Sitepoint. The cover of that book is a family having their dinner on an invisible table, hence, table-less. I have a basic knowledge of PHP but I do understand most of the codes. I just don’t know how to write my own very well. As for JavaScript, I use jQuery and I do write a bit of functions which I base mostly on jQuery’s resource sites. The other thing I’m also very good at is hacking and writing WordPress themes to achieve that customized look that I am aiming for.
5. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web design professional?
I think school didn’t really help me much as a web designer. There are really no good related to web design courses here in my country at that time. I guess I can say that I learned everything from books, magazines and the internet.
6. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?
When I first started web design, most websites were table-based and people have personal websites not personal blogs. There were no things like SEO, social networks, twitter, DIGG, YouTube and there were only a few blogs. Getting yourself known was a hard because there were no feeds, no CSS Galleries, no DIGG or reddit to cling on to. People were just visiting the websites for information or emails. Only few people were visiting the web because there was no interaction. It was like a one way street. Converting designs to HTML was easy as clicking a button. The only challenge was creating the design.
Right now, the web has become more challenging. With the rise of blogs and social networks, the web has become a jungle. Today, the internet is a part of the household so you are no longer designing only for the web geeks and nerds but for everyone including your grandma. That’s where usability comes in. Before, people design flash websites with weird navigation styles that only designers and web savvy users will understand. Right now, we have to consider everyone in our designs.
I can say the web has totally changed for the better. Websites are better. The codes are cleaner and future proof. Information is coming in both ways and there is more interaction. It’s more exciting and challenging at the same time. I can only think of the future.
7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a web project? Why are they your favorite tools?
I have 3 favorite tools that I always use at work — Fireworks, Illustrator and Notepad.
Most designers that I know do their web designs and layout in Photoshop but not me. I do it in Fireworks. For me, Fireworks is a great and easy tool for creating those web design and layouts. I love the support for creating symbols. Most of all, I love the grid and vector feature. I used to be a Photoshop guy but as I grew up I knew it was not just the right tool for web design and layout.
I love a vector that’s why I am an Adobe Illustrator guy. Back at the old days when I was just starting out as a designer, Photoshop was my main tool. But when I was asked to create super hi-resolution graphics, my PC just can’t handle it. Then I heard about vector graphics. I learned that they were resolution independent. You can blow them up to any super-size that you can think of. So I opened it up and tried it. The first time I tried Adobe Illustrator, I was confused of the tools because I was used to the Photoshop interface. After several tries and experimenting with it, I finally learned how to deal with it. But right now, I’m still learning lots of things.
Dreamweaver used to be the code editor that I use. That was back the old days when most of the websites were wearing tables. It was really helpful especially it supports live preview. I wasn’t hand coding then. But people grow up and learn from their mistakes. I realized Dreamweaver was a bit of bloated software. So I tried to look for a very lightweight program that will do the job. And that’s why I found Notepad++. The need has changed. Right now, the challenge is to write clean and lightweight code. Notepad++ does the job very well. It supports a lot of languages and it has a number of good plugins that I find very useful.
