Jason Long is a front-end developer and UI designer from Columbus, Ohio from the United States.  He currently runs Black Ant Media, his freelance web development company.  Jason has been freelancing since 2005 on a full-time basis.

He has been working with websites since 1996 and with over 15 years designing and developing for the web Jason has learned a great deal about the web.  During our interview, Jason talked about his use of HTML5 and CSS3 in his work, how he balances his family as he works from home with freelancing and more about his personal experiences in web development so I hope that you enjoy getting to know Jason Long.

Luc asks: In your portfolio you mention that you graduated from Computer Science at Ohio State University.  Would you consider yourself more of a web designer with the emphasis on “design” of a web developer?

Jason says: A few years ago, I would have said that I was a developer with a strong interest in design. Nowadays, I say that I’m a designer and front-end developer. There used to be a sharper line between designers and developers, but now there is a (growing) grey area in between with things like JavaScript, CSS effects, and HTML5 features (canvas, geolocation, local storage, etc.). Much of this is more technical than some designers are comfortable with and at the same time, it’s closer to the front-end than a lot of developers like to be. This grey area is my sweet spot.

Luc asks: How long have you been professionally designing for the web?

Jason says: I think the first time I ever got paid for web work was in 1996 at my first job after college. I started off with a traditional IT consulting company and I worked on our intranet while I was on the bench. I started working for a company called MindLeaders in 1999 and began doing web development in earnest – mostly ASP and JSP. Around the same time, I got involved in a small e-commerce site for hotrod car parts and I cut my teeth on PHP, CSS, and semantic HTML. I’ve been an independent developer/designer since 2005.

Luc asks: Do you do freelance web design on a full-time or a part-time basis currently?  If you are a part-time freelance designer where do you work and what do you do for a “day job”?

Jason says: I went out on my own in 2005 and this has been my full-time gig ever since.

Luc asks: I noticed that your portfolio is coded using HTML5 and CSS3, both of which are fairly new to the world of the web.  How have you found working with these technologies and what technical tips do you have for designers who are using these standards for the first time?

Jason says: in truth, I’m not utilizing much from the HTML5 spec on my site. I have tried to incorporate some of the newer semantic elements like header, footer, nav, and section. I have used quite a bit of CSS3 though. Most designers know about border-radius, text-shadow, and box-shadow, but subtle uses of -webkit-transitions (for gradual color changes on hover) and -webkit-transforms (for slight photo rotations) are a nice way to add a little something to your designs while not being a big deal if some people miss out on them.

There are a lot of nifty things that can be done with the new CSS effects, but since they are limited to specific browsers (mostly those based on WebKit) for now, it’s important to have contingencies for your designs so that they don’t rely on those browsers. On my contact form, for example, I’m using Modernizr to detect whether or not the user’s browser support 3D transforms. If they do, they see the contact form flip around when they submit it and turn into an envelope. Otherwise, I fall back to simpler cross-fade effect via JavaScript.

My best advice for designers would be to not shy away from the technical side of web design (and to me, design is how something works, not just how it looks). If you’ve never done any JavaScript work, roll your sleeves up and play with jQuery. If you’re already familiar with jQuery, try out another framework (like MooTools) or take a step back and learn about pure JavaScript. If you haven’t looked at Sass or Less, check them out. Having some technical chops to go along with your Photoshop-fu will make you dramatically more attractive to people looking to staff exciting new projects.

Luc asks: What are some of your favourite features of working with HTML5 and CSS3 and how have you applied them to your work?

Jason asks: I’m about to dig in deeper into HTML5 canvases on a current project and I’m very excited about that. Geolocation and local storage also open up huge new opportunities, especially in the mobile space. I’m using HTML5 for all of my new projects, even if that means just using the new doctype. Like most designers, I’ve been quietly injecting CSS3 bits into projects for a while now – a rounded corner here, a drop shadow there.

I’ve been playing with Sass recently and it has really made writing CSS more enjoyable. It allows you to take advantage of some traditional programming concepts like functions (mixins in Sass) and variables (so you don’t have to repeat that hex code for that blue 37 times). It also provides some nice mathematical HSL methods for color manipulation. This means you can do things like create great-looking buttons (including hover and active states) with a single base color. Sass methods like lighten, darken, desaturate, hue, complement, etc. allow you to compute colors for gradients, border colors, and shadows from that base color. If you have a few different buttons on your site, you can wrap that recipe in a mixin and use it over and over with any base color.

As a simple example, you can look at the Sass code for the green button on my contact form by clicking here!

Luc asks: What was the most recent book, magazine article or blog article that you read and loved?

Jason says: Overall, “Born to Run” is probably the most interesting book I’ve read over the last year or so. For something web-related, Andy Clarke’s “Hardboiled Web Design” is outstanding.

I just subscribed to .net magazine (which is called Practical Web Design in the U.S.). I remember this magazine being chock full of awful Dreamweaver tutorials and the like, but they now have great coverage of HTML5, CSS3, and JavaScript. The most recent issue has a great article by Ryan Florence on creating a MooTools slideshow class.

Luc asks: How do you manage a career in freelance design, a family and yourself on a daily basis?

Jason says: I work out of my home, but I’m very strict about balancing my work and family life. I run before work a few times a week and almost always stop working at 5:00. After that, its family time and I rarely answer work phone calls or emails. I want to kick ass at work and be a great husband and dad and that can’t happen unless you compartmentalize those roles.

Ben Tollady is a web designer who has worked on some interesting website projects ever since he first started building websites back in 1996 in the UK. Since 2003, Ben has called Australia home working for agencies mainly, he works with other freelancer designers when he isn’t busy on other big projects and you’ll usually find him somewhere around a MAC.

1. How did you first get into web design and how long have you been designing websites for?

I designed my first site in 1996 while I was at university in Loughborough in the UK. There weren’t any web design courses back then but one of the tutors on my Industrial Design course was quite forward-thinking and ran a series of short courses on the basics of this new-fangled HTML thing for those that were interested.

It wasn’t until I left university and started at a fairly large agency in London that I really got into it though.

2. Do you usually work with Creative, Ad or Design agencies?

I’ve worked with a number of agencies both in London and Melbourne (I moved to Australia in 2003). I also do a lot of work directly with small businesses which makes for a nice variety of projects in terms of size and user-types to design for.

3. What is the biggest web design project you’ve been commissioned to do and how did it turn out in the end?

Telstra Business is probably the biggest project I can think of in recent years, although my involvement there was information architecture and HTML/CSS template development rather than design. It was a huge undertaking, consolidating and migrating content from 8 sites into a single, redesigned site with a very short deadline! Thankfully it turned out well and showed great improvement in the usability tests they conducted after the launch.

4. Which college/university did you study at? What did you study and how has it helped you in your career?

I studied for a degree in Industrial design & technology from Loughborough university in the UK back in 1994.

I think the course has been a great help in terms of my web career. The skills and knowledge I gained in terms of ergonomics and human-product interaction lend themselves perfectly to that of human-computer/interface interaction. I see the discipline of industrial design much more synonymous with that of web design than any other design discipline.

5. Do you ever work with other freelance web designers on projects?

Yes, all the time! Especially for help with advanced flash work and back-end development. It’s good working with other people, especially when you work alone most of the time like I do at the moment – it’s interesting seeing how other people work and do things differently.

6. What inspires you to design the websites that you design?

A love for making things, the web and a passion for good usability. Thinking about who is going to use the site is a great inspiration too. I think it’s really important to take the time to understand the intended audience of any site I’m designing to make sure it will ‘speak’ to them.

Reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s book, “Designing with web standards” was a great inspiration too. I also seem to find myself spending inordinate amounts of time surfing the web to see what everybody else is up to.

7. One of the most interesting sites in your portfolio is the “Howl’s Moving Castle”? How was it working with Madman Entertainment on this project?

I worked at Madman for a couple of years when I first arrived in Melbourne. It’s a great place to work – absolutely packed to the rafters with talented young designers. I learnt so much from the other guys working there it’s not funny!

Other than the great team, the best thing about working on Madman projects was the fantastic artwork available to you for each project, and Howl’s Moving Castle was no exception. The design of that site was easy given I had such a wealth of fantastic artwork thanks to the Studio Ghibli drawings I was provided. We were also lucky enough to go to an advanced screening of the film before I built the site, so I had a good idea of how the site should feel having seen that.

8. Do you design your web sites on a mac or a PC? Judging by the first email I received from you came from an iPhone I am guessing you are running a MAC but maybe I am wrong? What is your workstation setup like?

Since starting my freelance business last year I’ve gone all-out MAC (I was PC before). It all started with a 24″ iMac which is my main work machine and then I got one of the black macBooks soon after for working on-site. My newest addition is the iPhone which I absolutely love.

9. What are the essential pieces of software that you work with when designing you web projects?

Omnigraffle (for wireframes and site-maps), Photoshop, Coda, Flash and iTunes (You can’t design in silence).

More about this Web Designer

URL: Tollady.com

Email/Contact: studio@tollady.com

Phone: +61 (0) 424 285 928