Hank Toet is a web designer and art director from Los Angeles, California in the United States. With over 10 years of experience in the field of design he has worked in various positions from “web designer”, “graphic designer” to a “Lead Designer” and most recently an “Art Director” but he received his education in Business Administration. In one way or another he has been designing for the web since 1996 when Hank discovered websites and wanted to learn how to design and program them.
Hank recently got together with SpicyWebDesigners.com to talk about his experiences in design, why he loves designing for the web and his views on formally educated designers versus self taught designers.
Luc asks: Hank, with your extensive design experiences, how long have you been designing websites?
Hank says: I first started playing around with Micrograpx Picture Publisher around 1996.
I enjoyed browsing around the web and wanted to learn how to design and program websites.
I used Microsoft Front page to put together my websites but when I got my first job working as an html editor I was forced to stop using Front Page and learn how to code by hand. I’m happy I did because Front Page sucked! 
Soon after that I left my PC behind and got my first Mac, haven’t look back since!
Luc asks: Are you formally educated in design or self taught? Do you feel it’s better for a designer to have a formal education or be a self taught designer?
Hank says: Back when I started designing websites there were really no courses you could take or schools you could go to, to learn how to be a web designer.
I really wanted to learn but didn’t know where to go so I was forced to figure it out for myself. In hindsight I think it would have been nice to have had some formal education but the benefit of being self taught is that I’ve never had to unlearn the rules that are imposed on you with a formal design education. I was free to do whatever I wanted which allowed for a lot of experimentation and probably led me to solutions I would not have thought of if I was formally trained.
Luc asks: Why do you love being a web designer?
Hank says: Growing up I never really knew what I wanted to do in life but I always had a strong interest in design, I loved graffiti culture, urban design, underground music and the style that goes
along with that. When the internet started to become popular and I started to design for it. It was like all the puzzle pieces fell into place and I finally found something that was me. Whenever I sit down in front of Photoshop and look at an empty canvas I get this rush and anything is possible. It’s being excited about the possibilities and trying to do the best you can and hopefully being proud with the results when you are done. I also feel this process of learning and getting better at what you do will never stop. At least not for me, I want to keep doing this until the day I die.
Luc asks: I see that you have experience working on mobile design projects, what are your major concerns or considerations you make when designing a project for a mobile device?
Hank says: My main concern is UI; there are a lot of applications out there that just don’t make any sense. It’s easy to make something look good but it has to be usable.
