Sebastián Jaramillo T. in California flashes his passion for front-end design

Sebastián Jaramillo T. is a web developer and graphic artist from San Francisco, California in the United States. He started designing back in high school when he was 15 and enjoyed digital art. After high school, Sebastián attended LaSalle College in Columbia and received his Graphic Design degree. He has since attended the Art Institute of California in San Francisco for a Bachelor of Science in Web Design and Interactive Media. He has learned the ins and outs of front end design from breaking and fixing errors, reading blogs and continuing to push himself further to advance his skills.

Because Sebastián’s work is not solely comprised of design work and the fact that he does a great deal of scripting including the use of ActionScript, JavaScript, PHP and web standards development he is able to not only visualize the design but also add function with style. After having a chance to talk to him about his experiences in graphic design, web development and front-end development, Sebastián had this to add about his experiences…

1. When you first started designing websites how did you know that this was something that you wanted to keep doing and learning more about?

My transition into becoming a web developer/designer has been quite interesting, I will try to keep this story short, but it really explains my transition and experience in this industry. I started doing design back in high school when I was 15; right away I knew there was a great connection between myself and digital art. At this time I was also doing some small Flash experiments. After I graduated from high school and was on my way to college, I knew without a doubt that I was going to become a Graphic Designer. This is when I first attended LaSalle College back in Colombia (where I am from), to get a Graphic Design degree. During my studies there, I was more interested in learning interactive media and motion than I was in learning all of that print stuff. Seeing how I could give my static designs life through motion graphics, and even more interestingly, how I could make a design interactive with user input. This was priceless and seemed to have great potential. This is where my path changed and I started to get more involved in learning programming languages, in this case ActionScript.

Here is a sample of my old, old website after I graduated from LaSalle College… I have to warn you this is very old school (Click here)

After this, I worked with an interactive media agency in Colombia called Activa MC, where I really fell in love with the web. Understanding the great potential that a website can have, and how fun it is to build, is what bought me in. Right there I knew that I needed to have some formal education in web and interactive media. After a couple of months, I decided to move to the US and study Web Design and Interactive Media at The Art Institute of California San Francisco, from where I graduated very recently.

2. When did you start designing websites professionally?

Believe it or not, the first “website” I did was in my senior year back in high school. I doubt this could be considered a website though; it was more like a flash multimedia piece. The point here is, that every time I gain a new skill, I try to incorporate it into what I am currently doing, and this helps make that skill stronger.

3. Sebastian, how comfortable are you with coding on the front end of websites?

After a lot of trial and error, breaking a lot of things, reading thousands of blogs, a couple of books, and after learning from many of my peers, colleagues and mentors, I would say that I feel pretty comfortable. This does not mean I know it all, on the other hand, it  has helped me understand how much there is to learn, and how many great developers and web designers are putting up some amazing work that we can all learn from. Each website is a new adventure with a different solution and problems that you have to solve, this is the fun part and what teaches you the most.

4. How do you stay up to date on the latest web technologies?

Reading a lot of blogs, being in the right networks, attending conferences, following the right people (twitter), and becoming active in different interest groups where you will find people wanting to learn the same topics you do, and that hopefully will know more than you. Is all about research and finding the right resources, Google is your friend!

5. How have your educational experiences at the Art Institute of California and LaSalle College helped you to become a better web designer?

They have helped greatly to open my eyes to see what is out there, and become aware of all the doors that are open. I have been a good student and have always taken advantage of every class I have attended as much as I can. This has given me the opportunity to make a lot of mistakes and learn a great deal from them. Like I was mentioning earlier, every website or project that you tackle will bring new and different challenges that you have to solve and find that better solution. If every time you are working on a project you take the easy route, you will most likely not learn much. Taking the hard, complicated and unexplored route, increases the probability of making mistakes and encountering new challenges, therefore you learn a lot more for sure.