Spicy Web Designer Interview with Claudia Adler

7 Sep

Claudia Adler is a web designer from Montreal West Island, Quebec Canada who we recently interviewed. She is a designer that uses WC3 standards to develop and build some exceptional websites but also does print design as well as web design. After interviewing she had the following to say about web design…

1) What is the most exciting web project you’ve ever worked on?

The most exciting web project I’ve worked on is Powerwatts. It is the product of a very fruitful collaboration with a group of bike racing Pros. They were completely open to my suggestions concerning design, development and SEO which allowed me to use technology that I felt worked best i.e. DomScripting for the Header animation rather than Flash, collapsible and tabbed panels and a WP-blog ….

We just launched the site in August.

2) Do you find a lot of your clients who’ve had a bad experience hiring a web designer before? How do you deal with that when the topic comes up in conversation with a potential client?

Actually I only had one client having a hard time with the web team they hired from India. They felt that they were not getting what they wanted, a communication problem working with a large team.

But there is always 2 sides to a problem, I try to be diplomatic when it comes to work of other designers. But information is key, I try to supply as much as possible so that the client has everything in hand to take their own decision, no pressure.

3) How did you first start in web design?

I started as a graphic designer working for a large international consumer products company in Montreal, when they were sold and moved to Toronto we all got compensation and I went back to school to learn web programming.

4) Where did you go to school and did that influence your choice to become a web designer?

When I first studied Graphic Design at University of Quebec in Montreal in 1990 there was not much going on in web design, things started to happen a bit later when connection speed picked up and browsers were able to display formatted pages.

In the early days web design was excessively ugly. As a graphic designer I got interested when Flash came out because it allowed you to actually “design” a web page.

When I went back to school in 2002 I wanted to catch up with the technical aspect of web coding, I like to know how things work, WYSIWYG was out of the question for me. I like to use Dreamweaver to spead up the process but write my own code.

So I went for the real deal JavaScript, XML, PHP, HTML, CSS. With the web you never stop learning I am upgrading my skills constantly.

5) Are you working on any interesting web design projects at the moment?

Yes, but its to early to talk about it.

6) Do you have any other creative talents that you like to pursue outside of designing websites?

Mostly photography, I carry my camera with me all the time. I sold a few images and some of my photos are used in web sites I created. I also like to draw and paint but rarely have time.

7) Have you ever worked with a creative agency on web design projects?

I used to work for IATA as a senior graphic designer and HTML specialist, I created HTML email campaigns and Flash animation. When we got “restructured” I decided it was time to go solo as I had enough background to do design and coding.

How do you usually become involved with new web design projects? Word of Mouth? Agency? Advertising? Etc.?

It may be luck but usually clients find me via the web or word of mouth.

In the beginning I bid on projects on GAF (Get a Freelancer) and GAC (Get a Coder), occasionally I still do. I also design for print. Being versatile definitely is a plus. Many of my clients come to me because I offer both, print and web design.