Les Reynolds in Burlington Ontario prides his success in web design on his business skills

Les Reynolds from Burlington, Ontario in Canada is web designer who currently runs, L Squared Design, a full service web design and development studio. Les received his first taste of web design while working for an electrical contracting company while learning to design an email newsletter. He credits his experiences before he got into web design as part of his success where he learned the ins and outs of operations, marketing, purchasing and business in general. Les has been designing professionally for the past 3 years and when I asked him about his experiences to date he had this to say…

Luc @ SWD: How did you originally get started designing websites?

Les says: I was working for an electrical contracting company, and they wanted to send out an email newsletter. So I taught myself HTML using articles and tutorials I found on the web. Once the newsletter was done, I couldn’t stop, and the more I learned the more I realized that this is what I wanted to do as a career.

Luc @ SWD: What are some of the benefits of working with platforms like WordPress, Textpattern and others?

Les says: The biggest reason I use a CMS is so clients can update a site themselves. However, it makes updates easier for almost any type of site. Another bonus is being able to change repeating content like footer or navigation in only one place, similar to using PHP includes. I haven’t used WordPress, but I love the flexibility that Textpattern offers. With the built in features and rich suite of plug-ins, it is suitable for a very wide range of sites.

Luc @ SWD: Les, you’ve been designing website professionally for the past 3 years.  How have you continued to stay up to date since you first started?

Les says: The speed that things change in the world of web design/development means that if you stop paying attention, you’ll be passed by. RSS feeds from people like Jeffery Zeldman, Dan Cedarholm, Cameron Moll, Jon Hicks, Andy Rutledge, Dave Shea, Jonathan Snook, Jason Santa Maria and other has helped me to stay up to date, and learn so much. And recently Twitter has been a great way to keep in touch with changes as well.

Luc @ SWD: Where did you go to school and what did you study in college/university? How has it helped you with web design?

Les says: When I started getting into web design, I did some research and found that most college/university web design & development programs have trouble keeping up with the fast pace of the web world. I think that is beginning to change, but at the time I decided that I’d be better off going the self-taught route.

Books like Designing with Web Standards, CSS Mastery, Bulletproof Web Design, and Transcending CSS have served as my curriculum, as well as articles on A List Apart and the blogs listed above.

I’ve actually thought about taking some courses in graphic design at the local college. I think graphic design and marketing are both areas of education that would be useful.

The other things that I think has helped me are the jobs I had before web design. The experience in management, sales, operations, marketing, purchasing, accounting, etc has been very valuable.

Luc @ SWD: What are your favorite tools to use on a web design project?

Les says: I started using Photoshop, but a light went on once I opened up Fireworks. It has done a great job of merging vector and bitmap editing, in a way that works really well for the web. However, as I’ve looked at upgrading, tales of buggy, bloated software have made me think twice. There is lots of complaining about Adobe’s apps, and i think it’s time we moved on. I’m currently trying out Acorn and DrawIt. I actually wrote a post about it, and plan to follow up with some comparisons.

For coding, there is lots to love about Espresso, although there is still refining to be done. FTP is handled by the wonderful Transmit, debugging CSS with Safari’s web inspector.  I find small tools like Pipette, Free Ruler, Skitch, and Little Snapper quite helpful for various tasks. Somewhat unrelated, The Hit List for todos, Notational Velocity for notes, Dropbox for file access, SuperDuper for backup, and Tweetie for Twitter are all invaluable.