Sebastian Sulinski is the Director of Core Media Design and at one point he was a freelance web designer. His web design firm is based in the UK in the south of England and largely is comprised of freelance web designers, programmers and copywriters and he usually takes on new specialists that are great at a few particular things (SEO, Web Design, Programming, etc.). Before he was the director of Core Media Design he was a freelance web designer and you can see some of his work here.

1. I see that you are currently the director of Core Media Design Limited, is this your full time job and do you still do independent work through your personal website as a freelance web designer?

I’ve started Core Media Design Limited a few years ago. We are the group of freelance web designers, programmers, copywriters etc.

The reason for forming Core Media Design Limited was that I didn’t want to do all work myself as you really won’t earn much money if you try to do so.

I’ve decided to split the work between the people who know their job best – and so, I’m designing the structure of the site and search engine optimisation, programmers program the system, copywriter writes the content and so on. Working this way we can handle larger volumes and make sure that the systems are build to the highest level as I’m always making sure that whoever is taken on board is the specialist in what he/she does.

2. Do you network professionally with other Freelance Web Designers? If not, is it because you don’t have the time? It is not important to you? Or something else?

As I have already mentioned – Core Media Design Limited is a group of freelancers – so effectively – yes, I do network with other freelancers. I’m always happy to take someone new on board if his/her skills are relevant.

3. Where do you draw your inspiration from when you are getting ready for a new web design project?

That really depends on the project. Normally I do some research to find out what current projects offer in the industry of the new project we’re about to design/develop.

First step however is to analyse the requirements – so that I know what kind of navigation structure will be most suitable, and how to distribute all other units requested by client.

I’m always trying to ensure that the visitor will be able to easily find what they need on the website – by making the clear layout and the self-descriptive navigation.

4. Do you find that the term “search engine optimization” is a confusing term for your clients to understand? Naturally we all want to get to a first page rank and how do you handle that question when it comes up in business meeting with clients?

Well – I had a few clients who didn’t really know what SEO is and explaining the strategy can take some time, but I normally spend some time at the meeting going through the most important aspects of SEO with the client.

5. When were you first introduced to the internet and what impact did it first have on your choice of career?

It’s been quite a few years ago – initially I’ve been spending a lot of time in the chat rooms – very popular at this time. I wasn’t really thinking much about working in this industry, with the time, once I’ve started working for one of the local companies as an administrator – having some spare time I was always surfing the internet to learn something new.

I’ve found some basic web design tutorials and this is where it’s started. After learning basic html I moved into CSS and so on.

6. Do you ever work with design or creative agencies when you are looking to take on new web design clients?

Certainly – client is client and I don’t mind where the work comes from. We’ve been working with many different clients – often as sub-contractors developing projects for Blue Chip organisations around the world.

7. How do you usually charge for your freelance web design projects?

Time, complexity potential future work – these are three main aspects which I take under consideration when I quote for the project.

8. Do you find that sharing the tutorials on your web site helps you to attract more interested people to your freelance web design site and attract a larger audience?

Tutorials certainly help to get more traffic to my site – and as you know traffic is very important – you never know who’s going to pay a visit to your site – it might be a potential client.

The reason why I’ve decided to start publishing tutorials on my site was that when I started learning web design, I could never find free tutorials which would explain some of the important things I wanted to learn about – like for instance step by step instructions with screen shots on how to install Apache, PHP and MySQL. This was one of my first tutorials.

9. How long have you been doing freelance web design work for? Do you find that it conflicts or helps you in your day job?

I’ve been doing freelance web design work for about 5 years – and initially it was hard as I was working at the same time for other companies doing some job I didn’t really want to do – but it did pay the bills. With the time I’ve gained more experience and with experience comes confidence – this is when I’ve started to do the Web Design as the full time job – and this is when Core Media Design has been formed.

More About this Web Design Firm

URL: Core Media Design

Email/Contact: Contact us here

Phone: +44 0845 0944 755