Spicy Web Designer Interview with Curtis Henson

Curtis Henson is a web designer and developer from Stockton, California in the United States. He started designing websites back in 1997 using geocities and angelfire accounts while in high school. Later he when to Bluefield State College where he received an associate degree in technical communications and East Tennessee State University where he took some art classes as well as web classes and he’s been pushing the boundaries of web design and development ever since. Curtis runs Grunt Design which is a one man freelance operation and he also runs a personal blog where he can experiment, write about his web design experiences and showcase his skills.  He has recently designed a number of WordPress themes including “Splice”, “Checkmate” and “Solid” which are available at Grunt Labs.

1. How did you first get started in web design?

I got started in high school with geocities and anglefire accounts, my first site linked to South Park episodes online, complete with animated email GIF. I used to write HTML on my desk at school while I was learning; I was obsessed from the very beginning.  Luckily I quickly grew out of the animated GIF and blinking headers stage and started creating websites for bands and friends.

2. How long have you been designing websites?

Well I guess the first real website I made was in 1997, so about 12 years now.

3. Your web design operation “Grunt Design” has a section called “Grunt Labs”.  Where did your idea for this come from?

The Grunt Labs idea actually came from Bryan Veloso’s Revvyver Labs. At first I wanted a place I could put all my projects, experiments, and downloads. But it has actually turned into more of a place to experiment with different techniques. For instance I wanted to learn more about animation with jQuery, so the current version of Grunt Labs is the result of that. It will probably be an ever changing place I can practice using the latest technologies, and see how things work on a live website.

4. Did you go to College or University?  If so, where did you go to school?  How has it helped you to become a better web designer and developer?

I went to Bluefield State College and East Tennessee State University. I got an associate from BSC in technical communications, which pretty much went over everything from programming to marketing to design. It gave me a good base in just about everything.  At ETSU I took some art classes, which were fun, and some web classes, which were a joke. From my experience most Universities can’t keep up with the technology and are teaching coding techniques that are far behind the industry.  For me just designing and coding were the best ways to learn, and I try to always push my boundaries.

5. Is Grunt Design a one-man operation or do you work with other designers and/or developers?

Grunt has been a one man show so far, but if a project called for it I have a few freelancers to call on for help.

6. What is the biggest challenge that you face designing websites?

The biggest challenge for me is working without content. I feel websites should be designed around the content, to serve up the information on a silver platter with an ornately decorated trim. Another challenge is designing for the future, things on the web change fast, and clients don’t want an outdated website within a year.

7. What technologies do you enjoy using in your web design projects?

Well every website I code is CSS/XHTML, and usually a bit of JavaScript. I like to use libraries like jQuery and frameworks like Blueprint to speed up the process and not be rewriting base code for every project. I’ve loved using WordPress for quite a while now and will continue to use it. But I’ve branched out to Ruby on Rails and have started to get a grip on writing my own backend code.