Spicy Web Designer Interview with Peter Pearson

Peter Pearson is a web designer from St Albans, Hertfordshire in England. He studied at St Martin’s College of Art and Design in London and eventually specialized in digital media and after that he went to Leeds University to study New Media. Peter has been designing websites for about the last 4 years but he has been studying art and design since he was 15 years old. Some of his “Ninja Skills” include his expert use if jQuery, his skill in Flash Animation and his love of semantic XHTML and CSS just to name a few.

1. I see that you do a great deal of animation but how did you get started in web design?

Having toyed with the idea of both fine art and animation courses I decided to do a foundation year in art and design before starting university. I soon realized I wanted to go down a more general digital arts route and ended up taking a degree in New Media. It was here I discovered web design and quickly decided this was the industry I wanted to get into. It pulled together so many of the things I enjoy and it still gives me immense satisfaction to be able to start with an idea, turn it into a design and then take that all the way through to a finished article

2. When did you start designing websites?

My first website was an atrocious “tabletastic” mess of a portfolio, built in my first term at university in 2005. Thankfully it was a one off experience with the dark ages of web design which has made me glad I started when I did.

3. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

Striking a balance between design, standards, accessibility, screen size and keeping up with the ever changing techniques and browsers, which I guess is pretty much sums up web design. Every project has different priorities and it’s our job to build the best site for the individual criteria given. This is also why I enjoy web design so much, It’s never boring as there is always a new, potentially better, way of solving just about every problem.

4. Do you code on any of your web design projects? If so, what languages do you code in?

I code all my own projects and have worked in a number of languages. XHTML and CSS are my absolute bread and butter and I’ve recently started working with JavaScript, although I tend to stick to libraries such as jQuery. Through me degree I learnt a fair amount of ColdFusion but then decided to code my final year project using PHP and MySQL as I wanted to add another, potentially more useful, language to my skill set. The build was quite an experience as I hadn’t touched PHP previously and the project was much bigger than anything I had done before. I’ve also coded a couple of flash games and an art piece with digital organisms using ActionScript 2.0.

5. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web designer and animator?

I completed the rather long winded Diploma in Foundation Studies in Art and Design at St Martin’s College of Art and Design, London. Here I specialized in digital media and was able to develop the animation skills I had been teaching myself since about the age of 15. The course was beneficial in that it gave me the space and time to practice, but I wouldn’t say I was taught much as it was slow paced and nontechnical.

My degree in New Media at Leeds University was the next step in my education and as mentioned previously it didn’t just help me improve, it was my induction to web design. The course was great as it made sure you got a good overview of web technologies and communication theory, but it was really up to you to develop the skills you wanted to use. I found lessons on usability and accessibility especially useful as they are the kind of things often missed when learning through web resources. Lastly, being surrounded by likeminded peers and tutors increased the drive to learn and I found myself getting quite competitive.

6. Since you first started how has the web design industry changed? Has it changed for the better? If so, how? If not, please explain?

To some degree, I still feel like I am only just getting into the industry but web standards have definitely had a marked impact. This was something that was not really taught in my first year of university, as it was only just being introduced into the course, but is now expected on every project. I’m also glad to see bad practices such as pointless splash screens and music dying out; I still automatically close any site that gives me either.

7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a website with animation / motion design in mind? Why are they your favorite tools?

jQuery, Flash and AfterEffects are all good options for creating moving visuals, it really depends on what I want to achieve. JavaScript libraries such as jQuery definitely have an interesting future ahead of them as they allow for some really exciting things to be done with relative ease. I enjoy using all these tools as I love seeing things come to life on screen, it adds visual interest and if done well can be used to direct the users eyes on screen.

Other than those tools mentioned it’s the usual suspects, Photoshop, Komodo or Dreamweaver, Twitter (@peter_pearson) and every design, website, video and article I can lay my eyes on.

8. How do you approach designing for the web as it relates to motion design? What are some of the biggest problems you face with motion design and the web?

My new portfolio is probably the only site I’ve ever started designing knowing I wanted to incorporate movement from the outset. With no hard deadlines I allowed myself some serious time for experimentation with JavaScript and played with at least a dozen design ideas.

The real problem with bringing motion to the web is that it is very easy to do badly, I still see many a perfectly good site ruined by having body text just pixels away moving banner ads. The same goes for moving design elements, ideally there shouldn’t be any movement at all when there is more than a sentence to be read. As video becomes an ever more prominent part of the web, I feel video production techniques are going to be increasing relevant to the field of web design.