Spicy Web Designer Interview with Chris Spooner

Chris Spooner is a web and graphic designer from Sheffield, England in the United Kingdom. Chris earned his BA (HONS) in Art and Design through Hull University and after that he began to work for a few studios in Sheffield and recently he began to freelance full-time. He has been featured in the likes of “Web Designer Magazine” (See issue 137) among other publications and has been designing for the web since he was in university and continues to learn new web design techniques. He currently runs Spoon Graphics, his freelance web design studio and Line25, a web design blog with a lot of tutorials, inspiration and articles related to web design.

1. How did you get started in web design?

I’ve always aimed towards design in my studies, but I didn’t head into web design until later in my education. As a lot of designers I dabbled with the web creating personal sites and such but didn’t learn the ‘real stuff’ until much later.

2. When did you start designing websites?

During my university degree I worked with a friend at his design studio which was where I worked on my first real world web design project. The task was to design and build a Flash website for a local festival.

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

One of the biggest challenges for me personally is managing websites which involve slightly more technical needs. I’m confident in front end design and development, as well as being comfortable customizing the WordPress application, but anything further I tend to outsource to my developer friend!

4. Why do you refer to yourself as a Front-end developer over calling yourself a web designer?  Is it a way to brand yourself to your clients?

I do tend to use the term web designer mostly, although the words front-end do highlight that I concentrate on the client side of websites as opposed to the server side. Generally people class web design as the whole package, rather than the mixture of design and development.

5. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web designer/front-end developer?

I studied in Art and Design right up to degree level which helped in gaining the initial experiences and the piece of paper that makes me look special. I would say the majority of the skills I now use on a daily bases are self taught through following blogs and websites of fellow designers.

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?

I wouldn’t say I’m one of the most seasoned web design veterans but with the web design industry changing so quickly I’ve seen the transition from table based layouts to XHTML and CSS. Any change is for the better as the technologies advance, right now there’s the introduction of more CSS features in the way of CSS3.

7. What are your favorite tools to use when designing a website? Why are they your favorite tools?

I use Photoshop to design website layouts, which I prefer because of the ability to edit on a per-pixel basis. I’ll often use Adobe Illustrator to create certain page elements, and then import the file into the main site layout. For coding I use the manual editor built in to Dreamweaver along with the Firefox browser and developer plug-ins. I’ve tried alternatives such as Coda, which itself is a nifty application but I’ve found myself getting used to the workflow of Dreamweaver.

8. How do you think that the tutorials featured on your Blog help other seasoned web design professionals and beginners?

I always pick up useful tips when reading the articles of others, so I naturally want to give back and help others by sharing what I know in the form of tutorials. I’ve found Illustrator content is slightly out of the ordinary therefore has proved pretty popular for both beginners and hardcore designers.

9.  Tell us more about your “Line25″ project?  It’s a pretty cool site and idea behind the site.  How did you come up with the idea?

Line25 is my second blog; I have plenty of fun developing Blog.SpoonGraphics with articles and tutorials which are primarily aimed at Illustrator and Photoshop. Although I have dabbled in the odd web design topic on Blog.SpoonGraphics I fancied putting together a blog specifically for web design tutorials and such. I’m looking forward to developing the site with more content in the future; so far it’s had an awesome response from the community and has blown me away with the visitor and subscriber stats seen so far!