Richard (he also goes by Rich) McCoy is a freelance web designer and Art Director whose work is extensive working for everyone since 1995. He has worked for a variety of agencies, blue chip companies and publishers and continues to work in Art Direction on many projects. He is based on Waiheke Island, just off the coast of Auckland in New Zealand. He received his education from University of Gloucestershire in Fine Arts and he is very passionate about Art, Marketing and Programming and Project Management, all skills that make you a valuable asset on high level website projects.

1. You’ve got a very extensive work experience from working with design agencies, various companies and publishers. How has becoming a freelance web designer changed your life?

It for the most part allows me to sail my own ships rather than sitting on someone else’s and stops me moaning about where they are sailing, it affords me time to spend with my family when I need it and work my own hours. For the most part I’m less stressed.

2. As I read on your site you are an explorer of music. Do you like to design in silence? If not, what is in your music player now that you enjoy listening to while you design?

Hell no, I tend to put music on that is of a similar aesthetic to that in which I am working, or in the case of if something needed quickly I put on upbeat tunes, if I need to take time and wallow in a design I put on something chilled. However I do tend to research & type in relative silence.

3. I was looking at your “skills and competencies” section of your website and I am wondering how you conduct usability audits? Can you show me an example of your usability audit structure?

I conduct Usability Audits using a fair mix of experience, intuition and common sense plus a few on-line tools, I have no hard and fast written framework as most sites are very different and like most problems having a framework to adhere to hinders choosing the right path (Chuckle that sounds very pretentious).

4. I find it refreshing that you say that you are not a master of all things web design and that you have contacts that source work to for things like SEO and affiliate marketing. What caused you to take this approach towards how you conduct your business?

The Internet is a huge and complicated thing, I have my areas of expertise and others have there’s, the thing is I know enough about the web to know that its bigger then I or anyone could ever master every aspect, anyone who claims otherwise pretty much is a fool.

5. How does pricing a project work for you on a web design project? Do you turn away work because you simply know that you cannot take on every project that you receive?

I tend to price on a time and materials basis, I find this rewards the better more responsive clients as they pay less because they waste less time. I do like to know what he budget is so that I have an idea of what to throw out of a brief as it won’t be achievable in the time frame. Yes I do turn work away either because I don’t have the time, I don’t agree ethically with the business or I get a hunch that the client will be awkward to work with, words like “A bit like facebook”, “we want a bit of WOW” & “we can’t pay much but will have lots of work in the future” usually decide it for me.

6. I enjoyed the website that you built for Duchamp of London. In your role as an Art Director who did you work with to bring this project together? How were you involved in the overall design of this project?

I didn’t build the current site for Duchamp of London, I supplied a suite of concepts at the request of their agency, I tend to get requested to do that kind of thing a lot, I think it’s to help fuel the fires but to be honest I don’t ask to many questions as to why I get commissioned to do stuff that never gets made live.

7. When I read “Art Director” on your projects as the position that you were involved in the project does that mean that you are actually designing the website? Or are you instructing a team on how to create the website?

Generally speaking in my role as “Art director” I usually create the initial concepts and look and feel than hand these over to either an internal team or a set of freelance designers and they then implement it and just pop in every now and again to see if the integrity has remained.

More about this Web Designer

URL: McCoy.co.uk

Email/Contact: rich@mccoy.co.uk

Phone: +64 (0) 2121 482 46

Skype: mccoydotcodotuk

Ben Tollady is a web designer who has worked on some interesting website projects ever since he first started building websites back in 1996 in the UK. Since 2003, Ben has called Australia home working for agencies mainly, he works with other freelancer designers when he isn’t busy on other big projects and you’ll usually find him somewhere around a MAC.

1. How did you first get into web design and how long have you been designing websites for?

I designed my first site in 1996 while I was at university in Loughborough in the UK. There weren’t any web design courses back then but one of the tutors on my Industrial Design course was quite forward-thinking and ran a series of short courses on the basics of this new-fangled HTML thing for those that were interested.

It wasn’t until I left university and started at a fairly large agency in London that I really got into it though.

2. Do you usually work with Creative, Ad or Design agencies?

I’ve worked with a number of agencies both in London and Melbourne (I moved to Australia in 2003). I also do a lot of work directly with small businesses which makes for a nice variety of projects in terms of size and user-types to design for.

3. What is the biggest web design project you’ve been commissioned to do and how did it turn out in the end?

Telstra Business is probably the biggest project I can think of in recent years, although my involvement there was information architecture and HTML/CSS template development rather than design. It was a huge undertaking, consolidating and migrating content from 8 sites into a single, redesigned site with a very short deadline! Thankfully it turned out well and showed great improvement in the usability tests they conducted after the launch.

4. Which college/university did you study at? What did you study and how has it helped you in your career?

I studied for a degree in Industrial design & technology from Loughborough university in the UK back in 1994.

I think the course has been a great help in terms of my web career. The skills and knowledge I gained in terms of ergonomics and human-product interaction lend themselves perfectly to that of human-computer/interface interaction. I see the discipline of industrial design much more synonymous with that of web design than any other design discipline.

5. Do you ever work with other freelance web designers on projects?

Yes, all the time! Especially for help with advanced flash work and back-end development. It’s good working with other people, especially when you work alone most of the time like I do at the moment – it’s interesting seeing how other people work and do things differently.

6. What inspires you to design the websites that you design?

A love for making things, the web and a passion for good usability. Thinking about who is going to use the site is a great inspiration too. I think it’s really important to take the time to understand the intended audience of any site I’m designing to make sure it will ’speak’ to them.

Reading Jeffrey Zeldman’s book, “Designing with web standards” was a great inspiration too. I also seem to find myself spending inordinate amounts of time surfing the web to see what everybody else is up to.

7. One of the most interesting sites in your portfolio is the “Howl’s Moving Castle”? How was it working with Madman Entertainment on this project?

I worked at Madman for a couple of years when I first arrived in Melbourne. It’s a great place to work – absolutely packed to the rafters with talented young designers. I learnt so much from the other guys working there it’s not funny!

Other than the great team, the best thing about working on Madman projects was the fantastic artwork available to you for each project, and Howl’s Moving Castle was no exception. The design of that site was easy given I had such a wealth of fantastic artwork thanks to the Studio Ghibli drawings I was provided. We were also lucky enough to go to an advanced screening of the film before I built the site, so I had a good idea of how the site should feel having seen that.

8. Do you design your web sites on a mac or a PC? Judging by the first email I received from you came from an iPhone I am guessing you are running a MAC but maybe I am wrong? What is your workstation setup like?

Since starting my freelance business last year I’ve gone all-out MAC (I was PC before). It all started with a 24″ iMac which is my main work machine and then I got one of the black macBooks soon after for working on-site. My newest addition is the iPhone which I absolutely love.

9. What are the essential pieces of software that you work with when designing you web projects?

Omnigraffle (for wireframes and site-maps), Photoshop, Coda, Flash and iTunes (You can’t design in silence).

More about this Web Designer

URL: Tollady.com

Email/Contact: studio@tollady.com

Phone: +61 (0) 424 285 928