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Friday, May 28, 2010

Interview with a web designer (me)

A while back Garry Aylott interviewed me for a new web magazine, but the article was never published so I thought I would post up the interview here.

1.  Thank you for taking time out to answer some questions Matt.  Firstly please tell us what you are up to right now design wise?

Currently I’m building a website for nicechart.com a sheet music download website. Lately I’ve been illustrating more characters for http://www.gugafit.com and working on a rather sweet little project called http://www.hivetrader.com.  I have also illustrated a children’s book series recently, which I’m really excited about. http://www.als-pals.co.uk.

2.  Having followed your work for a while now its clear you have a range of skills ranging from illustration (the classic Twitter bird) through to technical skills (JQuery etc), what would you say you prefer working on?

My true love is illustration, but it’s quite hard to make a decent living from that alone. When I’m commissioned to do an illustration I cannot believe that somebody is paying me to do something which is so enjoyable. I guess it’s a similar feeling that a professional musician would have.

I have to say that I find designing and building websites in HTML, CSS, PHP and jQuery extremely satisfying, especially when it’s well crafted, works across browsers and is built with web standards in mind.

3.  You used to work for Kyan Media What made you want to make the jump and start your own studio?

I worked as a full-time freelance designer in the past for about a year or so and loved it, although it was difficult to keep disciplined. I often would miss having the energy of an office environment and just got bored working on my own.

For years I wanted to find a ‘web developer’ I could team up with to start a co-working/freelance/office-share type of thing. When I got the job at Kyan I was chuffed to bits because they really were right on my wave length and I expected to work there for quite a while. Pete Orme @ormeski was one of the lead web designers at Kyan and his design skills and work ethic just blew me away and he was a really nice chap!

Back in October 2008 I was actually doing some freelance illustration for a design company I’ve worked with in the past and the MD approached me with a proposition. Desk space for me and potentially another person and the promise of regular freelance web design and illustration work and maybe a bit of a Dragon’s Den style investment too. This really got me thinking and I saw it as the opportunity to start something for real and the first person I thought to call was Pete. I asked him “Fancy starting a business together?” and he replied, “I knew you were going to ask me that!”

By the time we decided to take the plunge and hand in our notice, the promised deskspace ‘et al’ fell through which was a bit of a knock back at the time but in hindsight it was the best thing that could have happened to us, it has given us more freedom to do exactly what we want and it was the catalyst which started Supereight Studio.

4.  What advice would you give to anyone looking to part company with their employer and start their own agency, studio or maybe freelance?

My advise would be to burn the candle at both ends and freelance for 6 months or so while you are still at work and save up enough money to use as a cashflow cushion for when you go it alone. It’s a real leap of faith and seems crazy at the time, you really feel like your jumping in at the deep end, but things have a habit of working out and that bit of work always seems to come along at the right time, just put feelers out by contacting old employers and clients and see what’s out there. Get social on twitter and linkedin etc.

Be prepared to work longer and more ridiculous hours than you ever have done in a job, but also be prepared to enjoy the wonderful flexibility you have when you work for yourself.

There is a great article by Mark Boulton which really inspired me:
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/start_your_own_business/

5.  A raft of new technologies is on the horizon, namely HTML5, CSS3 etc.  Do you have your eye on anything that looks exciting to you and any plans to use any new technologies in your upcoming sites?

I’m already using CSS3 in sites that I building at the moment, just making sure that there is graceful degradation in place. I’d love to use HTML5 but waiting for the right moment, which isn’t to far off. I’m also really excited about pushing the boundaries of jQuery and doing some unique stuff. I’m also in great anticipation of what Font Deck are cooking up http://twitter.com/fontdeck a web service that will deliver fonts to websites!

6.  As we all know, the power of social networks is growing all the time and is now (at times) a necessity for growth and new business acquisition.  Any examples of recent clients where you’ve had to bump social networking up their list of priorities?

One of our clients Freestyle Festival have really jumped on the social media bandwagon, they are using Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, Myspace and last.fm to promote themselves. Their target audience are teenagers who are social media power users, so it’s really important to cover your bases and get the word out on the social street, as it were.

7.  You noted in one of your Tweet’s that business is good, even through a tough economic time, how do you find juggling your time between client projects and any tools you use to make life easier?

Business is good for Supereight. I believe that companies still need websites, even in the recession, websites are the most important marketing tool after all. I think that companies are cutting budgets at the moment and in order to do this they shop around a bit more and find agencies which are smaller, have fewer overheads and consequently have lower day rates but still have the expertise and professionalism to do a good job.

We tend to use Google shared calendars to manage our time at the moment, in fact we are using Google Apps in a big way. All our email is managed through it, and syncs with our iPhones. I really don’t know how we managed without it.

We are also just getting to grips with Sage for our accounting, It’s got a horrible user interface, but it’s a perfect for seeing who owes you money and the state of the business at any given time, as long as you stay on top of it its really quite simple and a quite a powerful tool.

8. I talk to a lot of designers and often get onto the conversation Photoshop vs Fireworks for web layouts and mock ups.  Any preference?

I use Photoshop for web design and illustrator for illustration. I used to use Fireworks a few years ago and actually preferred it as a web design tool, because of the vector capabilities and the focus on RGB and slicker integrated compression tools.  So many design agencies I worked for used Photoshop that I decided to switch simply for an easy life.

9.  Its obvious that Supereight is off to a good start, where do you see the business in 5 years and any specific plans?

The initial plan, when we started was just to be able to pay ourselves the same amount of money we were getting as salaries in our last job. It looks like we have successfully managed to do that so far. We have moved into a new office, it’s a much nicer, bigger office and we are sharing with two other freelancers; Simon Croft a print and branding designer and Beverley Reed who is a freelance web designer.

We haven’t really formulated a plan yet, but we’d like to employ a developer at some point to help out with the more technical side of things. Over the next 5 years we’d like to stay reasonably small (no more than 5/6 people) and grow as and when we really need to.

10.  Anything else you would like to add to our readers, any pearls of wisdom?

If you are freelancing, don’t work from home. Go and find some desk space in a creative environment it’ll do wonders for your networking and creative juices, and it doesn’t have to cost the earth. Also, try and partner up with other freelancers who have complementary or similar skills.

Thank you Matt for sparing the time to answer some questions, I’m sure our readers will really appreciate your answers and will be inspired.

Sunday, February 28, 2010

Jump on the ‘social media’ bandwagon

This illustration above has proved to be so popular I thought I would stick it here on my blog as well as my Flickr. The original article is still on the Kyan media Blog. It’s here below for your convience:

‘Social media’ is the new buzz term. Everybody’s doing it, and why? Because it can generate masses amount of traffic to your website, which can easily turn into revenue. It’s really what ‘web 2.0’ is all about.

So, what exactly is social media?
Well, its all about non-passive user participation. Getting users to interact with websites by building online communities which generate content in the form of blogging, comments, images, audio and video. Users rate content and the more popular your content, the more traffic generated, which can snowball.

Social media isn’t just the latest fad. It will eventually integrate its way into every aspect of our online and offline lives. Facebook already has well over 100 million active users worldwide and its still growing rapidly, and that’s the best reason to create a Facebook app you’ll ever have. We have only just started to explore the possibilities.

The future of social media is up to us! So get in touch if you have a good social media idea and let’s make it happen. We’d also like to hear your thoughts on the future of social media, let your opinions known!

SEO is so last week, its all about SMO (Social Media Optimisation).

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

Free to use Twitter icon illustration

Here is a transparent PNG version for you:
http://www.matthamm.com/images/twitter_bird_01.png

Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Update Your Facebook Status With Twitter

Did you know that you can update your Facebook status with Twitter? I know is sounds bizzare but for me it’s a really, really cool thing. I don’t log-in to facebook that often and never update my status, but since I’ve set-up tweeting into facebook, it’s opened up some great new social media activities. I have a set of friends on Facebook who never use Twitter, It’s mainly just more geeky friends (sorry if I’ve offended anyone). So I tweet and I now may get an email from Facebook saying that somebody has replied to my Facebook status and it sparks up a conversation there, which normally I would never of had.

I also like the fact that it filters out @tweets so people are confused when not in the loop. It would be nice though to decide which tweets are posted on facebook, maybe by using a a Facebook tag or something. I can see how it could get a little annoying for other people on Facebook as it may clog up the status feed. There are a few improvements which could be made, but it all seems like that one step closer to intergrating different online social communities.

Just go here and sign up: http://www.facebook.com/apps/application.php?id=2231777543

Sunday, March 08, 2009

Pedro app logo design

Kyan are developing a web application that does the donkey work for you. I can’t say anymore it’s highly confidential. I designed the logo for the Pedro app. Aptly named after Piers (AKA Pedro) a Director at Kyan.

In my mind, Pedro had to be a Mexican donkey. Et volia!

Supereight Studio business cards

Our first business cards for Supereight Studio have arrived direct from moo.com. They do such a great job! Woo look I’m a Creative Director.

Thursday, March 05, 2009

I’ve left Kyan to start a new business

It’s never the right time to start your own business. It’s something I’ve been dreaming of doing for many years now. So, I’ve saved a bit of money as a cushion, not much though, just enough to get me through the first few months.

Sometime in October 2008 Pete Orme, another web designer at Kyan, and I started chatting one evening about how cool it would be to have our own web design agency. I’d finally found someone to go into business with with . Eventually after many discussions, We both decided to hand in our notices in the first week back in January after the Christmas Holidays and give about 2 months notice so that Kyan would have time to replace their whole design department!

The timing could have been better, really. Helen was about to have our first baby, and our tenants in our rented flat in Brighton were not paying the rent and messing us around. The 1st of March was agreed as the first day of the now named Supereight Studio Ltd.

Starting a new business is so exciting, I’m working day and night at the moment with a big smile on my face. Although I’m sad to leave kyanmedia because it is such a cool company and great place to work, nothing can beat the feeling of working for yourself. I’ve freelanced before in the past on and off, working from home etc. But this time it’s different, that’s what so good about having a business partner. We are looking at offices at the moment, and once we are in there it should feel a bit more realistic.

I think we have just won our first web project. So at least we have started the ball rolling. We are just in the process of designing the logo and the website, so when that all offically launches, it should give us a bit of a kick start.

Anyway, I’ll keep you updated on business ups and downs over the next couple of years, (I hope).

Sunday, September 21, 2008

Professor Wake illustration

We decided to add an easter egg to the Kyan website, so I illustrated the Kyan secret lab, starring professor Wake. He performs experiments in the secret lab underground here at Kyan towers. Note: The character is not based on Steven Wake (developer).

Thursday, August 21, 2008

New Kyan website design

A new look for my favourite web design company.

www.kyanmedia.com

After months of tooing and froing we have finally released the Kyan website into the big old World Wide Web, It had just been sitting on our development servers for far too long and was like a caged wild animal, desparate to get out. It’s got a really nice illustrative feel, which I’m very happy about. I love the paper airplane illustration and everyone has started throwing them around the office to stay ‘on brand’.

I think the new look really represents Kyan in the perfect light and is bang on! At first, I wasn’t too sure about the strapline ‘We are a creative web design & development agency with a penchant for web standards’, but it’s growing on me. Me and Pete Orme wanted to use ‘A jazzamatastic fusion of creatology and techtivity’ but we thought that it wasnt great for SEO reasons, which is a shame.

There is an easter egg in the new site design but more to come on that…

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Thanks again to Faveup.com for featuring matthamm.com

Thank you to Faveup.com for featuring me on their website.

Please vote for me. Give me the love.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

My business card design featured on faveup.com

Thanks to http://www.faveup.com for featuring my business card design.

http://faveup.com/design/4828

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

Web design rip offs. Flattering or despicable?

It has happened to me a few times in the past. A friend or old work colleague sends you an email or IM “check out this link… somebody’s ripped off your site”. The most recent being a ripoff of a website I designed while working for Chaos Design in Guildford earlier this year. My original design is www.estrelasantiago.com. Today somebody sent me a link to this site: http://copyright-budva.com. I was amazed that it wasn’t even a half hearted copy, they had actually just cloned the site and dropped their content in. They had even left the CSS untouched, to the extent of leaving in my name and copyright information at the top of the CSS. I mean how lazy is that!

Bev, who informed me of the cloned website, said “You should be flattered, that somebody wanted to copy your design”. I was thinking about this and I guess I am a little flattered and not really that angry about it. The problem arises when somebody else spots the copied design and points out that the original site that you designed is in-fact the copy!! This happened to me a few months ago when I noticed that a company in Guildford (who have since taken down the site) had ripped off one of my designs www.charcol.co.uk. An old work colleague thought that the coincidence that the company that copied my design was based in Guildford which is very close to where I live now and I was half accused as being the perpetrator. This made me more angry than anything, So I rang them and had a good rant. They took the site down the next day and even phoned up my old company to apologise.

I don’t know how these people sleep at night knowing that they have ripped off designs like this. I mean I feel bad even if my designs hint at other designs or are too similar to something else.

There is a great tool for checking that your website hasn’t been ripped off. Visit www.copyscape.com and type your URL in and it’ll check if other sites on the web have similar text to yours.

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Brand Identity Process

Before I start designing a website or even a logo, I always start to approach it as a brand identity process no matter how small the project. If you work with large blue chip clients, more often than not they already have brand identity guidelines, which is fantastic and makes the process a lot easier with with rules and regulations in place.

However if brand identity fails to appear, I just start to make one. I find it makes the design process so much easier.

The way I approach this is to ask questions in the form of a ‘Discovering the Brand Identity’ document. this consists of:

1. Brand keywords
2. Brand values
3. Brand history/knowledge
4. Brand goals
5. Brand symmetry
6. Social responsibility
7. Target demographic
8. Brand in the marketplace
9. Competitors
10. Understand the brand’s customers/clients
11. Visual exploration
12. Reference material

Once you have the answers to all these questions you have a great reference and starting point to start the design process.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Starting a fresh blog using Expression Engine

I’ve used Text Pattern and Word Press in the past as a blog tool but they never really worked out with me and I’ve heard such rave reviews about Expression Engine, I’ve decided to try it out. I intend to write a proper blog this time and not faff any more, so here we go.

The EE admin seems slick and well designed on first impressions. I’m still finding my way around, so not much to report yet. I’m using the default template while I’m figuring out how to load in a new one and integrate my own template eventually.

Word Press never really did it for me, It just seemed a bit ‘hacky’ to do the things you wanted to do. What I find nice about EE so far is that it feels more like a proper CMS rather than just a blog tool. Hopefully it’ll be a lot more flexible than Word Press.

Text Pattern on the other hand is very flexible, but I found the admin panel very painful to use and really badly designed. As I use EE I will write about the features and tools which I like and don’t like and we’ll go from there.