Paul Seys has been working as a web designer in the UK since 1999. However, he can now be found working at Redweb as Head of User Experience, in Bournemouth. Paul’s portfolio can be found at joystik.co.uk. He can also be found giving opinions on his blog shortboredsurfer.com
I asked Paul if he could spare some time for an interview and he was kind enough to say yes. Read the rest of this entry »
Hi all,
I am at the very beginning of what will hopefully be a long and successful career in the design and web industry. I have begun said career by trying to gain some solid experience, working in an agency where I will hopefully learn some valuable skills and one day be in the position to go it alone and freelance with the idea to eventually start my own small agency.
But when I do finally make that leap where will my first client come from? Will it lead to more work? Could it possibly be that ever elusive super client who gives you an open brief and gains you loads of notoriety?
Well I thought I would ask a few people who have made that jump (successfully) and see exactly who their first client was and how they got that contract. Read the rest of this entry »
Hi All,
Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who has viewed my blog in the last few months since I actually tried to keep it up to date.
Today I have just passed 3,000 views!
Thank you
Hi guys,
I’m sat in the office right now (feeling slightly hung over) thinking about my inclusion in the industry I have wanted to work in for a long time now. It hadn’t really hit me until just now how good work life is for me right now.
I’ve been very lucky to join an established agency who have only recently joined the online side of things. This has meant an accelerated learning period because there are only 2 full time web employees here (with a 3rd who is the team leader, but he rarely produces things, he’s more of the job getter) and i’m one of them. I’ve already been involved in jobs working with the companies biggest clients and I love it.
Does this mean that I am now fully integrated into the industry? I think it does!
I’m constantly thinking about web design and i’m clearly blessed that I have been given the chance to get paid doing something I love. While there are testing times doing this job they really are worth it for the amount of time where things are brilliant!
I just wanted to write this to remind everyone working in a similar role to mine that you are very very lucky!
This may seem a very very small number to anyone with a blog, but I thought it was my first landmark and worth mentioning that today, 9 days after repositioning my blog, I passed the 1000 views mark.
This makes me very happy and i thank everyone who has viewed for that
However, to the small matter of my major project. I find it difficult to juggle two completely different pieces of work at the same time. My only focus this holiday has been my dissertation and I have no second thought to be getting on with my major. I also have my job to deal with during term time meaning that I only have 4 full days to actually concentrate on University work and these days include the weekend during which I have never been able to complete work. It’s funny though, I really enjoy writing essays and setting aside days to spend in a lab working. These last few days spent in the library have been brilliant, I have been able to focus on the task at hand. However, at university I don’t really have an academic friend who is as focused as I. So I doubt there will be anyone to motivate me to get to the library in Bournemouth and get my diss done. The practical stuff is what our course is all about so there is an abundance of people available to get on with the major project so hopefully they will push me forward with that work, well here’s hoping it all goes well… On Saturday during a visit to the Reading University library I finally began my dissertation! It felt good to finally put my thinking onto the page. I have my first chapter decided in my head and now i just need the time to write it out. I can also see how my second chapter will link and what I’m going to say in that. It’s exciting to know that for once this year I seem to know what I’m doing.
I’ve just been reading some books about identity on the internet and came across an article about personal websites/blogs.
It discussed that some people write them to discover who they are and to receive recognition from others about their discoveries. This got me thinking about how I use a blog. Personally, I find that I express myself in a fuller explanation when writing on here. I don’t have a friend who I could speak to like this, probably because they wouldn’t be willing to listen to my babblings. So why do I feel the need to ramble on here? What do I get out of it?
Quite a lot actually. I like how this space allows me to reaffirm my thinking and I like how I can do it without anyone judging me as a pompous arse. I have just said to myself that I would love to find someone to have these types of conversations with, but I’m not sure that’s true, I think I’d feel uncomfortable talking to someone else like this.I’ll be the first to strike the final blow into Facebook when, hopefully, it dies because I hate the way it stops people from actually interacting with people in a face-to-face situation. However, is what i’m doing on here any different?
Maybe I need to re-evaluate my ideas…
Today we were reminded about our blog again so I thought i’d write an entry and see how long i keep it up for this time.
We handed in our submission materials for our minor presentation today. I finished well within the time as i always do but this time it never really felt finished. There was always an opportunity to add more to it but it came to a point where i didn’t think it would help. So i decided to finish and hand in what i had done. I was pleased to get it done and not have to stay up all night doing it like a number of other course mates. However, when i got in and saw what others were handing in it seemed like i had not done enough work. Some people were handing in 16 page reports compared to my 6 pages. I felt horrible, like i had let myself down.
However, after thinking about it i think some of it may be down to the way i think/work… One guy was handing in 45 pages of drawings and a mood board and all that jazz. However, i will never be someone who produces things like that. My idea and my design was done nearly all on a computer. I came up with an initial idea and then made changes to it from there. I did not need to do any sketches and i wasn’t going to ‘fake’ a mood board. Then when asking one person who was handing in a 16 page report how much he had written it turned out he had no more words than me.
It seems strange that i enjoy being on a design course so much because i really do not like drawing and i’m not really a very visual person. My strong point on the course is definitely my theory and so i would like to think that my words are succinct and so my lack of them will not indeed mean less marks.
I have a much more methodical approach to design than most people on the course and maybe that shows in the style of work i produce…i just hope there is a market out there for it….
So,Uni finished nearly a month ago now and I have had loads of time to keep up with my design work. So why is it I have done absolutely nothing?
I recently said that I needed to use this time to teach myself new skills and keep on top of my learning. However, having absolutely no routine to live to has sapped all of my energy. I’ve even been exercising a lot less than I would normally.
A simple tutorial takes about 2 hours and I find myself spending at least 5 hours a day but usually a lot more achieving nothing with my day. So why can’t I get myself in the mood to sit down and go through a tutorial? It’s really bugging me and I need to sort my life out while I am back in Reading!
On a positive note I have been in contact with 2 possible clients about work this week. One I heard about through the university but sadly it looks like they weren’t ready to take a risk on us and it looks like that chance has gone. However, Ibar e-mailed us on sunday. We had been in there and spoken to the manager a 2 months ago and got on really well and also left him our contact details. With so much time passing we had forgotten about them and to receive an offer from them was excellent news.
They want us to design a site for them that ties in with the technology they use to run the bar and they have a coding expert who is willing to work alongside us to get this done. This seems like an excellent opportunity to get on the design map. The bar is really well designed and they are very technologically driven which suits us. I hope we can sort something out with them and this work will turn out to be the start of a very long and successful design career for all of us!
Now that I really know what I want to do with my life, i’ve been really motivated to make sure it happens.
There was a time when I was really into my photography a few years back when someone told me that photographers see the world differently to other people because they are constantly looking at the finer details of every image that they process. I thought this was a quite pretentious view of photographers at the time, but as time went on I noticed myself looking at certain aspects of images that I never used to notice.
I now think that this may also be true of designers of any kind and not just photographers. I’m constantly looking out for exciting designs and I judge absolutely everything I see now on it’s asthetic quality. Obviously as a designer I am evaluating adverts, posters, flyers, web sites etc. But my photographic background hasn’t left me and i’m now finding inspiration from all walks of life, for example while walking through the park into town the other day I noticed how the grass surrounded the trees and later that day I converted that into a simple but, hopefully, effective illustration.
Although University has finished for now, I certainly don’t want to stop learning. I hate waking up and doing nothing with my day and so i’m determined to keep myself occupied. I’ve been hitting the gym most mornings with a course mate of mine and feel fantastic every day for doing so. After every session I try and take to my computer and try out some new skills. I have been stocking up on tutorials as of late and will hopefully get through one a day from now on. This way I’ll hopefully be a much better designer by the time I come to start my final year.
Today I went through a tute that taught me how to intergrate graphics with photography, which I hope to be something I get better at with both of those being disciplines of mine. It took me ages but when finished I was really pleased with the results and had really got to grasp with adding highlighting and shadows to a graphic and also how to create depth of field.
I look forward to tomorrow’s tute…
