Designer Take: Interview with Selene M. Bowlby

Selene M. Bowlby runs iDesign Studios, a design/development company in Florida. She is someone I’ve followed on twitter for sometime and is always good for sharing design resources (@idesignstudios). A while back I asked her to take a few minutes and answer some questions about herself.

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1. What brought you to the wonderful world of web design?

By the time I graduated from college, I was 100% positive that I wanted to focus on web design.

Ever since I can remember, I’ve always held an interest for art and design. I was lucky enough to have been exposed to computers since the age of three, when my father got his first computer, a TRS-80.

Little did I know, but this early exposure to computers would lead to my current career passion – computer aided design… specifically web design.

I majored in graphic design in college, where at this point the internet was nothing more than a hobby for me. My career goal at that time was creating designs for print, such as advertisements, corporate identity, brochures, etc.

As I dabbled more in the emerging technology of the internet – which started with Compuserve and our local Freenet / BBS back in high school – my interest in the web grew tremendously. By the time I graduated from college, I was 100% positive that I wanted to focus on web design.

2. What was the first site you designed?

The first site I ever designed was my own – hosted on a free Geocities account (in the “Paris” and “SoHo” neighborhoods) way back in high school.

It was a personal site called “Innovative Designs” with a basic portfolio of my acrylic paintings and other fine art. It would be a blast in the past to get a sneak peek of that old site – I’d be embarrassed to show it off now though, LOL.

3. How do you break designer’s block?

My first step in breaking designers block is usually to take a break. Either by working on another project, or taking a break from work entirely. Sometimes you realize you just have to sleep on it and start again the next day.

If I don’t have the luxury of time, though, I’ll go through the CSS design galleries for inspiration. I’ll often find a design (or ten!) that spark my interest and get the creative juices flowing again. I also frequently go to the stock photo sites – often times I’ll find the perfect photo for a web site, which is all I need to start sparking new ideas.

4. How does the ‘real world’ inspire your web creations?

For the most part I’m inspired online – through the work of other great designers that inspire me to improve my own design and development skills. But real world experience helps a great deal, as well. Learning from past successes or mistakes, and knowing what does or doesn’t work well in a design all plays a role.

Taking real life into account is also important, as far as the fact that web sites should be designed for the people who will be visiting them (not necessarily for the site owner). Having real world experience of knowing what it’s like to be a college student, work in a corporate environment, be a parent, etc. helps you bring a bit of personality to a design where you need to “speak” to the target audience.

Piecing together bits and pieces from things I’ve gone through myself, will often play a role in a design – even if it is sub-conscious.

5. You are very active in the design community, which social media site has been the best tool for you?

First off, the design community is such a helpful group!

Hands down, Twitter has been the best social media tool for growing my business. I started out on Twitter just out of curiosity and for fun, but it’s turned into an invaluable networking tool.

First off, the design community is such a helpful group! I’m now following a ton of designers and developers, and I see on a daily basis how supportive everyone is of each other.

I’ve run into great resources via tweets and retweets, for example. If I ever have a question – whether related to a specific development issue, or some aspect of running your own business, etc. I can always count on more than a few people to respond with their own input. I’ve also had several inquiries for work come through contacts on twitter – I think just from being “out there” and people being exposed to your work, or liking you as a person helps, too.

It does takes work – it’s a give and take relationship – but Twitter is definitely a fantastic tool and the one I recommend most if someone wanted to use just one social networking site.

6. Who do you admire most in the design community?

Tough question – you might get me in trouble here, as I don’t want to leave anyone out, LOL. I do love to follow Graham Smith, Calvin Lee and Adelle Charles on Twitter.

I’m always amazed by how they are able to multi-task by designing and developing work for clients, maintaining their own very active blogs, and managing their own side projects, all while being very active on in the design community.

I’m working on my time management and increasing my blogging frequency this year – but I’m always amazed at how much effort these designers put forth in so many areas. Definitely an inspiration!

7. What apps do you use when designing a site?

I primarily use Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Dreamweaver. I complete the entire design (from brainstorming and mockups to final design) in Photoshop, and develop the functional web site in Dreamweaver. The WYSIWYG view is quite helpful, but I find more and more that I’m mostly working in the code-view.

Although not an application, I also always use the W3C XHTML and CSS validation tools – these are crucial in ensuring that you have valid / standards compliant code. Often times plugins or ad codes that clients want to use will invalidate the code, but I like to be sure the basic site validates.

8. What is your favorite platform/language to develop with?

While I originally focused on developing static XHTML / CSS web sites, my focus is now shifting towards custom WordPress theme design and development.

Each time I develop a new WordPress driven web site, I am still amazed by just how much you can do with it. WordPress is definitely more than “just” a blogging platform!

There are many things I’ve wanted to do with WordPress for my own needs, or requests I’ve received by clients – so far I’ve been able to meet almost all of those requests, either with customization of common WordPress tags, or from the thousands of plugins that are readily available.

9. A question I see floating around all the time – Music while you work, is it good or bad?

I definitely think that music while you work is a good thing! Especially when I’m in the design and development phases of a project, you can bet there’s some music blasting. I do tend to shut everything off if I am blogging or writing proposals, etc. – but when I want to be creative, I definitely find that music helps.

My last.fm account clearly shows that my favorite music to listen to is anything by Maynard James Keenan – lead signer of Tool, A Perfect Circle and Puscifer. I listen to a lot of Nine Inch Nails, too.

10. If you had to give up design, what you choose for a career?

You know that’s something I’ve never even thought of before, and quite honestly don’t know how to answer!

I’ve always been interested in design in some form or another, so if I ever had to give this up for some reason, I think I’d be completely lost! One thing for certain, my replacement job would definitely have to involve computers. Exactly what it would be, though is hard to say….

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Author Bob Pease