Brian Gardner, WordPress theme creator has tagged me as well as Randa, Charity, David and Char to start his new meme.
What is something that would surprise people about you and design?
I never really intended becoming a designer, to be honest when I went and did a 2 year General Art and Design course when I was 18 I thought I would be a fine artist. At the end of the 2 years I was quite enjoying illustration but still was not sure whether to go in this direction or fine art. One of my tutors said why not consider graphic design, so after taking a look at the graphic design course that’s what I decided to do. What I found really difficult at first was working with type, I was used to working with images, but typography was something new.
If you could design one blogger’s site for free, who would it be?
To be honest at the moment I don’t think I would dare offer to design another blogger’s site (even for free) because I am still learning CSS and wouldn’t want to make something that didn’t work in all browsers 
. However I have been incredibly inspired by Brian Gardner who revealed that in only a year he learned how to code and design beautiful Wordpress templates and am determined that I soon will be more confident.
What blog platform do you prefer, and why?
Definitely Wordpress, which I only discovered about 6 months ago. I am amazed at its general ease of use and how search engine friendly it is. I did once try blogger.com which I found quite inflexible. I have also dabbled with Drupal and Joomla, both of which I found incredibly complicated to use.
Aside from your own, what is your favorite blog theme/template?
I really like Grid Focus which I think Johno at Redsil has used to great effect. I also like the incredibly popular Vertigo theme by Brian Gardner and Copyblogger theme, which is nice and simple and I think could be easily adapted to great effect.
Do you have a blog-reading guilty pleasure?
I don’t really have a blog reading guilty pleasure, but every now and again I like to read invention websites and blogs (is that bad?).
I am tagging James Dempsey – Creative Guy, Lauren – Creative Curio, Joe Drinker – Four Bux, Kat – Katize and Nate at Nate Creates
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17 Comments
Nice article. I always enjoy reading how others became involved with the web and design.
I always started out wanting to be a game designer but then flash brought me over to the web and I’ve been converted ever since
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I really love your blog. I think it’s one of the most informative ones on the web. I like it so much that it’s one of the major rss feeds on my new social network, just launched a few days ago. check it out http://www.sabet.tv
Hope to hear from you soon,
Ali Sabet
Sabet Brands, Sabet.tv and Mojizu.com
Founder, CD
by the way I’d be honored if you joined http://www.sabet.tv and invited a few people here and there! Thanks again.
Ali
Hi Darren, thanks for you comment, and its interesting to hear how you have moved from game design to the web.
Hi Ali Sabet, thanks for you comments. I love your Mojizu site. Maybe you would consider guest posting for me some time? I would love to hear a bit more about how you thought of the idea, designed and set it up etc. Good luck with your social network and thanks for including my RSS feed.
oh very cool to be tagged by you Tara. Enjoyed reading your answers. Be on the look out for mine in the next couple days.
Thanks Kat..
I would love to tell you the story, anytime…
I really hope you can join us on sabet.tv!! It would be nice to have you as a member since people will be reading your blog on the site..:)
let me know whenever u’d like to chat.
Hi Ali,
I’ll be in touch
It was actually me (Tara) that asked
Thanks Kat, I will keep my eyes open for your post
Hmm, I suppose I could fit this meme in
I’m not sure how I’d answer these questions, though! I don’t know that anything about me and design would surprise anyone…
I was quite surprised about what you said, though! I’d be interested to see some of the illustrations you’ve done. Do you do many for your freelance design work now? And I totally agree with you about John’s theme. I love it!!
Hmmm..tagged eh? Not sure I can pass them onto other designer bloggers (other than the ones here), but I’ll see what I can come up with.
Hi Lauren, I do a few illustrations within design jobs but not that much any more, there is rarely the budget so if I do have to illustrate its very quick. You’ve seen my Weather Pops, they are simple illustrations I have done. I started doing a lot of painting a few years ago, acrylics on canvas but I haven’t done any for ages. Looking forward to your answers if you get time.
Hi Joe, I’m looking forward to reading.
thanks for the tag. Sorry, didn’t event notice it until I was starting to write a blog anniversary post and saw your link coming in. I’ll try to write up something in a day or so. And I too, think it would be neat to see some of your illustrations.
Hi Nate, no problem look forward to your post. I don’t do much illustration now – but there are a few from a few years back on my portfolio first row of squares second from the right.
Thanks for the tag. By the way, I know squat about customizing Wordpress themes, so you can build me a theme anytime!
I’m actually considering the switch from WP to Drupal right now with the Creative Guy blog. It’s so much more powerful and has so many more features – and as you said, so much more complicated. I have a friend who’s pretty good with it to help me along, otherwise I wouldn’t even consider it.
My biggest problem is I like to focus on the content, rather than learning CSS and Wordpress, etc… I wish I had learned all that stuff when it first started getting popular.
Old dog… yada, yada, yada!
Hi James
You should have a go at learning CSS and XHTML, I only started this year and its slowly beginning to sink in (after 15 years of sticking with print design). I wish I had learned years ago, but the idea of code always scared me. If you do decide to learn this site really helped me
http://www.online-learning.com/gnet/course_html.php and this book at Sitepoint
http://www.sitepoint.com/books/html1/
Thanx for the tag tara. As usual a great reading at your blog.
Nice article. It’s always interesting hearing stories from sucessfull people.
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