Magnus shot to online fame being one of the founding three partners of Woothemes. Floobe got to chat to Magnus about where it all started, where its going and all things Woo!

Full name and Age please

Magnus Jepson, 30 in a few days.

Favourite Biscuit and Drink?

Stratos (Norwegian choc-bar) and Coke Zero

Last book your read and last movie you saw?

“Anvil! The story of Anvil” and “Angels & Demons”

Where and when did it all start?

For me it started with web design as a hobby, next to my full-time job as a programmer. It evolved to a passion, and eventually I stumbled into WordPress and started making WordPress themes, which led to co-founding WooThemes.

Is there anyone in the industry you look up to?

Since I’ve only been in the web industry for a short time, I never really got to know who the “leaders” in the industry were. But I have a great deal of respect for designers like Liam (www.wefunction.com), Collis (www.envato.com) and obviously Adii (www.adii.co.za) which was the guy I looked up to from the start of my WordPress venture. We are now business partners which is kinda cool.

You’re one of the 3 original Woo members, how did you become Woo?

I started out by myself, creating a few free WP themes, then eventually selling a few of them. I then got in contact with Adii, who was also in the market for “premium” WP themes, and did a collaboration with him. That progressed into another couple of  themes and soon after that we decided to re-brand to WooThemes, together with Mark Forrester.

What does a general day consist of for you?

Mostly coding, support, admin on WooThemes. I’m pretty used to working 8-4 from my old job, so it hasn’t been that hard for me to go freelance, and I really enjoy my daily tasks, which make it a lot easier to get up in the morning. I try to sneak in a few minutes of Guitar Hero every now and again too.

You live out in Norway and have only met your co-founders once, does it get lonely not having the other guys around?

Not really… we have our weekly skype chats, and also text chat on skype every day, so I feel as though I’m part of an office, although we don’t have the physical contact with each other. It’s also a lot easier to get work done when you don’t have distractions around you.

Where does your heart lie, with design or development?

Though question. I think if I had to choose I would go for design, since a web page is something that is so much more visible to others. It’s so much more rewarding when somebody gives you credit for a great design, contra having solid code…

Do you prefer being woo rather than what you were doing?

I wouldn’t trade it for anything… Working at WooThemes is a dream job, as you get to do work on your strong points, and you don’t have to design a theme specifically for a client. It is also so much more satisfying to be in direct control over how much you earn.

What do you consider to be the biggest contributing factor to Woo’s success?

I think it is a mix of perfect timing, good partnership, hard work and great designs.

You’re known for working on a PC, do you think you’ll ever change to mac?

I dig my iPhone, but I could never get used to the one button mouse on the Mac. I’ve also been running Windows 7 for a while now which is a big step up. And I can never get used to the font smoothing on Mac’s

Where do you see yourself in the future?

Things change very fast online, but I hope that I will be in a similar position as today. I doubt I’ll ever go back to corporate work… Once you see the light, there is no turning back.

Will you be heading to anymore conferences in the near future?

Surely to FOWD again next year, but nothing other than that planned. Conferences are great for inspiration and networking, but I don’t see the benefit of going to multiple conferences every year. The best part of FOWD was meeting the Woo gang.

Thanks to Magnus for taking part!

Links

http://www.jepson.no
http://www.woothemes.com

Your design looks great in photoshop right? You’re just about to start taking it to pieces and prep the graphic files before creating the XHTML and CSS. You get to the background and you just can’t get it to tile correctly? A quick tutorial in creating tiled patterns in photoshop and how to quickly prep them for use on the web. Using this tutorial you will be able to reduce the size of your main background images by quickly implementing a pattern which can be tiled and repeated with ease.

Starting from scratch, create a new document in Adobe Photoshop 500px wide and 200px high. In this instance I created some squares and rotated them through 45 degrees and tiled them accordingly. I added in a background colour to make it more aesthetically pleasing and to show the pixels when zoomed in.

Using the rectangular marquee tool you can select from one corner and by holding down shift, drag the cursor to the exact same place on another Diamond (Square), I have used guides on the image below to show what I mean.

After dragging the rectangular marquee tool whilst holding down the shift button go to and click edit then Define Pattern.

Name your pattern and click ok.

Now create a new document 400px by 400px. Click on edit then fill.

Clicking the drop down box for “Use” you can now move down the list to pattern. Click on pattern and another drop down will show up for “Custom Pattern”.

Choose your unique pattern you have just created and click on the OK button. This will then fill your 400px by 400px with your new pattern.

And there you have it, your seamless tiled background.

Have you ever been working in Illustrator using strokes and whenever you enlarge your image the strokes do not stay the same size?

There are a couple of options in Illustrator which we don’t necessarily pick up straight away and this is one of them. You can spend hours working with strokes, detailing a particular piece of artwork and when you enlarge or decrease the size of the artwork everything goes wrong and you have to adjust the size of each individual stroke to get it looking right again. Sometimes it can take you hours.

Fear not… If this is happening to you, you will be happy to know that there is a fix and it should cut hours out of your work time.

So if you’re having trouble with your strokes, follow this four click trick…

In Illustrator go to EDIT then PREFERENCES then GENERAL

Then check the SCALE STROKES AND EFFECTS checkbox.

And now press OK.

And now all of your strokes will scale with the size of the artwork. (See below)

David Pache (dache.ch) has always caught my eye as a designer, with a never ending list of inspirational logo design works. At 25 he has established himself in the world as a leading logo designer. Big thanks to David for taking part in this interview for Floobe.

1. Full Name and Age please.

David Pache, 25

2. Favourite Biscuit and Drink.

Butter biscuits (Petit Lu etc.); Coffee

3. Last Book you read and last movie you saw.

Adrian Frutiger – Typefaces: The Complete Works; Slumdog Millionaire

4. Where and When did it all start?

I created the concept of dache when I was finishing design college. I knew that I wanted to be self-employed in order to have full control of my designs therefore decided to focus on logo design with additional services such as business cards, letterheads, website design and consultation. Back in 2005 I took the plunge, after completing some research through online design competitions to gauge how my designs would be received. With many positive reactions, I launched the website and business.

5. Do you have any formal qualifications and do you think these helped in your professional development?

I do have formal qualifications however when it comes to design, I think that it is more your inspirations which develop you as a professional. That said, I would not be where I am today without learning the techniques and history of design and art, in order to have the ability to express my ideas into working concepts.

6. What do you think makes a good designer, a qualification or the lust for the job at hand?

As said before, I do think that qualifications are invaluable however, if a designer does not have the perseverance to put their ideas out there for public opinions, they are just that – a qualification! As with many trades, we are nothing without our clients therefore I think there is always room for more designers but it is a difficult market to get recognised in therefore a lust for the job is essential.

7. What was a key factor in your professional growth and development?

When I initially started dache, I had no prior business knowledge therefore I think a turning point for me was when I had been able to complete a few projects from start to finish and gain an idea of what it was that the clients needed in addition to my design skills. Over the past years, I have been able to hone my customer service which has greatly improved my new business levels and my relationships with existing clients.

8. What do you consider to be the biggest contributing factor to your success?

Without a doubt, my clients are the biggest contributing factor as, without their continued interest, I would not have a successful business. Also, a great part was websites, such as yourselves, doing feature articles and also I have been fortunate to have been selected to have my work in several publications eg. logolounge and los logos.

9. What is your daily working routine?

I am lucky to work from home. A typical day comprises of administration, invoicing, new business marketing and follow-up. The main part is spent creating design concepts and revisions from the briefs I have been given and consultation with clients to gain feedback. I also maintain my website and have recently launched the ‘dacheboard‘, my online blog featuring articles.

10. What made you go freelance, were there any defining factors?

As said previously, I knew from the start that I wanted to work for myself therefore I do not have the comparison however I do not regret my decision due to the success I have received in the past few years.

11. What are the benefits and negatives of being freelance?

This is obviously a question of personal opinion. In my experience the benefits of being freelance include the ability to make your own decisions, freedom of time management and workload and retaining the full benefits from your designs. The negative side of that is that you usually start from scratch therefore progress initially can be slow when you are trying to build a customer base and enter into the general marketplace.

12. Throughout your entire career to date, is there any particular problem you’ve ran in to more than once? Clients, Jobs, Work, Family??

I would not pinpoint it to any person in particular however as a designer, I have styles and techniques which I enjoy creating. In business I have been approached to create a logo for clients who do not appreciate the same style. Whilst this is not a problem to create other styles, it is often more challenging to work on these to fit in line with exactly what they require. Having a variety of applications and techniques within your portfolio is essential though.

13. What is the largest project you have worked on?

Spanning over several months, my largest project was the re-branding of the Grooveshark identity, an international music platform with attached social network, allowing their users to stream full length songs, build playlists, share music and make friends all for free. The creators of Grooveshark employed me to create a new image for their company branding loosely based on their existing logo as they had already gained great success. The project took a lot of time with small tweaks being made throughout and consultation with the client being constant. It was a long but enjoyable experience.

14. Where do you get your inspiration from?

I find that my surroundings enable me to create designs that are contemporary, innovative and unique. I take added inspiration from music, sculpture, the suprematism art movement and the works of painters such as Picasso, Kandinsky and Mondriaan which interest me greatly.

15. What are your tools of choice, hardware and software?

iMac and Adobe Creative Suite are my tools of preference and I predominantly utilise these on all projects. In addition to the computer based applications, I am a big user of the Dot Grid Book which I use after my sketching stages to accurately plot my concept designs before transferring them to the computer.

16. Where do you see the future being in the world of logo design?

To be honest, I think it’s difficult to predict how the field will change or develop. But I have noticed a slight trend in reviving styles from the 70s. I suppose therefore it would be expected that the 80s will have a strong influence over the next phase.

Also, in logo design, there is a great influence from the other genres of graphic design. I see a trend towards very illustrative, photographic, even almost what many might think of as ‘arty’ effects. These are being used more and more by designers to fall in line with where the field is going.

In general, I think that the future outlook for design is very positive. With the market in the recent decades developing with the mass production of computer technology, we are now seeing a period where the general public are aware of our market, are more willing to accept the concept of design and are hungry to seek out good work. This is good news for the industry as we are seeing more clients and are being encouraged to produce better quality projects. We are also being given much more freedom to experiment in our approaches.

17. You’re a well known designer, do you class yourself as famous?

Definitely not, I am well known within the design community but logo design is a very small niche of this massive network. I would also question if this is even possible anymore with so many people all completing the same task in differing ways.

18. Are you heading to any conferences over the next year?

Nothing planned as yet but I attended the Future of Web Design last April in London and would love to return this year.

19. If you had one goal to reach (anything) within 3 years, what would it be?

Since finishing my studies and jumping straight into business, I have not had too much time off to concentrate on personal goals. I guess I would like to do some travelling. It is not really a goal as such but something of great importance to me to see many places of interest whilst they are still worth seeing.

20. If you had one piece of advice for anyone wanting to venture into your industry, what would it be?

Good design is not always based on moments of genius, a lot of preparation is key to a successful design business.

Links

dache.ch
The Dacheboard

Publications

Logo Lounge
Gestalten

What is minimalistic design? Is it white space? Is it less colour? Is it less space in general? Everyone has different opinions about using less in web design. The awesome minimalistic designs below are just a few from around the web.

Elliott Kember formerly of Carsonified.

Mark Boulton design is simplistic and clean

Tim Van Damme, small website recently cloned before Tim stepped in.

The clean typographic desk reference design

Words are pictures by Craig Ward

Less is more at Artifice Studios

So thin, so simple.

The web is still evolving according to Travis Gertz.

Simple, clear portfolio site from Sam Bowler

You dont need a busy ecommerce design to sell products.

A DJ website which doesn't need to be flash to be effective.

Simple, like a mac app should be.

Alvin Chan uses a dark and clean design to showcase his work.

Excellent use of space by Mark Wieman

Showing that you dont know how to be effective.

Clear and concise for Jamie Gregory

Designed by Elliot Jay Stocks for Samantha Cliffe

Everything on one simple slick little site.

A clear way to show portfolio work from Berit Somme

Nice and clean design blog

Excellent lifestream by Mark Jardine

Although the b group use a large background image, their overall site uses the least amount of space of the showcased sites.

Jason utilises a jquery portfolio to minimise the amount of space his website takes up.

Minimal space, large portfolio!

cameron.io doing minimalistic design well

Awesome.

Its so easy to show more with less

Minimal is cool

The French minimalists

So there you go, a showcase of 30 minimalist design. It’s not difficult and in many ways beautiful!

You turn to talk, which are your favorite clean designs? Is there anyone we have missed who would like to be included in Part 2? Get in touch.