Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:32:13 +0000

Falmouth-based design agency Absolute has appointed two new interior designers.

Luxury home specialist Fay Freeman counts underwater spas and Seychelles-based luxury retreats in her extensive portfolio. Her new role at Absolute will put her at the helm of a number of ambitious private residential developments both in Cornwall and beyond.

Commercial property designer Stuart Watt, meanwhile, spent ten years at the helm of Philip Watts Design in Nottingham. He has led interior projects covering everything from exclusive London clubs (the Kingly in Soho), to even a staircase design for Deborah ‘Dragon’s Den’ Meaden.

Absolute’s managing director, Helen Blake, said: “We’re thrilled to have both Fay and Stuart onboard and I know they are going to make a fantastic contribution to the work we are doing. They are both world-class designers and I’ve no doubt that 2010 is going to be a very exciting year for us indeed.”

David Curran is a freelance web designer based in Cornwall, England in the United Kingdom. David originally studied Geography at the University of London and graduated in 2005 and later fell into web design by accident. In 2008, he started designing websites on a freelance basis and recently went full time designing websites. When I interviewed David he talked about how he started in web design, what it takes to make user friendly websites and his experiences working with various CMS systems.

Luc @ SWD: David, how did you first start designing website and how long have you been building them professionally?

David says: I first started building websites when working for a small computer firm in my local town, I was also servicing and building PC’s but I began to get more business for the websites so started teaching myself web design. I never had any training and pretty much taught myself through reading web articles and a few books. I still have a lot to learn and continue to teach myself from searching Google and checking the source code of sites I like. My first few sites were from using WYSIWYG editors but quickly saw the limitations to such programs, I now try to hand code sites as much as possible and use a minimal amount of standards compliant markup.

After a couple of years with the computer firm I started taking on clients outside of the business and eventually went freelance in 2008 and have been full time designing websites since then.

Luc @ SWD: Where and what did you study at college/university?

David says: I actually studied Geography and received a BSC from the University of London in 2005. At the time I had no idea I wanted to do web design and just sort of fell in to it a couple of years after university. I didn’t even know anything about computers when studying!

Luc @ SWD: How do you go about designing and building a website that is “user friendly”? Do your clients ever want things that aren’t as user friendly in a web design project and how do you deal with that when it comes up?

David says: I always try to design sites that are hopefully ‘user friendly’ by creating clear and simple layouts. Often using a minimal layout only displaying the information necessary to that page means that users don’t get confused as to what they are reading. I try to use traditional and familiar techniques, like descriptive headers, which are both useful for spiders and for visitors to understand the hierarchy of the page and to read the information as it should be read. In terms of clients ever wanting sites that aren’t as user friendly, I have never really had to deal with this as most of the people who approach me for a website do so because they have seen my portfolio and want a clear, simple and user friendly site!

Luc @ SWD: David, I see that you work with CMS (Content Management Systems) in your daily web design work.  Which CMS is your favorite to use or do you have a custom CMS that you use currently?

David says: The first few CMS’s I have worked with were custom built (through an outsourcing website) and these have been successful. Unfortunately I still haven’t much experience with PHP and other such languages used to build CMS’s so have to outsource such systems, although I am trying to teach myself PHP (but find it quite boring!). More recently I have built a couple of sites using Joomla and found that this is a great system which is very customizable. I am currently in the process of building a social networking/directory website and am doing so using Joomla so my client can have full control of the content after the site is built, and hopefully I will learn a lot about Joomla in the process.

Luc @ SWD: What are your favorite web design tools to use when designing?

David says: I mainly use Photoshop to sketch out layout ideas and then hand code in Dreamweaver. I know Dreamweaver, like many WYSIWYG programs does have a tendency to do create unnecessary markup but I do find it useful to hand code in and it has some very intuitive features.