HOW DID YOU GET INTO WEB DESIGN?

I studied music at a conservatory in quite possibly the most depressing city in the country - Rochester, NY. If you haven?t been to Rochester before, then you?re probably automatically cooler than anyone who has spent time there. Really though, I?m a saxophonist and I write music?at some point I thought "hey, I should have a website so that girls will see how awesome my music is and want to date me". That part with the girls didn't really work out but the web stuff did.

A friend of mine recommended that I start by learning Flash. I curse him to this day for the bass-ackwards approach, but I built my first site over the course of a weekend in Flash. Yes, it was terrible. Once I launched that, all my friends started asking me to build sites for them. For me it was a natural creative connection between music, design and technology - three things I've always loved.

A few months later I was asked to build a pretty deep site for an insurance company. By ?deep? I don't mean intellectually stimulating this thing had like 200 pages. By that time I had already come to understand the idea that Flash should be reserved for what it does best, which typically has nothing to do with insurance websites. I recommended a fully HTML site to the client (having never touched HTML in my life), panicked when I realized I didn't know how to do it, then ended up building the entire site in Dreamweaver (yikes).

I've been trying to learn how to build 'real' websites ever since.

TELL US WHAT IT TOOK TO FOUND WWW.BOOMDESIGNGROUP.COM.

Two parts ambition, one part blind optimism, and a whole lot of 'trial by fireshake and stir'.I started Boom with two friends I met at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester (as mentioned above). The original idea was actually for a kind of artistic collective, which would serve to help develop and promote various creative projects we and our friends were working on. We thought that pooling resources would help give traction to a lot of great ideas that never got off the ground. This seemed like a great idea at the time, but it never really materialized because the purpose was too vague.

Fast forward a year or so later these two friends and I are freelancing quite a bit, creating websites for other artists and musicians. We saw this as a more focused area where we might really make a difference in the way artists promote themselves. We also realized that our individual skill-sets complemented each other pretty well.

We set up shop in Brooklyn (three musicians with no formal design or development training), spread the word as best we could, and started building websites (mostly Flash) for independent musicians. Since then it?s been a constant process of work, learning, lots of work, late nights, more work, good times, tough times?and um?did I mention the work?

YOU SAY YOU SPECIALIZE IN NEW MEDIA FOR THE CREATIVE INDUSTRIES. WHAT DO YOU MEAN BY CREATIVE INDUSTRIES? DO YOU NOT WORK WITH COMPANIES THAT DOESN'T FALL THE CATEGORY OF 'CREATIVE' ON PRINCIPLE?

The 'creative industries' thing comes out of our background in music. We initially started Boom with a focus on music-industry clients simply because that's what we knew best. Since then, our client base has evolved to include other creatively-minded clients like artists, photographers, dance companies, non-profits, publishers, etc. We don't discriminate based on the creative industry mantra, but we do look for clients that are purpose-driven. As another example, ABC News came to us to provide a fresh take on some of their online initiatives. You can't ignore the chance to improve something with that kind of reach. We also did a site for a private charter jet company. Musicians love private jets.

DO YOU TRY TO SOMEHOW CHANGE THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE COMPANY YOU?RE WORKING WITH ON ITS OWN BUSINESS IN ORDER TO MAKE IT MORE CREATIVE? WHAT KIND OF DESIGNER-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP DO YOU USUALLY TRY TO ESTABLISH TO MAKE THE COMMUNICATIVE PROCESS GO SMOOTHER?

I wouldn't say that we're trying to make our clients more 'creative'. We're trying to help them reach some defined set of goals. On a good day, if we do our job right, then the creativity is what gets us there - the process is a means not an end. In many cases though, we have to work to build trust with our clients so that we can take more risks.You mention the word 'relationship' that's exactly what we're looking for. Some professional relationships naturally inspire trust. For example, if I have a toothache and need to visit a dentist, I may start by asking a friend for a recommendation. Once I have their recommendation and I'm sitting in that chair, the trust kicks in. I'm not going to tell the dentist how to fix my toothache. I assume he's a dentist for a reason, I sure as hell am not a dentist, and I figure the best way for my toothache to go away as soon as possible is for me to let him do his job ? unimpeded.

I hate the word vendor. No one in this industry doing great creative work should allow themselves to be labeled as a vendor. You're not putting a quarter in me, making your selection and boom (shameless plug), here?s a website! We are your creative partner. When our clients understand this, everyone works incredibly hard through a collaborative process, and the end results are simply awesome.

YOU ARE DOING A LOT OF FLASH DESIGN. IS THIS A SPECIALIZATION FOR YOU? WHAT ELSE YOU?VE GOT A GRIP ON?

Flash was an early strength of ours, so it seems that a lot of people associate us with that. As I mentioned, I personally started with Flash and then branched out. In our first year, Boom built a smattering of Flash sites, which is what our music-industry clients wanted. As users though, we grew tired of solely Flash-driven sites and worked really hard to become more balanced as a company. We hired an awesome HTML/CSS developer, who also became an early adopter of Ruby on Rails. As our team has grown, over 60% of our work is now rooted in development and only 25% of that is Flash.

In 2006 we launched Boomerang, our web-based content management application built in Rails. Boomerang drives nearly all of our custom websites, which means our clients can update all of their content themselves within a really intuitive interface. My mom was essentially the target audience for Boomerang, because we wanted to make content management as simple as checking email. We?re releasing v2 of Boomerang soon, which will include a developers? toolkit. Check it out!

As for the sites themselves, every project is different. Our industry is past the whole web standards vs. Flash argument. Ideas and content come first - the technology should just support that. Most of what we?re building now are what you might call hybrid sites - rooted in HTML/CSS and using Flash as needed to do what it does best - serve media.

Many creative-industry clients still treat Flash kind of like crack, but ultimately, it?s one technology we use to fulfill a specific purpose.

DO YOU CODE AND DESIGN? WHICH ONE DO YOU PREFER MORE? WHAT LANGUAGES DO YOU USE FOR PROGRAMMING?

Honestly, I do very little design or coding these days, although I love both and am trying to work on improving my coding chops. My focus is on creative strategy, building ideas and content, finding new partners, and setting the course for Boom's work. I write a lot, read a lot, talk on the phone (too much) and generally try to connect dots. I never thought that could be a full-time job, but that just shows you how stupid I was when we started the company. The most important thing I do is try to create the space for other people to do great creative work. Oh, I also bought the Wii. When I actually touch project work, most of what I do is motion design and animation. After Effects is my latest toy and learning it has been a really cool challenge. Aside from all this geek stuff (aka web), Boom also creates visual installations for live performance. In other words, we design and animate commissioned films to accompany live musicians in a concert setting. We've premiered shows everywhere from tiny clubs in Brooklyn to major performance spaces like Carnegie Hall, and have collaborated with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, Seattle Symphony, Miami Symphony Orchestra, Phoenix Symphony, American Composers Orchestra, and lots of other great bands and chamber ensembles. People freak out sometimes when they find out we do that, but it?s really just another connection to our background as performing musicians.

WHAT WOULD YOU CONSIDER TO BE THE TOP PROBLEMS YOU HAVE FACED WORKING IN WEB DESIGN INDUSTRY? HOW DID YOU SOLVE THEM (OR ARE YOU STILL LOOKING FOR A SOLUTION)?

One frequent challenge is trying to create cool things out of crappy content. We solve this by convincing our clients to let us create the content (or at least have a seat at that table). We?ve worked pretty hard to position ourselves as not just a design shop, but as a creative studio, which seems to be helping.

Client work is often unforgiving. Demand is high, schedules and budgets are tight, client relationships are complicated but you can?t blame any of that if the work isn't great. Aside from continuing to find the best possible client relationships, we?re actually really focused on building our own ideas now - new applications, websites, online products and the live stuff too. Client work is so 2006.

IS ACCESSIBILITY A PRIORITY FOR YOU IN DESIGNING A WEBSITE? WHAT ELSE?

Yes. The degree to which we focus on accessibility depends on the project - the idea, the content and most importantly, the audience. Just as not every piece of art or music is intended to be accessible to everyone, the same can be true of the web. Although, I do believe the web is first and foremost an all-inclusive media, which means we should always keep working towards greater accessibility.

I'm speaking more to the creative implications of that word. I think it's a given that designers should always focus on the societal / physical implications of accessibility.

WHAT DOES 'CLEAN INTERFACE' MEAN TO YOU?

I know it when I see it, but here are two examples on my mind right now?+ Ryan Sims (designer behind Virb and The Big Noob) + Writeboard (beautifully simple word app)

HOW DOES YOUR DESIGN PROCESS USUALLY FLOW? DO YOU USE ANY STIMULATORS LIKE MUSIC OR COFFEE? WHAT/WHO INSPIRES YOU THE MOST?

The work of other designers and companies is often inspiring, but nothing beats getting away from the computer. Music - yes. Movies - yes. Books - yes. Walking outside (what a novel idea) - yes. Pumpkin flavored ice cream - yes. Right now I?m really into (or have rediscovered) the writing of John Berger. If I could pick one person to collaborate with on a creative project, it would be him. John, are you listening?

WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE DESIGN TECHNOLOGY? WHY? WHAT SOFTWARE DO YOU USE AT HOME AND WORK?

I think all software is limiting to a degree. During my freshman year at Eastman I was obsessive about practicing. I sat in a practice room a minimum of 5 hours per day ? usually between 8 and 12 ? and played my saxophone ? by myself. Eventually I reached a plateau and was really frustrated with my playing. I sucked. The problem was simple. I wasn't playing with other people.

This may be a strange analogy, but I think software (or the way we approach it) is the same way. You have to get outside of it. All of my favorite designers have some degree of process away from their computers - drawing, painting, writing, etc...

Now I just want software that stays out of my way. Coda, Basecamp and Writeboard are three perfect examples that I use all the time. As for more robust applications, After Effects is incredibly intuitive considering the breadth of what it can do.

WHAT WERE THE MISTAKES YOU LEARNED FROM MOST WHILE IN THE WEB DESIGN INDUSTRY?

The client is not always right and it's really hard to learn to say 'no'. The trick is actually to never really say 'no', but to provide intelligent options and build trust. You can also just buy them a lot of beer. Anyway, I've made the mistake way too many times of keeping quiet when I knew something would be better if I spoke up.

ON YOUR VIRB PROFILE YOU SAY YOU?RE BOYCOTTING MYSPACE. WHY? HOW IS THAT GOING?

If you've read this much, you probably don't need me to explain why I hate MySpace. My personal boycott is fine and dandy, but I?m not sure it?s helping much. That's ok though. We can just let the Rupert Murdoch cronies continue to make the site even worse. People are upset about the increasing ads and spam on MySpace. The community is poisoned - the first tell-tale sign of a dying social network.

WHAT DO YOU THINK THE NEAREST FUTURE OF WEB DESIGN IS AFTER?

I can't predict what it will be but I can say what I would like it to be, which is more human. Facebook is a smart application, but poking your friends once a week does not equal healthy social contact. The web should connect us in ways that inspire us to come out of our holes, not crawl back in them.

WHAT WEB DESIGN BLOGS/SITES/MAGAZINES ARE YOU FOLLOWING ON REGULAR BASIS?

My web browsing is impulsive and random, with one exception - nytimes.com - which I read every day. Virb is great. I have a subscription to Wired. I hate IGN, but love video games, so I read IGN. Will someone at IGN please call Ryan Sims or Jina Bolton or Boom so we can re-design your site Please?!!!

WHAT WEB DESIGN TIPS WOULD YOU GIVE TO SOMEONE WHO WAS THINKING OF BECOMING A WEB DESIGNER?

Web design in itself can be pretty brutal work. Think about the bigger picture, create, invent and you?ll be better off.

Focus on the details. Focus more. When you can?t stand it, focus on them even more. Stay flexible. Software and technology will always change. Creativity comes first.

Helen Walker

Helen Walker graduated with a degree in Mass Communications and Sociology. She worked as a newspaper journalist for two years after that. Having always been interested in cyberculture and its impact on society, Helen switched to online journalism and joined Design Interviews blog in July, 2007. Ever since she's been interviewing web designers and administrating the blog. Helen is a keen movie-goer and she is also a panda lover.


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Get in touch with Helen: helen.walker4@gmail.com