1. Hello Chris, we’d like you to speak up about your background! Please tell us how did you take roots into digital art?

I progressed onto digital art after following art and design subjects through school and college. In university I touched on computer aided design, web design and 3D modelling. Being an 80's kid I grew up with computers, starting with my Atari 2600, so I naturally found myself experimenting with digital design.

2. Is it a place of birth, luck or circumstances that helps an artist to get recognition or is it a hard job only that makes you reach your way to the victory?

There's popular designers from all backgrounds, so I'd definitely say it's a mix of hard work and luck. I personally stumbled over the subject of blogging and simply gave it a go. This then turned out to be what has boosted my career and led to all kinds of opportunities. With today's power of the Internet everyone has the opportunity to develop recognition for their work, it's just a case of putting in the hours and enjoying yourself. When you make your first steps

Image by Chris Spooner, SpoonGraphics.co.uk

It happens often that you stumble over difficult words, for example not enough knowledge, lack of experience, loosing freelance contests and so on, and so forth. What is the best way to encourage yourself not to drop?

It's important to keep looking forward and making sure you fix the areas you're personally not happy with. For instance if you find your knowledge of typography isn't up to scratch, then it's important to do some learning to fulfill those areas. Likewise if you lack experience, getting down with some practice on personal projects is a great way of getting used to design processes. Whatever area of your persona you feel lets you down there's always some kind of resource either on or offline that can help you develop that particular skill.

Image by Chris Spooner, SpoonGraphics.co.uk

We guess the hardest thing in web design is to understand the customer’s request. Got any secrets to share on how to deal with customers?

Asking plenty of questions in order to gather a clear understanding of what they want always helps out. I also find that presenting a lower number of initial concepts help focus the client on a goal, rather than supply them with multiple options and spoiling them with choice. Being confident in offering advice on how you think it should be done works wonders in some situations, however other times you'll always end up simply doing as the client requests!

Do you remember your first customer? Was he hard on you?

The first client I worked for was a friend who was organising a local festival. The initial branding had been developed already, but it was my job to create the website. This was a fantastic project to get started, and other than some useful suggestions it went smoothly without any issues.

Image by Chris Spooner, SpoonGraphics.co.uk

Would you please tell us a few words about Spoongraphics project?

SpoonGraphics is basically my personal portfolio website, but nowadays it is more recognised by the design blog that resides on the subdomain. Blog.SpoonGraphics started out as a place where I experimented with blogging and posted the odd freebie and design tutorial, soon the posts began gaining recognition and the rest is history! The blog now, after 2.5years is still going strong with 30k subscribers and 15k+ visitors per day.

What or maybe who inspires you most?

I'm often inspired by lots of people in the industry and community. Whenever I browse my RSS feeds I'll stumble across some awesome artwork and designs that gives me the incentive to experiment more myself.

Image by Chris Spooner, SpoonGraphics.co.uk

Does art pursue you since you were born? Have you ever felt depressed because of not being involved in art?

I've always been a creative person, ever since making robots from cardboard boxes and winning the colouring competition as a child. I always thrived at the artsy topics and simply followed this passion throughout school, college and university before landing my first fulltime job as a designer.

Female and male way of thinking is known to be different due to physiological peculiarities. Can this difference be seen in web design?

I guess there will be a slight difference, but more so I think there's a unique aspect to every single designer, regardless of gender. Everyone has their own inspirations and skills, so each person's work with have their personal touches.

Image by Chris Spooner, SpoonGraphics.co.uk

Web design is thought to be a hard job, because it takes a lot of your time.Does it force your private life out?

Working from home does make it too easy to simply sit at the computer all day and night, but I ensure that I work towards a pretty normal working schedule and leave the computer in the evenings. The best part about working as a web designer is that if you're passionate about the subject it just doesn't seem like 'work'! Chris, we’d like to thank you for your spending some of your precious time to answer these questions.

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