Interview

by Mike Lloret

I recently conducted an e-mail interview with Charles Hinshaw and John Williamson, two designers from D3IS Multimedia, the company that has designed my new website. I've written about the site and the experience of having it designed in this issue's Midnight Writer column, and they have an ad in this issue of the AJ. Here's some of what we talked about.

• ML: First of all, could you tell me how you got into web development?
• JW: Web development is a very limiting term...At D3IS, we like to think of ourselves as Multimedia Artists, the internet is just a very useful tool to get information and art to a lot of people.
• CH: Ever since I could hold a pencil I have been drawing, and when I got my first computer I started drawing on it...it was the next logical step.
• ML: How long have you been involved in web design and what changes have you seen since you started?
• CH: I put together my first real web page a few years ago; back then it was mostly text and graphics, but that is all most browsers supported.
• JW: The changes have really been amazing, what the internet is now is just the beginning of something great.
• ML: What things are especially important when designing a web page?
• CH: Beyond the basic knowledge of programming and creating artwork, it is important to approach it with an open mind...I think that is a major problem with most sites right now, they all look the same... creativity should play a bigger part in design than it seems to do for most people.
• JW: Yeah, one of the most important things is to give each web site a unique personality. Too many "professional" web sites simply look bad.
• ML: What advice would you give to people thinking about getting into web design?
• JW: I think that many people don't really realize what getting into "web design" involves. Getting into web design involves getting into art, audio, programming...it is a big thing.
• CH: Yeah, that's true, but if you do have the skills and interest then now is the time to do it: there are a lot of designers out there, and the competition is growing each day.
• ML: What do you see as the future of the internet?
• CH: The internet is still a very new thing, I think that it has a very promising future.
• JW: As the internet grows, I think that it will become much more dynamic, there are big changes in the future for the web.
• ML: What sort of changes do you anticipate in this "promising future"?
• CH: I think that multimedia and interactivity are two of the big things for the future of the web. This is already starting to happen with streaming audio and video, but in the next few years I think we are really going to see this happening more because people's connections will finally be fast enough to view these things.
• ML: Is there anything about designing my site that you'd like to talk about? Anything you found hard, or anything you especially enjoyed or disliked doing, for example?
• CH: With Balefire's Realm, one of our big goals was to get away from left column menu design and create an interface that is original and recognizable. There is still a menu, but it has been worked into the site's graphics...Right now there are too many people who create HTML and call it a web site. A web site should have a unique "feel" to it, you can only get that when graphics, content, and audio all come together...
• As far as dislikes... that is tough; I love my job. I guess the only part that I really don't like is having to check everything at multiple resolutions and on multiple browsers...I really wish that Microsoft and Netscape could work together...that would make things a lot easier on designers.
• ML: Thanks for taking the time to talk to me, gentlemen. I'll let you get back to designing my site.

If you want to see further samples of what they do, have a look at their own website:

http://www.d3is.com

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