1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?

Hi, I am a graphic designer who got into web design and blogging. Most of the time you’ll find me working for some client work, mostly on catalogues and brochures, or publishing something on Designer Daily. I’m currently trying to escape from client work to spend more time blogging and designing on personal projects.

2. Describe a typical day at work?

I usually wake up at 6:30, grab a coffee and go straight to work. From 6:30 to 8:00 I’ll do some RSS reading, social media stuff and blogging. From 8 to 17 I work on projects for clients, then I try to take a walk or do some sport to change my mind. In the evening I work on my blogs, either by writing articles, tweaking design or promoting. In the week-end I spend some time blogging, that’s when I write most of my in-depth articles.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?

The freedom I guess…

4. What do you like least about your job?

Being in front on the computer pretty much all the time, I find it quite tiring sometimes and try to change this by doing some writing or drawing work outside.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?

To me, the worst enemy of creativity is… creativity. I noticed that highly creative people often face one big issue: spreading themselves too thin. Having ideas all the time, these people will often want to jump from one project to another, thus never achieve any.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?

It doesn’t happen to me to have no ideas when starting a new project. However it does happen that the ideas I have are not satisfying, in those cases I just start working even if everything I do is lame for an hour or two, the ideas will come sooner or later.

7. What inspires you the most?

For personal work, I find that the best inspiration source is to take a walk or relax a little. For client work, I think that the most important is to focus on the topic, take the time to get “in the zone”.

8. Do you listen to music while working?

I don’t listen to music while working, I find it too distracting. If I work on repetetive or boring tasks I will listen to some jazz (Nina Simone, Billy Holyday, John Coltrane,…), french music or classical music.

9. How do you deal with criticism?

If it’s pointless criticism, I just ignore it. For most argumented criticism, I’ll take notes and give myself some time to think it. From experience, taking time is the most important to take the emotion out of the reaction and respond the best to critics.

10. What does your workspace look like?

Hard to tell, I’ve moved my office four times this year so I really didn’t get time to install my office properly.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?

The first personal web project I worked on was a shitty flash website I did while in school. On the professional side, it was a website for a bar (no links, too painful to share that).

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?

To find some way to always push their skills further and think about what they do. My blog contributed to this a lot, but I know that blogging isn’t for everyone.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?

Obviously my blog, I really enjoy publishing it. I enjoy working for clients too, but I’m not sure it’s exactly “fun”.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?

Huh… 15 years? I guess I’ll be old enough by then to grow a moustache or something like that. Seriously it’s hard to answer that question, knowing myself I will probably take some unexpected path.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this interview with (why them? :-) ).

John Boardley of  “I Love Typography“,  Daniel Scocco of  “Daily Blog Tips” & one of the fine editors of the “Lovely Package” blog.

Mirko…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)

So if you want to visit Mirko you should do that now: Visit http://www.designer-daily.com/ or leave him a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?

I’m Jeff Fisher, the Engineer of Creative Identity for the Portland-based design firm Jeff Fisher LogoMotives. I’ve been working as a design professional since 1978, with a focus on identity design since about 1995. I kind of have a split personality in the design world. In addition to being a designer, I am a writer.

I’m the author of ” Identity Crisis!: 50 redesigns that transformed stale identities into successful brands” and “The Savvy Designer’s Guide to Success: Ideas and tactics for a killer career.”
Read the rest

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
I’m a portuguese visual communication designer that moved to Oslo, Norway mid 2005 to join Bleed Design Studio (www.bleed.com) and a couple years later i moved to Scandinavian Design Group (www.sdg.no) where i am currently the Digital Creative Director. I’ve been a design professional since 2000 and worked with a broad diversity of projects and media: corporate identity, branding, digital branding, editorial design, packaging, event communication, web design, experimental video & sound. Basically i easily engage in any exciting design project ( by exiting i mean the opposite to my answer on question 4) both at the office and i also use great deal of my spare time doing side projects that ranges from self initiated ones to curating programs and a small deal of client work.

Read the rest

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Grant Friedman. I am an interactive and graphic designer, blogger, and author.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
I am your typical freelance designer and blogger. I usually sleep in, make my 6 foot commute to my computer and then work late into the night on various projects. I spend a lot of my time writing articles or creating free Photoshop/Illustrator brushes that I give away on my website. Lately, I’ve been spending a lot of time working on my book on Retro Style Graphics that is due out next Fall.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I enjoy the freedom that working as a freelance designer and blogger offers and the satisfaction that I get from creating something new. I also enjoy affecting other designers in a positive way; either by giving them design or career tips or by providing free design resources that they can use in their work.

4. What do you like least about your job?
The hardest part of working as a freelance designer and blogger is the isolation that comes with it.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
I find that it is tough to be creative when I have a creative project that is sandwiched between several non-creative projects. It’s just tough to maintain the creative mindset when you have several other things tugging at you simultaneously.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I always have some ideas. The problems usually arise when I find that my ideas are too ambitious for either my skill sets or my budget.

7. What inspires you the most?
I gather most of my inspiration from either the Internet or from real life. I’ve been known to bring a camera with me on several occasions just in case I find something that I may be able to use later on in a project.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
Lately I have been streaming a lot of Pandora while I work; specifically the U2 channel.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I take criticism well. First, I try to understand the source of the criticism (who is criticizing the work), then I try to step into their shoes and understand their perspective.

10. What does your workspace look like?
Right now my workspace is a bit messy. I’ve never been a big fan of office desks so instead of using a desk, I bought 2 large collapsible tables that you might use for a barbecue or tailgate. It was a cheap way to give me a lot of desk space without a lot of drawers which I hate.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
The first web project I worked on was a website I designed for a student organization I was involved with in College. I must have redesigned that site 4 times within a couple of years. I learned a lot from that site and it literally changed my life.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Don’t ever under-value yourself. Your time is worth something; don’t ever let anyone convince you that you’re worth less than what you think you are. Don’t let anyone eat your food; you eat their food! If you let others take advantage of you, it will follow you for the rest of your life. Stand firm and get paid what you deserve.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
I really enjoy working on my own site; especially the redesign. I just really enjoy giving back to the community.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
In 15 years I hope to be financially stable, living with the woman and children that I love.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
Ryan Putnam – Vectips
David Airey
Sean Hodge – PSDTUTS

Grant…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)

So if you want to visit Grant you should do that now: Visit http://colorburned.com or leave him a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Jordan Michael Gray, and I’m a graphic and motion designer from Kansas. I work at an advertising agency called Bernstein-Rein, as well as a fair amount of freelance.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
I usually start by getting some coffee with my design partners. A few times a week I have rather informal meetings, or a client presentation, but mostly I just hang out at my desk and design. Occasionally if I’m working on a large motion graphics project I do it from home in my sweats, which is definitely a perk of the job.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I have a relatively large amount of freedom. I enjoy working with pleasant, honest people. Most importantly though, I love that I get to create all day. I look at what some old friends are doing, or remember some past minimum-wage gigs and think about how lucky I am to get to design for a living. I mean, my buddy has to wear a vest to work so a criminal doesn’t kill him. I’d say I’ve got it pretty easy.

4. What do you like least about your job?
In general I have a great job, but it really infuriates me when pro-bono clients get as pushy and demanding as a paying client. They’d better be a pretty damn saintly organization for me to take that lying down. I had a charity client micro-manage down to the exact PMS color of my design after already rejecting what many consider some of my best work. There are always inner-office politics that can get anybody down no matter where you work, but I would say I’m rarely as enraged as when I get abused by someone who isn’t even paying for it. It’s like getting shanked in a prison yard.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
The disappearance of the arts in schools. It’s as important as math and reading. Period.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I try to back-pocket any aesthetics that I would consider obviously “me”, and start thinking about how taking on this project could be used to expand my creative horizons. I research eras of culture completely divorced from my current situation. It gets me looking at the possible outcomes a little differently. I almost always come back to something that feels like “me”, but with these little (hopefully unexpected) touches pulled from the lives of others.

7. What inspires you the most?
Film, History, Nostalgia, Color Swatches, Political Commentary, Music, other people who’ve taken the everyday things I usually neglect and give them new purpose and life.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
Definitely. I’m always listening to something. I have this tendency to pick a song that I love and put it on repeat for an entire day, sometimes for a whole week. I play it over and over until it’s part of my atmosphere – but part I can control and know I’ll enjoy. Some of these songs include: “Saturday Sun” by Nick Drake, “Float On” by Modest Mouse, “Pounding” by Doves, “I Can’t Stand Up for Falling Down” by Elvis Costello, and “The Slider” by T.Rex.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I’d love to say I’m a big enough person to always take it well, but that’s not entirely the case. If I know and trust your opinion, I’ll not only hear you out, but often heed your advice. However, I’m not one to think that just because you’re a mammal you’re entitled to your idiot opinion. Some people think that makes me a jerk. I think we can’t all go around humoring every fool who thinks he’s an expert because he’s saying it loud enough.

10. What does your workspace look like?

One G5 Tower for work, and another for rendering motion projects as needed. Two monitors on the main computer to ease multimedia workflow. Both desktops are Woody Allen screen-grabs from the opening of Annie Hall. A chess board that gets lots of use on breaks throughout the week.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Motion graphics for an online myspace game called “Humans Vs. Vampires” that was a companion piece to a horror film called Beyond the Rave. It was developed by a really cool company called Seize the Media. Up until that it was mostly print.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Ask yourself as many design questions as you do conceptual ones. Concept is important, but it needs to be easy to communicate or it fails. Avoid the ethereal nonsense that only you can understand. You’re a designer, so let that be the language you use. If you only wanted to babble about Kierkegaard, you should have been a philosophy major.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
Probably the time I spent at Hatch Show Print. Or maybe the wedding invites I did for a musician I admired long before he found my work online.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Hopefully my fantasy of being a children’s illustrator/author will have come into reality. I try not to plan that far ahead. I hope I’ve done a lot of exciting and different things in between now and then.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
1) Eric Skillman (ericskillman.blogspot.com): Because his DVD covers and art direction for the Criterion Collection are second to none. I’d say I hope I’m working for them in 15 years, but by then movies will be piped right into our brain anyway.

2) Yewknee (Yewknee.com): He’s a designer buddy of my brothers in Nashville who runs a sort of taste-maker blog. He’s got a great eye for top-knotch design. Also a great interest in music, as you might expect coming from Nashville.

3) Erin Zamrzla (ErinZam.com): I went to school with this girl, and her custom hand-bound books that she sells on Etsy are absolutely the bee’s knees. She’s also the nicest person you’ll meet. Her work will make you feel completely dull by comparison.

Michael…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)

So if you want to visit Michael you should do that now: Visit http://jordangraycreative.com or leave him a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
Hi, I’m Chris Spooner, a freelance graphic and website designer and the guy behind the design blog Blog.SpoonGraphics.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
In the morning I’ll arise and make the short commute to my desk. I’ll then check emails and Twitter before checking out my to-do list for the day.
I generally work on a project up until lunchtime, then head off to make myself a sandwich. During my lunch break I’ll aim to catch up with feeds and post my interesting finds into my Twitter stream. After lunch, I’ll continue on with a second project before breaking off for food in the evening. From 6pm onwards I’ll often spend some time casually browsing or working on some personal projects before heading out for an evening of movies at the cinema with my fiancée.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I really enjoy being able to put new skills and ideas into practice on real world projects. I also love to be able to produce a range of products through design, from logos to websites and t-shirts and skateboard decks. There’s always something new each day.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Occasionally landing a pixel pushing or micro-managing client puts a downer on their project. I’m always open to suggestions and improvements but changes for the sake of changes sometimes makes it hard to stay enthusiastic or motivated about a project.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
I’m probably my own worst enemy when it comes to creativity. Sometimes I’ll have a specific plan laid out in my mind, but when it comes to putting it into practice things won’t just go right! There are always ‘those days’ when nothing goes right which makes it particularly hard to focus.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
Starting out with pencil and paper is by far my best technique when trying to develop ideas for a project. I recently developed a concept for a logo that I would never have thought of if it wasn’t for the unrestricted flow of the pencil.

7. What inspires you the most?
Browsing through design galleries really helps develop inspirations. I actually also quite enjoy being dragged around the clothes stores by my fiancée because of the opportunity to check out the designs on promotional displays etc.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
I enjoy listening to my Last.FM stream while working, but if the job involves any kind of wording such as emails or article writing I have to work in silence.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I’ll always take into consideration people’s points, criticism can outline areas that you may have overlooked, which helps perfect a project. On the other hand I’ll always share my opinion or reason behind creating a certain element if I still believe my solution is the best way forward.

10. What does your workspace look like?

My little office area consists of desk, new Apple products and plenty of notepads and scribbles.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
My very first website was some kind of terrible creation on one of those free geocities style accounts. My first paid web project was a flash website for a local festival, where the work was produced alongside a friend who was organising the event.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Aim to continually broaden your knowledge on your chosen subjects and stay up to date with the industry changes.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
I would say t-shirt, hoody and skateboard designs for the band Fall Out Boy were one of the most fun projects with there being pretty much creative freedom from working with the merchandising company. Seeing random MySpace girls and having my sister message me after seeing someone in the street wearing the t-shirt was also pretty cool.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Fifteen years is definitely pretty hard to forecast, I remember reading these Braintalk interviews with other designers only 1-2 years ago and never expected to be participating in one myself.
I’d like to think that I’ll either be working on a range of personal projects that earn enough revenue to support myself and a family, or have a position at a really cool creative studio with a range of exciting projects.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
Three bloggers who pump out great design related content, and who I’d love to read more about are:
Steven Snell from Vandelay Design/Designm.ag (Braintalk can be found here)
Grant Friedman from Colorburned
Chris Coyier from CSS-Tricks (Braintalk can be found here)

Chris…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)

So if you want to visit chris you should do that now: Visit http://www.blog.spoongraphics.co.uk/ or leave him a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
I feel like I should bust out an AA voice. “Hi. My name is Chris and I’m a web designer.” I have a personal website I try to keep updated with stuff I’m doing. It’s already a bit out of date.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
I work for a design company, so my days are filled with working on whatever projects we have cooking there. I think when you tell people you are a “designer” they picture you playing with shapes and colors and photos all day. The truth is that’s the really fun stuff, which is maybe 10% of the time. The rest of it is spent communicating with clients and in-house, thinking through problems, testing, reporting, dealing with data, troubleshooting… I consider all that designing, just not all of it is as fun as the user interface stuff.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I enjoy coming up with great solutions to problems. And problems come up A LOT at work.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Clients. Ha! But seriously, we are often between a rock and a hard place as designers. We need to appease our clients no matter what, because they pay the bills. But they can be very stressful to deal with. If a client doesn’t like a design, that’s one thing, but it can get much worse than that. Bad attitudes, blame-games, money situations… Too much for me. That’s why I don’t really freelance. I need a buffer between me and all that as big as I can get it.

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
The perfect creative zone is when you have some established goals and you have the time and freedom to tackle them. So the worst enemy is anything that hurts those things. Loose or no project goals, too strict of requirements, or being bogged down with crap and not having enough time.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
If I have absolutely nothing, I just start with the absolute core idea and typography. This serves a couple of purposes. Chiefly, it requires you to have some copy to work with. If you don’t have that, you probably shouldn’t be designing anything yet anyway. Also, it ensures you start simple and just gets to doing something. Half the battle is just getting started.

7. What inspires you the most?
Jealousy. Seriously, that does the trick a lot of times. I can look at some design and just be wide-eyed at how awesome it is and wish that I did it. The design itself is inspiring, but just as motivating is my jealousy of how great of a designer the creator is.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
Maybe half the time. If I really need to concentrate I can’t listen to anything. If I’m doing something a little more mindless I like to listen to music. I really like bluegrass and old time music, but I like it all. I like music where you can hear the craft of the musician playing it.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
Oh, I don’t mind it. I’m pretty good at taking stuff on the chin. Constructive criticism is always welcome on anything I do. But even the negative and intentionally rude stuff I can deal with. I’m a big guy, I can take it, if that’s how you need to vent.

10. What does your workspace look like?
It’s (unfortunately) nothing special. Someday I’d like a big wrap around desk and a window that looks out onto something nice.

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Not really. It was probably college at some point. I was in a bluegrass band for a lot of college and afterwords and I always maintained a site for that, I think that was probably the first independent web thing I did. Definitely not spectacular and not worth seeing now!

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Don’t cross the streams. Always check the barrel. I dunno, I’m sure there are some good movie quotes that would be good here. Here is the most honest advice I can give though. If you want to get good at anything, you have to practice doing it. A lot. All the time, every day. You will probably have to make sacrifices, and it’s going to take a long time. I remind myself of this all the time.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
Actually one of my recent projects Are My Sites Up has been awesome to work on. It was my own idea, and I felt (and still feel) it is a great idea for a site. Website monitoring that takes about 15 seconds to sign up for and works. As it turned out, the backend of checking tens of thousands of sites is anything but simple.

So I got to take on the challenge of a complex backend and a feature-packed frontend and make it dead simple to use. I think we’ve done it and it’s going to get even better!

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
I’d love to say I’ll still be involved with the web and doing creative stuff. But who knows if there will even be a web in 15 years? That’s a long time. My biggest hope is that I’ve done enough work by then that I make enough residual income that I can take it a little easier. Work less, play more.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
I’m a big fan of illustrators, here are some great ones:
Luc Latulippe: http://www.luclatulippe.com/
Chris Spooner: http://www.chrisspooner.com/
Jon Wilcox: http://jtwilcox.com/

Chris…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)
So if you want to visit chris you should do that now: Visit http://css-tricks.com or leave him a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
Greetings! I’m Niki – By day I’m a web designer for a small design firm in Boston and by night (or early morning) I’m a freelance blogger and graphic designer. I blog for Creattica Daily (http://daily.creattica.com) and my own blog The Design O’Blog. (http://thedesignoblog.com)

2. Describe a typical day at work?
I usually wake up early (at an ungodly hour)…down copious amounts of caffeine and blog and work on freelance projects. Then I catch a train downtown to work my day job until 5 and then the evening is mine to either freelance, blog or attempt to cook what most people call food :)

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
I love that design is visual problem solving. Its great when the solution you came up with not only pleases yourself, but the client as well.

4. What do you like least about your job?
I hate internet explorer (exploder) and all the issues that come with it. I also hate it when i misspell css selectors and spend hours trouble shooting :)

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
I tend to stretch myself too thin sometimes and this is a huge strain on creativity. I recommend doing less, but doing it better. I should also try to sleep more :)

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I try to write down words/feelings/emotions that come to mind when thinking of the project. Then I usually google image search those words and get visual ideas from there. I also like to research the industry the project is in to get an idea what competitors are doing.

7. What inspires you the most?
Living in Boston inspires me. I’m constantly surrounded by diverse people and fascinating things. This is one reason I always have my camera with me :) This city is old and has tons of amazing typography.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
I am usually listening to music when I work, unless I’m really into what I’m doing and i forget to turn it on. I usually listen to ambient electronic music on a station I have on pandora.com

9. How do you deal with criticism?
5 years of schooling, and a few years out in the ‘real world’ have helped me deal with criticism. Criticism isnt usually personal, even though you put your heart and soul into designs. Its just about the design, and you have to separate out your emotions from that.

10. What does your workspace look like?
I love my little workspace! It’s where all the Design O’Blog action happens :) I like to surround myself with my favorite things when I’m working: Cool Posters, paintings of bananas, a picture of my girlfriend, and all my design books. The only thing I dislike about my workspace is the size of it. I have no where to put my printer and scanner!

I work with a 15in macbook pro and a lovely external monitor. But sometimes I just grab the laptop and work from the couch. Its more comfy that way :)

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Oh man…yes i do! It was ugly and it was hosted on geocities. I had found the website howstuffworks.com and was reading about how webpages work and was hooked from there. Its interesting that you ask this question. Most of our ‘first websites’ are horrible and ugly….and I just happen to be having an Ugly Website Contest over on The Design O’Blog going right now… (http://www.nikibrown.com/designoblog/2009/02/04/ugly-website-contest/)

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
Go outside…get off your computer. I just spent a good two days wandering the city with a silly bright pink fisheye camera and had the time of my life. I feel refreshed and my creativity is ready to go! Sometimes it helps to just disconnect for a while and experience analog life :)

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
My own blog has been a fun project. It started out as a collection of cool things I found online, but has morphed into a mix of design related content. I started writing about design and offering advice to others and in turn it has helped me become a better designer.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Still designing and still as nerdy as ever! I’ll probably still be a Mac fan.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
@Collis from Envato – this guy is fascinating and always has a million ideas up his sleeve.

@Chriscoye from CSS-Tricks.com – Super friendly and super helpful and knowledgable web guy.

@Chrisspooner from blog.spoongraphics.co.uk – Talented designer and blogger

..wow they all start with C! :)

Niki…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)
So if you want to visit Niki you should do that now: Visit http://http://thedesignoblog.com/ or leave her a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Michelle Krasniak and I am the Media Relations Manager at Fuel Brand Group and a freelance writer. I write website content, newsletters, brochures, SEO articles…the list goes on. I can even write you a user’s manual for some telecom switching equipment! (c’mon admit it…you’re soo jealous) I have a blog, inherwritemind.com, but I’ve been really bad at updating it lately.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
This is where people usually start to hate me ;-) I work from home so no day is ever typical. I don’t have a set “work time” per se right now. *eyes roll* Seriously though, some times are busier than others so on those days I’m working at 8 am until noon or so, do something else for a little while and then end up back working from 3 until 9. I usually eat dinner at my desk. Yes ladies, my husband Jeff cooks dinner. No ladies, you can’t have him.

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
The freedom of it. I know this is what everyone says but it’s true! This working for myself thing was the best move I’ve ever made. The company that I worked for previously would have preferred to lay me off due to the bad economy than downgrade their toilet paper, so I think it was a wise move.

With my writing, I like taking a client’s jumbled thoughts and ideas and making them sound “pretty.” Hearing “Yes! That’s exactly what I was trying to say!” is a great feeling.

4. What do you like least about your job?
Nothing. All of my complaints have to do with me and my horrible procrastination! :-)

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
Where do I start? On any given day it could be the weather, my bulldog Simon’s attitude problem, my lack of Swedish Fish or my general lack of desire to do anything. That one’s the hardest to get over. Luckily those days don’t happen very often!

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
I do laundry, bother the dog, surf the Internet for news stories that get me riled up or sit at my desk and just start typing words and eventually my brain gets up to speed.

7. What inspires you the most?
Everyday life. From the people I encounter to the things that happen around me. It’s an interesting world out there!I love the people on Twitter. There are so many great minds! You can find anything from a wine recommendation to a pep-talk.

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
Not usually but a few times in the past month I’ve overdosed on Swedish Fish while working and have found myself listening to some of Britney Spears’ latest stuff. My family recently staged an intervention because of this.

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I think I’m pretty good at dealing with it. It depends on how it’s delivered. If I only get a “Oh my…this is really horrible.” Then I may get a little bit mouthy. :-) Thankfully that has never happened! When delivered in a respectful manner with reasons why it’s not what they were looking for, then I’m ok with that. I think feedback of all kinds is good for the soul. It helps us perfect our craft.

10. What does your workspace look like?
It’s a circus of candles, bills, lotion, my phones, animal crackers, tissues…it’s horrible! I’ll include a pic to hopefully shame myself into making it nicer. The rest of the house is really neat and orderly but my office is a train wreck for some reason:

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
Yes. I was tasked with writing the content for the website of a telecom company where I was a technical writer. One of the engineers I had to work with constantly swore at me in the office and then tried hitting on me later that evening in a restaurant. After that, my favorite saying became, “You can’t polish a turd.” Writing about telecom equipment for five years puts you in a position where you can write about anything in the future.

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
This may be past its prime but get on Twitter! I’ve been really shy about advertising my services but recently I’ve taken a few steps out there and the response has been great! I would have never networked with this many people otherwise. Personally, I think a lot of those other social networking sites are lacking in “community” options.

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
Fuel Brand Group and Fuel Brand Network websites. In addition to being a great team to work with, these are projects that I truly believe in, making the writing a pleasure. Thanks to Adelle, Josh, Joe and Emil for making it all pretty darn cool. :-)

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
Still writing regularly and maybe trying my hand at starting a business that has something to do with dogs…maybe a doggie daycare or a pet motel. Oh…I also *hope* to have a novel written (and published) but then. Such a cliche, I know.

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
Emil Wisch- @emilwisch- He’s a really friendly, open guy who is a lot of fun to talk to. He’s the Community Manager at Fuel Brand Group and he does a great job using his personality to get the name and brand out there to the masses.

2) Chris Rossi @modbird- She is just so damn nice and the woman comes out with a new talent every week! And she kicks ass at it too! :-)

3) Alex Johnson @alexjohnson- I think her Tweets are so funny! She is a very multi-dimensional professional who…um…. I think her Tweets are so funny! I like how she puts personality into her messages. I think more people should do that.

Michelle…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)
So if you want to visit Michelle you should do that now: Visit http://inherwritemind.com/ or leave her a comment here! :)

1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
Adelle Charles, Art Director & Designer
I work for the CBS & FOX Affiliate in Rochester, NY as their Art Director.
Founder of Fuel Your Creativity and the Fuel Brand Group with Partners Joshua Smibert & Joseph Morton. I am also a Partner at Fresh ID with Kristi Colvin & Graham Smith and helped design Just Tweet It with Dani McDaniel whom I met through twitter!

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
Bleep bloop, my name is Patrick Algrim. I am a Web designer and developer from the cold and windy city of Chicago. I focus in Information Architecture, the idea of Grid Layout, and design based on great typography. You can see all of my projects at p41studios.com, hellyeahdude.com, and now juglir.com (the iPhone application!)

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
I’m Jasper Tandy and I’m a freelance web developer/director of newly-founded echohelloworld. echohelloworld currently acts as a contracted web consultant and developer, which is just my way of giving advice on what would work for people based on what they want, then doing it for them.

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Aaron Irizarry I work at a company eLocal Listing as the web master and web project manager, I also design all of the user interfaces for the company’s admin environments, as well as for the customers, and lend support to the marketing dept. with some of their design needs.

In my time I run TIAL (www.thisisaaronslife.com) a blog geared towards contributing to the design community by writing articles on design, development and the pursuit of happiness.

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Calvin Lee. I’m the principal & creative director of Mayhem Studios. We are a small award-winning design firm located in Los Angeles, California, developing identity and brand recognition for the business sector across the nation.

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Svein Haakon Lia. I am a art director, senior designer and founding partner of Bleed designstudio. Bleed is a graphic design agency based in Oslo Norway, established June 2000 by individuals with background in graphic design, advertising and technology. Working to blur the borders between graphic design, art, technology and commercial brand identity.

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Matt Owens and I run the design studio Volumeone in New York. I am also a partner in the design collective Athletics

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Bob Sakoui and currently I am head of art direction at a large interactive advertising agency in central London.
Outside of the agency I work on different projects and author the ironically named, ‘Original-Linkage‘, a blog that celebrates quality creative from around the globe.

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Duane King and I am a creative director and designer at a multidisciplinary studio called BBDK. Bob Borden is BB and I’m DK. From our home office in Santa Fe, New Mexico and satellite office with Athletics in Brooklyn, New York we collaborate with a network of graphic and product designers, programmers and photographers worldwide. In my spare time, I’m an editor at AisleOne, TypeNEU, YouWorkForThem and ViewersLikeU. I’m also a critical thinking scout for Netdiver.

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Xavier Encinas, I am a french print/branding art director living in Paris. Most of my clients are movie makers, art galleries, magazines editors… I also run the blog www.swisslegacy.com

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1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
My name is Antonio Carusone and I’m a Senior Art Director at an advertising agency in New York City. I also author aisleone.net, a graphic design blog and am obsessed with grid systems and sneakers. Here are some examples of my work:

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