Absolute Bica Freelance Web Design and Development in Indianapolis, Indiana

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After the re-launch of Absolutebica.com and submitting the site to various CSS Galleries far and abroad, I was excited to see an email from Luc at Spicywebdesigners.com asking me if I would like to conduct an interview with him.

Heck yea I told him.

So he fired off some questions to me to answer and not being the type to write very little, I answered his questions with as much detail as I could. Below is a transcript of our interview. Enjoy

Spicy Web Designer Interview with Bryan Kohlmeier

Bryan Kohlmeier is a web designer from Indianapolis, Indiana in the United States. He graduated from the University of Evansville where he majored in Marketing and did a minor in Mass Communication. He started designing website in college between 2000 and 2001 where he used the educational edition of Dreamweaver to craft websites. Since then he has worked for a number of marketing and web design companies including BitWise Solutions. He currently works for ChaCha.

1. How did you get started in web design?

I got started my freshman/sophomore year in college, so between 2000-2001. It actually started with grabbing an educational version of Dreamweaver 4. Like most that start…I began with drawing layers/tables in design mode, and playing around with web design that way. I then took a basic HTML course at the University of Evansville to understanding how to build HTML by hand. I look back at it now, given at the time Web Standards were beginning to make a push (though I didn’t realize it), but realized the course I took was a joke. I hope web design courses taught in 2008 are not continuing to push table based design like they were when I was in college. I hand code ALL my stuff now and cannot ever imagine going back to using design mode in a WYSIWYG like I did.

2. When did you start designing websites?

I began building websites at the time I started learning per my answer in question #1. From a “professional” standpoint, in terms of getting paid for what I do, that began in the fall of 2003 when I did an internship at a company called Willow Marketing in Indianapolis, IN. I then moved onto a web development company called BitWise Solutions for 2 1/2 years, and then in June 2006 I joined ChaCha (www.chacha.com) and have been there ever since.

3. What are the biggest challenges that you face in web design currently?

My biggest challenge has to be in the graphics/art side. I am not an Illustrator expert, using vector specifically. I am also not a flash expert, so those two specific technologies are areas I need to specifically improve. I find it’s much easier for me to take an existing design and build all the code out, then to come up with a great design all by itself. I feel I am a solid “hybrid” between coder and designer.

4. Do you code on any of your web design projects? And if so, do you consider yourself a “Front-End Coder”? Why or Why Not?

I try to do everything myself. All the projects listed on www.absolutebica.com were done by me. I note in the sidebar on all the detail pages the role Absolute Bica played. Sometimes it is merely a design was needed, such as BlinkWeb, and other times it’s a project I take from design all the way through code completion. I am like a sponge, so I am constantly learning and determining the best ways to do things. I do consider myself a “front-end” coder, since a high percentage of my time is spent in the xhtml/css. If a project requires PHP, for example, I know enough about it to build the site out using includes, dynamic properties, etc… but I am not a programmer by nature, so if you asked me to build a CMS using PHP, I would fail miserably 🙂

I am a huge fan of jQuery and use it religiously on projects I work on right now.

My strengths lie in building out sites with the xhtml/css/JavaScript, following Web Standards, and always trying to learn. I consider myself good at graphics/art, but not great. The header of Absolute Bica, for example, is a mixture of stock vector art from istockphoto.com and several customized pieces.

5. Where did you go to school and has it helped you become a better web designer?

I have been a golfer since I was 7. I am 28 now. I played high school golf all 4 years and was lucky to have been on a team and be a leader on two Indiana High School State Championships. That skill set gained me an athletic scholarship to play golf for the University of Evansville where I received a Major in Marketing, and a minor in mass communications. Sadly, the school itself did not play a major role in my web design / development experience. I always tell everyone I am self taught in what I do, because it’s the truth. I knocked away hours in front of the computer constantly trying to learn. What do they say, “Practice makes perfect”. So true.

6. How has graduating from a Marketing program helped you to become a better web designer? How do you feel your experiences related to marketing help you understand what your clients are looking for?

Graduating with a marketing degree helps me typically in the design process, but also with regards to user experience and site usability. So if a specific client is promoting a product or needs to highlight attention to an area on their site, I use that to my advantage in the design process to structure the layout in a way that meets their business needs. If “Client A” is selling “xyz”, in order for product details to get attention, you have to utilize design, colors, whitespace, fonts, and more to not only bring that attention, but also bring that sense of balance to the webpage. In regards to user experience or site usability, placing the navigation in particular area of the page, eliminating any number of clicks to the product/page, or making a purchase button easy to find are all ways of understanding what the client needs, but also making it easy for the end user to find what they are looking for.

Having marketing experience helps from the very beginning before any code is typed, before Photoshop is open, and often times before the pencil is put to the paper. Simply sitting in a meeting discussing the needs of a client and having a marketing background can start firing ideas through your head about the right course of action, which often translates directly into a usable design and layout.

7. You say on your site that “The bulk of my learning came on my own by visiting plenty of tutorials online, forums, and visiting the blogs of well known people in the web community.” Can you tell us some of your most trusted sources for learning online that have helped you? Also who do you look up to in the web design community?

I became a member in January 2003 at sitepointforums.com. That was a great place to become self taught and I have written put over 3200 posts since I joined. The majority of my learning came from that site alone. In the beginning I also spent many hours browsing the sites of Douglas Bowman (www.stopdesign.com), Jeffrey Zeldman (www.zeldman.com), and Dave Shea of www.mezzoblue.com to name a few. I don’t find myself browsing too many specific blogs religiously like I did in the beginning, but I have become a fan of helpful tutorial type sites like smashingmagazine.com.

After I launched my golf blog, Major Championships (www.majorchampionships.com) years ago, I got accepted to join 9rules, which was a cool experience. Unfortunately, a lack of updates to the blog caused me to lose my membership, but joining that site provided me the ability to talk with guys like Paul Scrivens, Mike Rundle, and more. Mike was actually instrumental in the creation of the LifeHut logo (http://www.absolutebica.com/work/lifehut/)

I have great respect for MANY in the web design community, so there is no one in particular I want to single out. I just know I would not have gotten to where I am today if it wasn’t for the blogging and web design community.

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