Chris: Thanks Brian, I’m Chris Spooner, a designer who enjoys experimenting with all things design related, and blogging about it along the way. I post tutorials, freebies and articles on my main blog; Blog.SpoonGraphics, which has been active for coming up to three years. It all began after seeing a few design blogs spring up at the end of 2006 to 2007. I enjoyed reading the articles on Smashing Magazine and Bittbox, so I decided to give it a go myself. At first it was simply an excuse to try out the Wordpress application, and to give myself a place to play around with new techniques. I began posting some tutorials based around this experimentation and the site soon began to pick up traffic. Three years on it has developed quite a name for itself in the design community, and has given my personal profile and career a huge boost. The one thing I’m most proud of is that I’ve managed to grow it by creating every post myself, without outsourcing the content to guest authors etc.

In March 2009, I’d got to a stage where I wanted to share more web design knowledge, but with Blog.SpoonGraphics being a popular destination for Illustrator tutorials and general design topics, I didn’t want to suddenly oversaturate it with web design this and web design that! My solution was to start a fresh blog where all my web design tutorials and articles could go. It also gave me the opportunity to go through the whole process again, but this time armed with all the knowledge I’d developed from growing Blog.SpoonGraphics. So far, Line25 seems to be a great success!

Chris: Video content is a great way to communicate on the web as it has huge advantages when it comes to allowing people to engage with your personality. The vlogs on ChrisSpooner.com are all on a more personal level than the design related stuff I post on my main blogs. The story of how these come about is pretty similar to how I started my blogs – I simply caught onto a few vloggers on YouTube, enjoyed their content and felt like I’d developed a connection with them, so I decided to give it a go myself. Last year we moved into our new home, so this was a great opportunity to share the experience, and to document it all in a kind of video diary for future viewing.

I definitely prefer video over traditional text blogging for this personal kind of content; going back and reliving those moments by watching the videos is great fun. However for design related stuff, I’m definitely more a fan of written articles and tutorials. I’ve tried crossing video with design in the form of screencasts, but I personally can’t reel off my words if I have something specific to say, I end up getting tangled up and forgetting what I’m doing. The personal vlogs are more candid with no script involved, so it’s simply a case of rambling on!

Chris: I guess it’s all about providing something that users want. For instance if you’re setting up a blog, try and post useful content that’s different from the norm. My Blog.SpoonGraphics blog became popular for Illustrator tutorials, as they were quite rare at the time. On Twitter, I’ve always been one of those link sharing people. If you post a lot of quality links to design articles, a user is getting something useful back in return for their follow, they’ll be given interesting links daily and won’t have to open up their RSS feeder reader ever again!

This has actually led to more and more people scrapping their RSS readers altogether in favour of Twitter links. This provides a great opportunity for us that still read their feeds to be a source of this information. It has to come from somewhere!

Chris: There were quite a few reasons behind the development of the members area. Firstly it seemed like a natural next step for my blog. I’ve seen many sites that adopt the ‘freemium’ model, and a few great sites in the design community have seen their premium content take off. It has also given me a place where I can treat the avid followers of my blog to some more sought after goodies such as the Wordpress themes I’ve been building lately.

With my blog being fairly popular, the level of email inquiries requesting product features and giveaways had began to increase. I have always tried to avoid posting too many of these on my blog, so the premium section created a great place to promote these schemes, again treating the avid followers to a better chance of winning. Having been lucky enough to develop a name for myself online, the ability to swindle goodies from top design related companies has also increased, I can then pass these discounts onto the members.

Then there’s obviously the financial side. I’ve been moving slowly into a profession of full-time blogger and cutting down on client design work. The members area provides a good fallback should advertising income drop. “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket” is the good old saying.

The members area has grown nicely so far, it’s still in its early days, but there’s plenty of stuff in there for members to get their hands on. Members can recoup their $7 membership within minutes when comparing it with the value of the freebies and discounts that are available, the great thing is as time goes on this value for money only gets higher. The main problem I’ve come across is reassuring a select few people that all the free stuff they’re used to is still available. There were a few comments along the lines of “What?! You’re now charging people to read your blog? Grrrr!”, so it seems like some didn’t catch on that all the free tutorials and articles they’re used to will still be available. It’s just that extra category of content that’s reserved for members – Stuff that I never tended to post on the blog in the past anyway.

Chris: It’s definitely the big topic of the past few months with quite a few blog posts and rants being written on the subject. I’m not entirely sure where I stand. On one hand I do enjoy the list post, and often use the format on my own blogs. When browsing my feeds I’ll be more likely to find a spark of inspiration from a roundup of great designs and enjoy the post, than I would a lengthly text based article. (But that does depend on the topic!)

When writing content myself, the list post is always a good fallback if I’m stuck for ideas or time on a tutorial. Lately my tutorials have began taking 2 or more full days of work, whereas a roundup post may take a few hours and generate higher traffic levels. With this in mind it’s no surprise why they’re so popular, but it’s worth remembering that it’s the long-term exposure an original article develops that really helps a blog grow. There’s tutorials of mine that are still bringing in high traffic from back in 2007/2008. List type posts often aren’t seen again after the first week.

The element of list-type posts that I don’t like (which I think is what started the argument) is their use on brand new blogs. There seems to be hundreds of crappy quality posts, often hosted on crappy looking blogs that all adopt the same layout, and all have 6-8 empty ad spaces or affiliate banners in the sidebar. While it’s great that people are taking to blogging about design, they’re doing it the wrong way! I always recommend that you build up a solid profile by posting sought after content (like I did with Illustrator tutorials), then once your traffic level allows for it, recoup some money for the time you spend writing by offering advertising. It was about a year after the launch of my blog when advertising was introduced. It seems like too many are doing it for the money or the exposure.

I also think the term list-post is now being used out of context. Someone might post a huge article full of original advice titled ‘10 Tips to Succeed as a Freelance Designer’, yet because it uses a number to generate the catchy post title, suddenly it’s a list-post and should be burnt at the stake. It’s the topic ‘50 Epic Photos of Trees’ that I feel more suits the title ‘list post’. However while this post probably won’t serve any use for me, but that’s not to say it wouldn’t be gold for a… errmm, tree photographer? For every person that hates a post, there’s a collection of readers who enjoy such topics and give them their votes, so it’s a hard one to solve.

One last word on this: It seems like the only the only type of post accepted nowadays, is the post telling others which posts they shouldn’t be writing! List posts have destroyed the community, tutorials have evolved zombie-type designers who don’t think about the process, and giveaways have devalued the service of design.

Chris: Always keep experimenting with new techniques to keep your skills sharp. Network with people online though blogging and Twitter, or maybe use the platform of video to give you an advantage. All in all just have fun doing what you love, then share your knowledge with others along the way. That has pretty much worked for me so far!

Nick: I was introduced to web design in Middle School upon deciding that my new band needed a website. I slapped something together as best I could, and while my musical aspirations soon faded, my interest in the internet did not. From then on I was hooked, as web/graphic design revealed itself to be the perfect way to satisfy my interest in art, technology and business. I have been creating websites ever since, teaching myself along the way. ElegantThemes is the most recent of many sites that I have created, and undoubtedly the most successful and rewarding. It has been great to see ElegantThemes grow over the past year, and can only hope that I can continue to provide great designs to the blogging community for some time to come.

Nick: My advice to prospective college students would be to always stay active in the design community outside of school. Don’t let your academics consume you, or you risk distancing yourself from the world of design itself – get to far away from the heart and you’ll lose the pulse of the community. I think that college can be a great place to challenge yourself, but I have also found that it is slower to adapt to recent design trends. What I value most about school is not so much the information itself, but the way it forces me to stay active and to interact with other aspiring designers. I don’t mean to shine a negative light on the educational system, because I appreciate what I have learned. I am just trying to stress the fact that there are many places to absorb information and to become inspired, and if you just focus on school, you are going to find it hard to break away from the pack. I have found the most important classes to be to the basic, core art courses. Color theory, drawing and composition, typography and so on. It’s great to build a foundation, but when the time comes, differentiating yourself from the crowd is on you – don’t expect to be taught how to be an individual (duh!)

For me being an entrepreneur and student has been a challenge, but I have managed to strike a balance that allows me to be successful. College is just something that forces me to get out of the house, provides me with outside stimuli and helps me become more well-rounded. But it’s just a piece of the puzzle.

Nick: It’s hard to say where my style came from, but I suppose on the broadest terms it boils down to a lot of observation and experimentation. Practice makes perfect, and the more you do so the more you begin to grow as a designer. I make an effort to browse art/design galleries on a daily basis, and to practice new techniques with each new theme.

On the other hand, inspiration can come from anywhere. Sometimes it is the unexpected things that end up spawning the most interesting ideas. For example, my most recent theme, OnTheGo, http://www.elegantthemes.com/preview/OnTheGo/ stemmed entirely from the floating business man found in the header. The flying man was a sketch I did for a wine label concept. One day I decided to scan my sketchbook and play around in Photoshop – soon enough I had a finished theme. People probably assume that he was added at the end as a finishing touch, when it fact that floating dude was the spark that brought the whole design into existence.

Nick: Though I have been a unaided for most of ElegantTheme’s history, I am not a one-man team anymore. I still design all of the themes, but now I have some great people assisting with tech support and development. I still have a hand in every aspect of the site, but having a team behind me has allowed me to focus on what I do best. With 20,000 active members, you can imagine the kind of work that goes into tech support. I answer around 100 emails a day, and that’s with two people helping out. I really stress the importance of support, and I think my members see that. That’s the main reason why I have hired some outside help, to provide my customers with all the assistance they need.

Nick: There are a few things I would do differently, all of which involve marketing and customer management. These are things that I had very little experience in upon launching ElegantThemes, and obviously I would not want to repeat the trial and error process that I used to learn.

1. I would have launched the website with an affiliate program. I underestimated the importance and potential of affiliate programs, and would never launch another venture without having one ready from the beginning.

2. I would have taken more risks with advertising. You are going to waste some money, that’s just how it works. But the more reasonable risks you take, and the more advisements you can afford to test, the more well-converting campaigns you end up with in the end. If you believe in yourself and your product, then you shouldn’t be afraid to promote it.

3. I would have created a member support forum much earlier. It is simply more effective than an email/ticket system for a membership site. It also helps to build a strong community.

4. Networking with other designers/bloggers. This is something I still need to work on.

Nick: People may be tired of hearing this, but it is the truth: If you want to be successful you need to be passionate about what you are doing, and you need to work your ass off. It’s not unusual for me to get 3 hours sleep or to skip a social gathering, not because I have to, but because I actually want to work those late lights and grow as a digital artist/entrepreneur. If you love what you are doing, then success is always around the corner.

I think that the best way for new internet companies to start out is to really focus on engaging their online space and participating in their community. Word of mouth has been very important for me, and now it is easier than ever to enter the “conversation” and make a name for yourself. I built ElegantThemes from the ground up without any funding, simply through my participation in various web design forums and blogs. Blog, comment, tweet, or whatever you like to do. Just do it genuinely, produce good content and provide a real opinion. You will better yourself and gain a following that you can use to jumpstart your business.

Most of all, just dedicate yourself to creating the best product you can. If you have the best thing out there and you are dedicated to its success it will be hard to fail!

Tony: Here’s a little something about me: I can’t focus worth jack! While attempting to answer your interview questions, I find myself jumping from question one to six to four and back to one again, all while reading Fast Company, replying on Facebook, and tweeting (or “twittering” for the other side of the fence).

Aside from my ability to multitask, I’m the owner of OnWired, a full service graphic design, web development, and online marketing firm located in central North Carolina. Our goal is to create beautiful, powerful websites that promote strong brand messages and attract the right kinds of visitors for our clients.

Tony: Well, the MailChimp theft was a fun way to get some attention. I don’t think our clients know much of it, but it did get us more recognition amongst our community of peers (not that I recommend someone running out and snagging the Bronto mascot or anything). We’ve also been fortunate to have been included in The Smashing Book, Web Designer Magazine, a ton of web design showcase galleries, and a few blog interviews. (@John Onolan, @Six Revisions, @Expression Engine, @Lulu Blog)

I really believe the entire image we present to our clients is enticing, from the humor we present in our content to the polished design Jon Norris crafted for our site to the experience of going through the sales process with us. We are sticklers for good, clean, usable design. This shows through to our clients and instills a trust that we will do the same for them.

Tony: That’s quite an interesting find. I have to say that I’m extremely satisfied with my decision to stick with this and see it through. There were many a time I wanted to tuck tail and run, but I fought through it. Not everyone is cut out for the corporate world; I really only spent about 5 or 6 years in it myself. Once I was out of it, boy, what a breath of fresh air. Office politics and brown nosing? No thank you — not for me.

Would I have done anything differently? Yes — I would have read more about running a business and not just winging it (as I often do). At the time though, I was so focused on building my brand and helping my clients that there wasn’t really much time for anything else. Only when I began partnering with other folks did I realize I don’t need to do ALL of the work. Other people do certain things better than me, so I brought them on board.

Tony: My time management lessons were to work whenever I could. As soon as the day was over at the corporate job, it was home and working for myself. I’m sure my wife can pitch in here. It really was a strain on our family time, but it’s been a great sacrifice to date.

Oh, and lunches were pretty rare. I spent most of my hour working at a coffee shop, catching up on emails and phone calls with clients.

Tony: Well, the intent of those sites was not geared towards clients. We saw a few needs within our community and thought “see a need, fill a need.”

I don’t think it’s helped us to get any more clients but it does help spread our name within our own community of web folks. It’s nice to give my fellow netizens tools they can possibly use. I love when I’m talking with someone and they suddenly realize we run FooterFetish.com or PleaseCritiqueMe.com.

Tony: My family and client work keeps me motivated, the ever changing climate of web design and development keeps me inspired, and just keeping my ears open for ideas keeps us innovative. We’ve attended some really good conferences over the last couple years. Not your typical FOWA or An Event Apart (although we’ve been there too) but The 99 Percent conference and SEED were absolutely wonderful to attend. Getting outside of the typical web conference circuit was a great move.

I also do lots of reading. I prefer to read an actual book or magazine; blogs give the opportunity to click, and away I go. My magazines consist of Fast Company, Inc., Wired, and Web Designer Magazine. Gary V’s Crush It is splitting time with The E Myth Revisited. They are two highly different books really, but very informative.

Tony: Have passion and let that passion show. There are plenty of free sites available now days to showcase your talent, from Envato’s FreelanceSwitch.com to Krop.com to Sortfolio.com and even Flickr — take advantage of them.

Know your limitations and know when to look for help. Hire people that are better or smarter than you. Remember: just because you are very good at doing something doesn’t mean you are good at doing everything.

Andrew: First off, thanks so much for asking me to participate in this interview session, I’m flattered to be a part of it.

I’m a husband to a beautiful wife, and a father to an amazing 10 month old son. I work as a full time web developer for Niagara University. In the evening hours, and on most weekends I do my best to refine MyInkBlog, and work on freelance projects.

My design background originated out of curiosity and necessity. I had always tinkered around in simple paint programs and art, but I had very limited practical experience in web design, or computers as a whole. My bachelor’s degree is in finance, and I didn’t foresee a career that had anything to do with design. However, shortly after taking a job at State Farm, I quickly discovered that selling insurance wasn’t for me. I quit that job, and stumbled around for a bit until I was fortunate enough to be referred to a job at a fine arts gallery. They put me in charge of anything design related; from the brochures to the website. It didn’t take long for me to realize that design rocked, and it was what I wanted to do for my career.

Andrew: Growth wise, I’m hoping for more of the same. I’m striving to continue a steady climb in traffic, and avoid the peaks and valleys that can occur by chasing social media spikes with list posts. My goal is that MyInkBlog publishes only awesomely useful design related content. Some specific goals would be to double the number of RSS subscribers, and Twitter followers that MyInkBlog has. I also would like to focus more on progressive web design using CSS 3 and HTML 5.

Andrew: Before taking the job at Niagara University, I was a graphic designer for a small group of newspapers. It was a fun work environment, but it was quite limiting, so I was definitely on the lookout for a new job. I had just started MyInkBlog, and was beginning to network with other bloggers. Adelle Charles of the FUEL network was one of the first bloggers that I connected with. She was really helpful and encouraging. She tweeted about the job opening at Niagara and I was fortunate enough to land the position.

The job itself is very rewarding, but challenging. It has really helped me improve my communication skills, because I have to work with so many different departments and personalities. My first task I was assigned to, was to revamp the entire website, from the design, to the content management system we use. So after a lot of research we settled on Silverstripe. Which has proven to be a great decision. I’ve learned a ton about an MVC approach to programming, if you’d like to know more about why I think Silverstripe rocks, check out “5 Reasons to Use SilverStripe For Your Next CMS”

Andrew: That definitely depends on the day. I think I focus more on the week as a whole. I try to get in about 15-25 hours per week. With a full time job and a family, that can be quite a challenge. So finding ways to be more organized and efficient is really important to me. I am definitely minimalistic in my workspace. The less cluttered my desk is, the less cluttered my mind is. Here are some tools that I use to make my life a little more simple.

Things – Keeps track of all my to-dos. It’s really easy to use, and has a slick interface.
Helvetireader – This is just a skin for Google Reader, but makes going through all my rss feeds beautifully simple.
Coda – All the tools I need to develop a website are in 1 flawless program.
Pad & Paper – Sometimes it’s just the quickest and easiest to write things down on paper or sticky notes. For more involved sketches I reach for my moleskin.

Andrew: My post ideas generally flow from my everyday design experiences, inspiration from fellow blogs, and inspiration from the outside. I find it’s really important to write down ideas as soon as they come to me, so that I don’t forget them. Once I’m ready to roll, I log into my Wordpress admin, and start writing out all the main points I want to cover. Then I work through all my ideas to establish a rough draft. I go through a bunch of revisions, and add images throughout the post to break up the monotony of the text. Then it’s time to publish and promote.

Andrew: My advice would be to only get into the design field if you have a genuine interest for it. If you are passionate about it, then success will come much easier. Never stop learning, and pushing yourself to get better. I’d also encourage you to be patient, and to try to take criticism as constructively as possible. We all, at some point, will have to handle rejection. If you can brush it off, and use the criticisms to your advantage, you will grow and improve. Lastly, it’s important to make sure you keep balance in your life.

Brian Gardner: I am a self taught web designer and internet consultant – everything I know has been learned by trial and error. A few years ago, I was working a day job for an architectural firm and started blogging. I really began to enjoy the idea of publishing content and when I sought out a WordPress theme to use on my blog, I couldn’t find anything I wanted. So I took a theme and started hacking away – only to find that I enjoyed that more than blogging.

Brian Gardner: The current state of the premium WordPress theme marketplace is… alive. There are a lot of newly formed theme development companies, many of which might not make it very fair due to the enormous amount of competition. This amount really has been a great thing for WordPress as a whole, as it has caused us all to push forward with better and easier ways to do things.

Brian Gardner: Ever since 2008 we have stayed GPL – our license hasn’t changed. At the beginning of that, we did provide download links our site – but chose to remove them as that isn’t a requirement of the GPL license. We really wanted to present our packages as a combination of themes/support – which is the way it is now.

Brian Gardner: The Genesis theme framework was really a result of wanting to simplify the way we handled themes, design and updating. It only made sense since most of our themes shared common code and css to base them all of one solid core of files. While I think that there’s a place for theme frameworks, if done well – there will always be a market for traditional themes as well.

Brian Gardner:This one is easy – continuing to build out Genesis as a solid choice for WordPress and develop the theme marketplace into a point where there a huge amount of designs to choose from.

Brian Gardner: This is a tough one – as I stated before, competition in the WP theme market is brutal. Be wise, and understand that success is not achieved overnight. It’s really important with any type of business to be unique and to offer something that the “other guy” doesn’t. Otherwise, you end up being overlooked as and considered inferior.

Fabio: Thank you very much for this opportunity Well I’m a graphic designer but I’ve been working with web design since 1999, actually I started playing with this thing called internet a little bit earlier, in 96. It was the very beginning, I remember I used to save pages on my computer to see how they were made, the codes and stuff like that. In 2004 I started my own web design studio, Zee.

Fabio: The story behind Abduzeedo is quite crazy because I had never thought of creating a blog, then in 2006 my office was robbed and they took my laptop and 2 external hard drives with all my backups. I found myself lost and decided to start a blog to backup my files and also to share my experiences and experiments in design and of course photoshop.

Fabio: I think it’s the influence of my generation, the 80’s with those neon lights, light effects, the video-games (atari).

Fabio: I believe inspiration is everywhere, it’s not all about finding it but most of the time knowing what you’re looking for, I believe if you have a clear idea of what you have to do and the audience you will be working for it’s much easier to “find” inspiration, we can narrow the options and perhaps the most important thing, we can sort of neutralize our personal opinion, because in the majority of works we’re not the target audience so we cannot let our personal opinion and influences interfere in the creative process.

Fabio: Since the beginning of the blog the idea was to share things we find online everyday and that inspire us. We still do that, we don’t have much planning, we post things that inspire us. Some contributors started series of posts so they can organize themselves, like the Perfect Office, Friday Fresh Free Fonts, Best of the Week and the daily inspiration are examples. If we do not post those there will be one or some readers sending email to us asking about what happened.

One thing we use a lot is the abduzeedo email, we use only one account, a gmail account where all the emails from abduzeedo are redirected to it. There we have labels so all contributors can read what’s going on with the blog, the suggestions, critics and stuff like that.

Fabio: I’ve been focusing more and more on Abduzeedo, while Fabiano and my brother take care of Zee. I help them with the creative direction on projects but I do not participate in the negotiations and business side of the process.

Fabio: First thing and most important thing that you have to do what you like to do, you have to be passionate about it. I always liked to play with photoshop and try different things, but before Abduzeedo I used to keep my experiments to myself. After the robbery I start sharing them and that promoted my name out there, giving me the chance to work on really cool projects for MSNBC, Wired Magazine, Digital Arts, PSDTUTS and many others. The web is all about content, if you have a good content people will find you.

David: I was introduced to the Internet at a young age, and – ever since my thoughtful parents chose to buy me a PC rather than a games console – I’ve been fascinated with websites and design. I have been designing and developing websites since the spritely age of 14, but have found myself become gradually more interested in establishing and growing blogs in recent years.

I completed a BSc in Management with the aim of embarking upon a business/finance related career. Designing and managing websites was always going to be a “side hobby”. This situation changed as my own websites grew both in traffic and profitability. Around the same time I graduated from University, I began to work part time for Envato setting up a new website called “Mac.AppStorm”.

David: Design Shack was one of the first “CSS Galleries” to grace the Internet, and it served the site brilliantly for a few years. The problem is that showcasing web designs serves a limited purpose, and there’s no way to really share knowledge or connect with readers. For this reason, I’ve been wanting to expand into writing our own tutorials and articles for a few years.

The main factor holding back the growth of the site was the amount of time I was able to dedicate to it. This changed recently when I hired a dedicated editor for the site – Josh Johnson. Josh is an incredibly accomplished designer/writer, and we’re working together to turn Design Shack into an invaluable resource for designers everywhere!

David: Time management is certainly crucial. My main day-to-day job is working for Envato, where I split my time between managing the AppStorm network and editing Phototuts+. Two things help me stay productive and get the job done: (1) the knowledge that a task expands to fill the time you allocate to it, and (2) a genuine interest and passion for iPhone/Mac software and photography.

Software helps too, and I use the following on a regular basis to help stay organised and “in sync” across my Mac and iPhone:

- Things
- Notational Velocity
- Instapaper
- Google Apps
- NetNewsWire

David: The website that I’ve found to be most exciting and rewarding is Mac.AppStorm. I’ve been editing the site for just over a year, and have grown it (with the help of some brilliant writers and developers) to almost 30,000 readers. The community surrounding the site is brilliant, and we regularly receive inspiring stories from readers who use the site every day.

David: As a big fan of “design”, one of the aspects of OS X that really drew me across was the interface design. Everything is simple, minimal and aesthetically wonderful on a Mac – from the design of the hardware, right down to System Preferences.

There are countless benefits of owning a Mac – reliability, security, and a vibrant developer community to name a few – but for me it always comes back to the design of the operating system. The care and attention paid to every tiny detail makes for a platform that just “works” the way you expect it to. It’s this same thought process that has lead to the iPhone being such a widespread success.

David: The Internet is an enormous space, and there’s room for anyone to make a living doing what they enjoy.

If you’re wanting to build a web application to fill a niche (or just solve an existing problem better than everyone else), check out 37Signals’ blog. They’re opinionated and contentious, but have some absolutely fascinating insight and advice to share.

If you want to start a blog, read Crush It. If any book will give you a background to the tools and techniques used in blogging today, this one will. It’s also worth following Skellie, a remarkably talented blogger and writer who manages Envato’s Tuts+ websites.

Don’t quit your day job tomorrow to set up an online business. Start small, and understand that building a presence online takes time. Jump on any opportunities that come your way, and don’t be afraid to fail. If you’re building a bricks-and-mortar business, failure is usually a financial disaster. If your online project fails, there’s a good chance that no-one will even notice (and it won’t cost you a penny).

Elliot: Well, I’m primarily a designer, although within that I do stuff for web and print, and outside of that I also refer to myself as an illustrator, speaker, and author. I also write and record music under the Sourhaze pseudonym (Sourhaze), although that’s not quite as ‘professional’ as my design side. And right now I’m wearing the hat of journalist, editor, and publisher, as I’m gearing up to publish the first issue of 8 Faces magazine (8 Faces).

I started off by doing sites for friends’ bands and built up a small, music-related portfolio while I was at University. When I graduated in 2004 I landed a job as Junior Web Designer at EMI Records and worked my way up from there. I moved to Sanctuary Records for a more senior role, then went on to join Carsonified. I left there in April 2008 to go freelance, and formed Elliot Jay Stocks Design, Ltd. in October 2009.

Elliot: Thank you. That’s very kind of you to say! I suppose I did a lot of stuff that results in becoming relatively well known; things like writing for magazines, speaking at events, blogging a lot, going after relatively large clients, etc. I do all of those things because I love them, but they’ve also allowed me to make a name for myself in the process. The other contributing factor, I suppose, is that I’ve been told people often associate my work with ‘being different’, and because I’ve always been true to that and not been too afraid to intentionally break with current trends, I guess people have noticed that. I’m very fortunate because it means I usually get clients who want something interesting rather than those who just want corporate-looking cookie-cutter piles of crap that look perfect in IE6.

Elliot: I’m basically building a team of dedicated professionals that I can call on for bigger projects. They’re not employees (I couldn’t deal with the paperwork involved) and I’m not turning the company into a co-op (because the revolving doors will be wider than that) but they will be a small group of likeminded individuals making frequent appearances on a number of forthcoming projects. I’ve realised that there’s no way I can handle everything on my own anymore!

The other thing is that being a freelancer is still a little looked down upon in the web design industry — like you’re just a monkey for hire rather than an individual with a professional outlook and strong creative direction — and that’s something I want to get away from. The first step in that process was founding the company last October and the next step is building up this team.

Elliot: I love working with WooThemes; they’re great guys and good friends. I guess the popularity of ProudFolio has — like any client work — contributed in terms of how it’s exposed my work to a large number of people. WooThemes have made a big name for themselves and they keep getting bigger. Their nav system has been officially integrated into WP3.0, which is great: they’re finally getting the community respect that they deserve.

Elliot: I like WordPress because it allows me to do a lot with my very limited knowledge of (and interest in) PHP, and because I’ve been using it for a while, I know how to hack it into doing what I need it to do. There’s a lot of room for improvement, though: I’m hoping that we’ll see a fairly significant re-write in WP3.0 and that a lot of the complex workarounds will no longer be necessary.

Elliot: Don’t be afraid to be different. Get yourself known without getting peoples backs up. Be genuine in yourself and in your work.

Randa: I am a designer and marketing consultant specializing in custom WordPress sites. Beyond graphic design, my background includes work recommending, coordinating, executing and analyzing marketing initiatives for large brands, such as The Limited, Victoria’s Secret, Goody’s, Express and more.

Beyond designing for clients, I also own several kid-oriented web sites such as freestuff4kids.net and funplacedatabase.com. My most important job, however, is raising two noisy little boys.

Randa: The main social media site I use is Twitter. It’s absolutely great for networking, traffic, getting help with problems and social interaction. I do tweet my recent posts, but I don’t really think about using it to market myself. I think that just happens naturally as you interact with people in a genuine way.

Randa: I manage my time by doing work in short bursts and doing lots of work when everyone’s asleep. I’ve finally found an effective to-do app at teuxdeux.com. Also, my house is a wreck sometimes. I don’t have time for everything, so boring stuff like cleaning my house often falls by the wayside.

Randa: Over time my focus in designs has been increasingly on the clarity of the message of a site- what impression is a visitor going to get within the first 5 seconds and how quickly they’re going to understand your message and the actions you want them to take. It’s great to make a “pretty” design, but most important is the function of the design to deliver the message.

As for factors that have contributed to my growth, I think looking at a lot of good design, reading blogs and books recommended by good designers have all played a part.

Randa: Obviously, having a professional, super-sharp web site is key. Really develop your brand image before you spend a lot of time networking. Design a great logo, clarify your message – what do you do well and why should someone hire you to do it? – and make that message as clear as possible on your site.

Then, make friends and network like crazy. Engage other designers in conversation, by using your blog and through Twitter. Once you get to know them, let them know what you do well and that you’re looking for projects. Find ways to help others and do it for free. It will all come back to you in the way of business.

Adii: I’m a co-founder of WordPress themes giant WooThemes, along with being the founder of Radiiate (due for a reincarnation soon) and The Rockstar Foundation. I have a huge passion for business, strategy & entrepreneurship and at the moment that passion is being completely directed towards online channels.

Adii: This is not something that we’re overly concerned about just yet, as even though mobile is literally taking the world by storm, most people still use mobile as a complimentary medium to access online content. So the main focus is still on websites accessed via a browser on a computer. This is something we’re continuing to monitor, but we have no definite plans to roll out extensive support of this just yet.

Adii: First off, I don’t want this to come off as me saying that *my* business strategies are responsible for WooThemes’ success, as I have two great partners and all the strategies we have implemented is a collaboration of our combined efforts. So each of us brings a different angle to the conversation and it is within that fusion that we have found extremely valuable ideas.

I think generally, our success can be attributed to a few things:

Our focus on proper design and valuing design as top priority in each and every decision.

The fact that we have created a cashflow-rich company and that we have never needed to take outside funding to finance further growth / innovation.

Our unique approach to marketing ourselves to the extent that it is impossible to ignore us (with our products & services backing up our marketing messages).

To sum up our approach, I’d say that it’s all about being WooThemes and not trying to be like any other company that we know. This means that both our successes and failures have been completely unique to Woo and as a result we have grown further as WooThemes and not just as a generic company.

Adii: The competition has been good to us in the sense that it keeps us on our toes and we gather a lot of derivative ideas from what they are doing. But that said, we’re not overly fussed with what they are doing, as we’re keen to focus on our own approach.

If there’s anything that I think we’ve done differently to them, it’s the fact that we have collaborated with the best of the best web designers on the planet (which perpetuates our extreme focus on design) and our marketing which truly sets us apart from anyone else.

Adii: I’m not SEO guru and neither am I a big fan of SEO (I believe in other ways of marketing a website). That said, I think our themes are above-average in terms of SEO and whilst our SEO capabilities aren’t one of our important selling points, we’re looking to improve this for our users, as some of them do prioritize the SEO on their site. I however don’t think that we’d ever get to the point where – like Thesis – we market our themes as being perfect for all SEO purposes, because we tend to shine the spotlight somewhere else instead.

Adii: This is actually rather easy if you’re willing to look & work outside of the box. We have an established company and have enough resources to invest in innovation; so we will continue to explore & experiment with new niche areas in 2010.

The first area that we will make groundbreaking progress in, is our tumblog / Tumblr-like themes that will be powered by WordPress. We’re planning a bunch of behind-the-scenes things that we haven’t talked about; so we’re sure we’ll surprise quite a few people when these themes go out soon.

Adii: Start as early as possible and back your ideas. It doesn’t require a lot of cash to get started either; so just bootstrap as far as you can and when you have enough traction from users / customers, you can expand and maybe take on debt / funding.