Interview With Elliot Jay Stocks

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.