September 29 2006: Interview: Vixx of Furious Angel
Filed under Online
Interviewing: Vixx of Furious Angel
Explanation: the purpose of these interviews was to get to know certain webmasters in my little ‘blog circle’ a little better - to see what inspired them to create the designs and sites that they did. They would be given ten questions via email - five of these were standard questions that were asked of all the interviewees, while the other five were tailored to fit them as an individual.
How old were you when you first discovered the joy of webdesign? How did you discover it?
Ah, Christ, do I really have to answer that? It just makes me sound heart-sinkingly ancient compared to everyone else in the world. Can’t I just say younger than your parents, but older than most people reading this? No? Well, okay; it was 2003, I was 26, heavily into my pregnancy and desperately trying to whittle away my insomnia. I’d been working with Dave, one of my online BBFs and co-founder of SHH, for a little time. We had a system where I wrote the site and he designed it but everytime I wanted to add something or fix a typo, I had to go through him, as I was terrified of inadvertently messing something up. In an attempt to learn a little more, I created a site of my own as a subdomain at http://silenthillheaven.com. It was fucking awful, if my memory serves me right.
A few weeks after I bought my first domain, http://excessmoderation.com, and I set up a small personal subdomain there called ‘Exposed’, and a few months after that moved my personal site to a domain of its own, http://so-complicated.net, at which point I really threw myself into learning more about coding.
Do your friends/family know of your activities online? Why/why not? If so, do they approve? What do they think of it?
Yes, pretty much. My husband, who’s possibly the least web-savvy person currently walking the earth, endures it all with quiet bemusement. I know that my parents and brothers have visited and commented at my blog at one time or another and that’s okay with me. Well, ish.
With my friends, however, I’m decidedly less transparent; there aren’t many people who know my URL and have sat face-to-face with me. I think maybe it’s my age; my friends think it’s weird enough that I own a PSP and love video games, so the web thing they definitely won’t understand. I have one RL friend at work who’s studying XHTML, and it’s with each other that we go crazy with the geek speak!
It’s not that I’m ashamed of my online as much as I want to protect it. It’s part of me that’s entirely separately to my offline life - and for now I really like it that way.
Who would you name as your biggest (webdesign) influence?
I can’t possibly pick just one - arrrgh. Off the top of my head I nominate Sash (because she’s awesome and always makes my designs look like someone has sneezed onto the screen) and all of the girls at Luminescence, who were all pivitol when I was starting off. Since then, I guess I look to the many talented designers on my BlogRoll or links pages - I’m lucky that I don’t usually have to click far to be inspired.
How would you describe your style of layout design?
Clean, I guess. I’ve always been a sucker for big spaces and clean lines and although I’ve sometimes tried to move away from signature designs, I almost always end up doing the same old thing. Sad, really. I also love playing with colour; swopping, changing and even removing a pallette just changes the atmosphere of a site so much, it’s always fun to mess around.
I’ve noticed that I’m far more adventurous when it comes to clients’ sites than my own, but that sometimes puts me in something of a quandry; someone commissions me because they like my style, so if I try and do something new, I’m not necessarily delivering what they wanted, you know?
Where, in web terms, do you envision yourself in ten years time?
I honestly have no idea. I’m a designer by training - my first degree is in Graphic Design - but not offically by trade, and although I love it, I wonder if I’d still love it if I was forced to do it every single day. I also have a fairly well-salaried, intensive (and heavily concealed :P) day job, so it’s unlikely that I’d ever be in the position to afford to give that up and become a designer full-time, however much I wish it could happen!
I still hope to have my blog though, and I hope that I still have a presence somewhere. I’ve made a lot of very real friendships online, and I’d hate to think that I’d ever lose those.
Oh, and I hope to have completed Silent Hill Heaven. But I wouldn’t put any money on it. :p
As a mother of a young toddler, do you try to make the effort to define yourself as a person in your own right, or are you comfortable with being labelled as a ‘mummy blogger’?
Really, is that what people call me?!
You know, I try so hard to be three-dimensional, both online and off. I don’t suppose this is a fantastically impressive thing to confess, but being a SAHM has never interested me, so not being able to afford to give up work and stay home doesn’t bother me now as much as it once did. In order to balance my life and my sanity, I need to work, need to be Vixx and not Mummy. I think that SAHMs are incredibly selfless and should be admired for what they do, but I also think that we need to respect a woman’s right to return to work, if that’s what makes her happy.
Of course, balancing everything is beyond insane and has brought me to tears on numerous occasions, but it works for us right now. I like to think that I balance it in my blog but on closer inspection, I suppose that I don’t. But when a little person takes over your life - hell, is your life - sometimes it’s hard to think or talk about anything else.
Out of all your online projects (Furious Angel, Geek Goddess, CodeGrrl, Silent Hill Heaven etc.), which would be the one you would save first if a cyber house fire occurred?
Oh, dear Lord. Are you kidding me?! Um, probably Furious Angel - for the entries of my first steps into motherhood if nothing else!
Curiously, how much time do you get to spend online in a week? As a semi-regular visitor, I know you have numerous commitments (wife, mother, educator, Japanese student, freelancer)…do you get as much time online as you’d like?
Surprisingly, too much. I work full-time, have Japanese on Monday night and my weekends are usually my commission days when I work for GG.net clients, but on weekday evenings I usually pop on long enough to check my mail and then spend time with my Big Boy and my Little Boy. I’m also drafting a novel, too . . . let’s face it, I’m crazy. And clearly can’t stand sitting around with nothing to do.
What’s made a big difference is, about a year ago, we moved my PC down into the lounge. I sit in a dark corner whilst M and S carry on around me. It’s great, for I can be online without being away from my family, and the desk folds completely away when I’m done, so I can ‘turn off’ whenever I want.
And semi-regular? Pft. That’s not nearly enough, you know.
I’ve noticed that you’re very careful about giving personal information out online. Your visitors know you’re Welsh, but that’s really about it. Is it a conscious decision to keep you and your family safe from the Internet boogeyman?
Yes. Yes, yes and more yes. I was ‘found’ by a colleague and ever since then, I’ve been crazy paranoid about the whole thing. My problem is that my job is fairly specialised, with only a few people in the country working at my position in my field, so it was stupid of me to have discussed it so brazenly. After being found, I removed all references to my place of residence, my job, names (people and places) etc. and do my best to keep information as generic as possible and refrain from talking about anything or anyone that may identify me or my family. A recent and unhealthy case of cyber-stalking merely reinforced to me how important it is to keep anonymity online.
You really manage to make your layout style your own. Every time I see someone use Lucinda Grande for text, and Georgia for headers, I think of you. Do you have any advice for webdesigners who are looking to becoming distinctive and instantly recognisable in their creations?
I’ve been asked for advice before, and the most sensible thing I can pass on is a) do what you like and b) like what you do. Other than that, I think my tips are fairly boring: browse sites you’ve never seen before, make notes of what you like and dislike about sites and never be afraid to try new things. Be mindful of web standards - they’re there for a REASON, and you can still have style and be accessible simultanously (all of my sites are valid 1.1) - and always keep back-ups of your sites and pages, particularly if you’re making substantial changes.
But you know what? Code is just that: code. You can’t write it until you can read it, and you can’t read it until you study it. Be nosey, be curious, be interested - look at code, ask questions, and practice, practice, practice. Play with colour, play with composition, keep pictures and text and schemes that inspire you. And always be mindful of the line between inspiration and blatant copying.
Oh, and finally? I totally can’t take credit for the Georgia thing - Sash did it before me . . .
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