Interviu cu Veerle Pieters
Mihai Dragan
http://www.duoh.com/ ) and a great graphic and web designer. Her blog
should be a standard location for every web designer. It features
information about the web world, interesting web locations, CSS
techniques, Illustrator tutorials and many more. Veerle has agreed to
spend some of her time answering 10 questions for the "Publicitate
Interactiva" group as she was preparing for her 2 hours talk at Web
Directions North( http://north.webdirections.org/ ).
Q: Hi Veerle, can you please tell us how did you started you career as
a graphic/web designer?
I started Duoh! together with a friend in 1992 but 1 year later when
it seemed not to work out she went her way and I went on my own. I try
do freelance work for some ad agencies. These were tough times and I
was thinking of pulling the plug and look for a fulltime job because I
didn't earn enough money to make a living. Then I met Geert my
boyfriend and he gave a push in the right direction by shifting my
strategy from 'little shops' to small and midsize businesses.
Since 1997 I started designing for the web and this quickly became a
success. Geert quitted his day job and joined Duoh!. In 2000 we became
an 'N.V.' which is the equivalent of an '.Inc' in the States. Today we
work with a pool of freelancers and a few business partners.
Q: How many hours do you work each week?
The last year or so I think we have been working like 85 hours a week
on average.
Q: How do you relax/unwind?
By listening to some chill-out or browsing around on Flickr. I am a
bit of a Flickr addict you know ;) I also appreciate some good shows
like Heroes, Lost, or some science fiction to unwind. During the
Summer I like to ride my bike.
Q: What is the particular moment in your career that you extremely
proud of?
The day I decided to experiment with CSS and finally see the power
that comes with it. That discovery together with Expression Engine are
the founding layers of what is now my blog.
Q: What software couldn't you live without?
Adobe Illustrator, it's my first love and the program that supplies me
the most joy to work in. I have been very lucky to beta test
Illustrator CS3 and I am really excited about some of new
functionality.
Q: How many clients is your company juggling at one time?
That depends but most of the time we are working on about 4 or 5
projects at the same time.
Q: Are you planning to write a book about your experience as a web
designer?
Not at this time but never say never ;)
Q: What websites / web applications / interactive campaigns do you
consider visionary at the moment?
I really love most of the things they do at Coudal. Jim and his team
seem always to come up with the best ideas. I don't always have the
time to test everything I come across.
Q: What do you think about interactive advertising?
It has its place but it doesn't particularly rock my boat .
Q: Is there anything you would like to say to web designers in
Romania?
Never think you can't create great looking designs with Web Standards.
Try to follow the W3C guidelines as much as possible. Can be hard at
first but once you are beyond the learning curve you'll be glad you
left those tables behind. They aren't bad if you use them in the right
context namely tabular data, but that should be the only reason to use
them, that's what they are meant for.