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Chris Griffin Interview

Apr 8, 03:41 AM by Marko

Chris Griffin Interview


Interivew with Chris Griffin at griffinwebworks.com

Marko: Heya Chris !
Chris Hola

Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)

Chris I am a 22 year old recent college dropout that has recently moved from Orlando, Florida to Portland, Oregon to escape the armpit of the United States. I’m an Internet Marketing Assistant for Cypress Golf Solutions by day and a freelance web designer by night. I also have a blog ChrisZGriffin.com.

Marko: How are you doing these days?
Chris I couldn’t be better, I moved to Portland with everything I could fit into my car and hardly any money, and no friends within a 3,000 mile radius. Now I have money to pay the bills (quitting college was the best decision I’ve ever made), and I have more friends here now than I’ve ever had.

Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?

Chris Probably not as early as some of my fellow designers. My family bought our first computer when I was 14 back in 1998. I didn’t do much for the first several months but chat on MSChat and ICQ (haha). I wanted to create a website but I didn’t want to use the crappy wysiwyg editors Freeservers.com had to offer. So I taught myself HTML at the age of 15 and the rest is history.

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?
Chris MySpace! haha that is a joke. It’s hard to choose a favorite website because I have such a large blogroll. StyleGala used to be the site I would visit every day but they don’t update the gallery as much as they used to and too much spam in the public news.

Marko: When you launched griffinwebworks.com are you happy with the result of the site?
Chris Not until I reach my goal of world domination, ha! But seriously, I’m not fully content and I think I could do better. After I finish up my current projects I’m planning a redesign.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (We realize that spare time, in this context)
Chris Read blogs, people just don’t realize the knowledge one can gain from reading blogs. I also have a social life on the weekends. Go to shows (I love Punk Rock). My free time doesn’t extend beyond these activities usually. One day I would like to learn to snowboard since I live in Oregon now. Can’t do much of that in Florida.

Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?

Chris BEER! I like most beer, and lucky for me I live in the Beer capital of the world. I also enjoy water and Diet Coke.

Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Chris Griffin ?
Chris Lets see, I wake up around 6:30am and shower and get dressed. I catch the MAX and try to relax for the hour commute. I get to my office and usually fire up Bloglines and try to look for something interesting. Then the normal design, production work that I have in queue for the day. Take the MAX home for another dreaded hour. When I get home I either take a nap or start working on some freelance work for a few hours. Then I sleep and it starts all over again.

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?

Chris Hahaha, Great Question! Before I got my current job because I didn’t have a steady flow of freelance work. Sucks when you are the new guy in the city. I did dig up some freelance work by cold emailing some local design firms and networking on MySpace. In fact the 2 projects I have now is from one of my good friends, who I met on MySpace (yes I have a MySpace Profile, don’t laugh), she works for a design firm and they handed me some pretty decent clients.

I also had to dig some trenches by doing some contract work through Aquent. Mostly production work but it paid well, good way to get your foot in the door in a new area and also meet some other people in your field.

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?

Chris My favorite designers would have to be Shaun Inman and Ryan Sims. Shaun Inman is a superb designer and programmer which is rare and I’ve always liked Ryan Sims style. When I first started out professionally though, I frequently visited CSS Vault when Scrivs owned it and CSS Beauty. It was so hard designing at first, but now its second nature to me.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like?

Chris This was always what I wanted to do. I formally decided to do this as a career when I was a freshman in college. 75% of all my web design knowledge I learned on my own, reading blogs, and looking at other people’s code and design. The rest I learned at my internship, who I still do design and production work for every once in awhile.

Marko: If you were not a designer/programmer what would you be?

Chris That’s a hard one, I’m not really good at anything except designing so I would imagine if I weren’t a designer i would be uhh….a Portland street kid?

Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net?

Chris It has gotten better since the last time I saw it months ago. I’m not a big fan of the font you use in the logo and throughout the site though.

Marko: If you could change something on mcville what would it be?

Chris Like I said, the font.

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?

Chris Unlike my fellow designers, I listen to mostly Punk Rock and other music of the like. No offense, but some of the indie/experimental music you designers listen to hurts my ears. Thrice is my all time favorite band, but I also like Against Me!, Avenged Sevenfold, Bad Religion, Strike Anywhere, Green Day, Face to Face, Dropkick Murphys, Social Distortion, The Mars Volta, At the Drive-In, Hot Water Music, RJD2, DJ Shadow, Mos Def, Wu-Tang Clan, The Cure, The Killers, Coldplay, The Shins, Modest Mouse, The Clash, Rush, Pink Floyd.

Marko: What’s your favorite food?

Chris Burgers and Pizza, but I don’t eat them so much anymore because they aren’t good for you. I like mexican and asian. Only food I really hate is Indian food, yuck.

Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?

Chris We hit up downtown Portland, there are so many bars but my favorites are the Marathon and Kel’s.


some relaxing question to follow

Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?
Chris Chinese, Thai too spicy

Marko: Coke or Pepsi?
Chris Pepsi

Marko: HTML or CSS?
Chris CSS

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
Chris Not as much as I used to, but I watch 24 like a crack fiend, and I watch a lot of Sportscenter during the baseball and football season.

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
Chris Too many things to list.

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Chris Music, Architecture, Nature

Marko: Thank you for having this interview Chris ,Cheers!

Chris No problemo.

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