mcville: Jeremy Keith Interview

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Jeremy Keith Interview

Nov 1, 10:50 PM by Marko

Interview with Jeremy Keith at adactio.com

Marko: Hello Jeremy !

Jeremy: Hello Marco. Shall. we. play. a. game?

Marko: For our readers could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)
Jeremy: For your readers, my name is Jeremy Keith. I’m from Ireland. I was born six years before Star Wars. I now live in Brighton where I make websites.
For you, I’m Pedro Garcia Jambon.

Marko: How are you doing these days?

Jeremy: Can’t complain. I’m doing bits of work here and there, giving presentations and workshops hither and tither, and jotting down some words now and then.

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

Jeremy: My first computer was a ZX81 with one whole K of memory. When I got the 16K RAM pack, whole new vistas of storage space opened up. Later, I got an Amstrad 464. Anyone out there remember those?

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?

Jeremy: Favourite art work? Boy, that’s quite a toughie.

I remember the first time I went to the Louvre and I was confronted with Gericault’s The Raft Of The Medusa. It literally took my breath away. I just wasn’t prepared for the sheer size of the thing. I felt like something had hit me in the chest and I had to sit down.

I haven’t had quite the same visceral reaction to other artworks, but I’m a big fan of Breughel and David. I also have a big soft spot for the impressionists. I’m generally not that impressed by most modern art, but I really like the work of the Circlemakers.

As for websites, there are probably too many to mention. My Gericault moment on the Web came from visiting Fray.com. It showed to me that the true power of the Web was in connecting people—just ask Ebay or Amazon. I believe that Fray.com really paved the way for personal publishing and blogs.

These days, my favourite sites are still all about connecting people. Only now, most of them have APIs. Flickr is my current love.

Marko: when you launched adactio.com are you happy with the result of the site?

Jeremy: The first version of the site was all bells and whistles (hey, it was the nineties). That didn’t last very long.

I was and am relatively happy with the current site. Whenever I get tired of the visual design, I simply create a new theme. It helps stave off the inevitable dissatisfaction that everyone grows to feel for their own site. That’s one of the reasons why I added the theme-switching in the first place. Another reason was to show how CSS could be used to style the same content in completely different ways (this was before the CSS Zen Garden).

To be honest, I’m surprised that more designers don’t make use of this facet of CSS. There are some sites that allow for customisation but generally, CSS designs tend to be as static as their table-based forebears. And quite often when people redesign their personal sites, it’s a complete overhaul of the markup and the CSS. Wasn’t CSS supposed to make that unnecessary?

Anyway, I’m pretty happy the markup and most of the design(s) of adactio. The about section really needs to be updated. The back-end could do with some improvement. My journal runs on a custom-built XML-based thing I hacked together over four years ago. I’ve been building a new blogging framework for domscripting.com and I’ll probably migrate adactio over to that.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (I do realize that spare time, in this context, is pretty relative)?

Jeremy: I play music with my band. That can be hard work too, but it’s a lot of fun. And it gets me out from behind the computer.

I’m also pretty fond of eating, drinking and generally being merry.

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

Jeremy: A good red wine. I have a particular fondness for French wines, especially from the Medoc region.

I usually have a glass or two of wine with dinner most evenings.

I’m also partial to a good Hefeweizen and, when I’m back in Ireland, there’s nothing better than a nice pint of Murphy’s. If Guinness is the Microsoft of stouts, Murphy’s is Apple.

Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Jeremy Keith ?
Jeremy: I get up later than the average person (let’s just leave it at that, shall we?). I make some coffee. I fire up Adactio Elsewhere to look at Flickr pics and read RSS feeds. From there, the day is an undefined mish-mash of work, email and other computer-bound activities. Then in the evening, I have a nice meal accompanied by the aforementioned wine.

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
Jeremy: I don’t tend to do much direct client work. Instead, I work as a gun-for-hire for local agencies. So a lot of my work is from the same few people.

Initially making those contacts can be a hard but a good portfolio always helps. To get out of the catch-22 situation of needing work to make a portfolio, I strongly suggest making a website or two about something you love. I gained most of my knowledge from working on personal, rather than commercial, projects.

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?

Jeremy: If I had to restrict my answer to specific people, then I’d probably mention names like Jeffrey Zeldman, Derek Powazek and Steve Champeon, who really shaped my first experiences on the Web. Then I’d feel guilty for not mentioning more people.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like? How did that take place and why?

Jeremy: My background was initially in fine art. I went to Art College. That didn’t last too long though. I dropped out after a year and a half to seek rock stardom. I ended up busking and hitching around Europe and finally settled down in southern Germany, where I got a job in a bakery selling bread.

At that stage, I was playing in a band. This “web” thing was starting to take off and we figured we could do with having a website. I said I’d take a stab at making the site. That’s where it all began. After a while, I was spending more time making websites than selling bread, so I packed in the day job. When I moved to Brighton, my journey towards the dark side was complete.

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

Jeremy: I’d probably still be busking. Or selling bread.

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

Jeremy: Meh.

Marko: it’s really that bad? ( :)

Jeremy: Not at all. That’s just my reaction to most websites, including my own. It takes a lot to get me really enthused.

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?

Jeremy: Jigs and reels. I play Irish traditional music, and once you’ve caught the bug for that, it tends to dominate all else. That said, I play in an alt-country band when I put iTunes on random shuffle, all sorts of different stuff comes out.

Marko: What’s your favorite food?

Jeremy: Anything made from fresh, seasonal ingredients, prepared with love.

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

Jeremy: I don’t. I stay in. Brighton is a bit too hectic for me on the weekends.

some relaxing question to follow

Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?

Jeremy: Yes, please.

Marko: Coke or Pepsi?

Jeremy: No, thank you.

Marko: html or asp?
Jeremy: That’s a weird one: HTML is a client side markup language and ASP is a server-side programming language. Then again, anything is better than ASP, so I choose HTML.

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
Jeremy: University Challenge.

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
Jeremy: Bookmarks.

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Jeremy: Elegance and simplicity.

Marko: Thank again for having this interview, cheers m8!
Jeremy: Thank you for asking, Marko.

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Jeremy Keith Interview

Nov 1, 10:50 PM by Marko