Terry Evans Interview
Nov 16, 06:53 PM by Marko
Interivew with Terry at vibe9design.com
Marko: Hello Terry !
Terry: Hi Marko
Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)
Terry: Well, I am humbled by the fact that you’ve asked me to do this interview. I also recently got married, I will be thirty (oh my gosh) in a couple months from now, and I really love doing what I do for a living – i.e. making websites.
Marko: How are you doing these days?
Terry: For the first time in a while, I’m actually pretty relaxed and well rested, since I just got back from my honeymoon down in Arizona and Southern California.
Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?
Terry: Way back in fourth grade I went over to this kid’s house where his dad had a computer running MS-DOS (shudder), and he showed me some games I can’t for the life of me remember. A few years later my parents bought some crappy PC clone. It was all downhill from there until I bought a MAC Powerbook 190 in my first year of University, back in 1996, and hooked up to the Internet for the first time.
Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?
Terry: My favourite website is probably nsmb.com, despite the coding being awful, the design works (it’s been unchanged for years) and the content is even great (if you are a mountain biker). However, I’d have to say I enjoy Stylegala just as well. It’s always pulsing with activity.
Marko: When you launched vibe9design.com are you happy with the result of the site?
Terry: I’m certainly happy with the results the site has produced in terms of generating leads. As far as the design goes, though, I feel it’s time for a change – I just need to find the time to make it happen. As a designer/developer, I feel I’ve progressed past what Vibe9 Design currently evokes.
Marko: What do you do in your spare time (I do realize that spare time, in this context, is pretty relative)?
Terry: When not reading blogs, design books and kissing John Oxton’s ass (just kidding), I get as far away from my beautiful MAC G5 as possible and ride a mountain bike or go skiing. Living in British Columbia it would be a travesty not to get out and enjoy the outdoors.
Marko: muhahaha m8 :)
Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?
Terry: I have an equal affliction for hand crafted capuccinos and micro-brewed beer. Not enough.
Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Terry?
Terry: Stammer out of bed and onto my computer. Check my email and rss feeds. Stretch (take care of your body and it will take care of you). Do some work. Check email and rss feeds, read interesting blog articles, get back to work. Realize I’m starving and no longer working productively, scramble to make a sandwich. Reply to emails, follow up on leads, chase down past invoices. Repeat above process until my girlfiend wife comes home. Then, ideally, we’ll head out for some sort of outdoor activity… like a trail ride or dirt jumping session. The rest is far too exciting to detail here. Moohahaha!!!
Marko: hehe :)
Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
Terry: Running around downtown Vancouver yelling at people in suits and giving them my business card. No, actually, most work I do stems from word of mouth referrals and enquiries off of the web. In terms of referrals, I’ve managed to build a network within a few industries I know rather well from previous professional and education experiences, including real estate development, tourism, and recreation.
I also get a fair share of work from other design agencies in British Columbia, working as a subcontractor._
Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?
Terry: The web standards community as a whole has inspired me because they are such a generous, passionate group. People who are passionate inspire me. In the web design world people who inspire me include the gurus: Dave Shea, Molly H., Jeffrey Zeldman, Cameron Moll, Shaun Inman and Roger Johannsen. As well as guys and gals like Garret Dimmon, James Archer, Andy Rutledge and Jina Bolton. Oh, and for the sake of kissing his ass, John Oxton. No really, Oxton’s passion for flaming comment trolls is priceless.
Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like? How did that take place and why?
Terry: I have no formal post-secondary education in design, but I’ve always loved it. As a kid I wanted to be an architect and would draw floorplans out for fun instead of listening to my math teacher. Apart from high school classes in design, art and drafting all of my post-secondary education is in human geography and marketing.
While working as a GIS technician and researcher at UBC, I was asked if I could build a website. With a very basic undertanding of HTML, I was not up to the challenge, so I took it upon myself to change that by picking up a copy of Dreamweaver.
It was not until I found Stylegala that my eyes opened to powers of CSS based design, and I really became passionate about building websites. A steep 6 month learning curve later and I was on my way to creating websites using clean mark-up and CSS-P. I still use Dreamweaver from time to time, but certainly not in “design view”!
Marko: If you were not a designer/programmer what would you be?
Terry: A full-time ski instructor.
Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net?
Terry: You can’t go wrong with black and white ;-) I dig the logo too. I think I’ll go and copy it ;-)
The page titles are really hurting though. I think it’s time you install this Textpattern plugin.
Marko: Tnx for the advise m8
Marko: O it’s really that bad? ( :)
Terry: That depends whether or not usability and SEO matter to you ;-)
Marko: They matter allright ;) !
Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?
Terry: Love the ‘brit speak’ :) I enjoy all kinds of music. Jazz, Reggae, Hip Hop, Rock. My all time favourites, though, are all hippy musicians and bands much older than I am, like Bob Dylan, the Grateful Dead, and Phish.
Marko: What’s your favorite food?
Terry: Middle Eastern
Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?
Terry: Generally here or here.
some relaxing question to follow
Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?
Terry: Thai
Marko: Coke or Pepsi?
Terry: Neither. Pop is evil. It reminds me of Internet Explorer._
Marko: html or css?
Terry: Both please.
Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
Terry: I try not to. But when I do, Seinfeld is my all time favourite. However, I also enjoy the odd episode of Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
Terry: Blingo, and a whole bunch of sub-folders labelled as follows: ski, mtb(mountain biking), seo, css, mac, print, php, cms, design, and txp(textpattern). In the css and design folders there are so many links it’s scary. Maybe it’s time to use del.ico.us
Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Terry: Great design, as well as dirt jumping and powder days._
Marko: Thanks again for having this interview, cheers m8!
Terry: Thank you Marko, it’s been fun.
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Stumbled upon your site. Great interview!