mcville: Benoit Rondeux Interview

mcville is a community website where you can find smashing interviews
and articles with some recognized people, as well as discussions on
other topics like design,web development, lifestyle, music.

Benoit Rondeux Interview

Nov 16, 07:11 PM by Marko

Interview with Benoit Rondeux at pilok.com

Marko: Hello Benoît!
Benoit: Hi Marko

Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself?
Benoit: I am 26 years old, I live in a village in Belgium near Liege with my girlfriend. My professional profile is too complex to be described clearly but to summarize, I am working as a freelance web designer and communication consultant and with three friends (including my girlfriend), I own a furniture shop called Quatuor (www.quatuor.be)... Yep, Web design and furniture have some things in common: Usability and design ;-).

Marko: How are you doing these days?
Benoit: Well,... too busy. I have a lot of projects running at the same time and it requires a lot of attention and less sleep than I would need. But I am very happy with what I am doing and things are on a good way so… it’s great!.

Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?
Benoit: I think it was around 7 or 8 when my father put me in front of his hand-made dragon computer which was running a small BASIC program of elementary mathematics. Then, my real first contact with programming was at the age of 11 when I attended a BASIC programming summer camp (combined with sports). Since then… I have spent a lot of time in front of a computer screen.

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?
Benoit: This is a really hard question. I don’t have a favourite website, I have too many favourite websites and my favourite toolbar now looks like a real mess.
Sometimes I only like the colours, another time I love the menu… So, I cannot really point out one particular site but I really like CSSBeauty, Deviantart, Veerle’s blog (www.duoh.com/veerle), Mark Boulton’s site, Neowin, John Oxton, A List Apart, etc.

Marko: When you launched pilok.com are you happy with the result of the site?Should I?
Benoit: No, I am not. If there were 48 hours in a day, I would change so many things on it… I still have to create the alternate CSS template, update the portfolio, etc.. Oh, you were asking about results? Since Hector Giron selected my modest website on the impressive portfolio of cssbeauty, I have more and more people coming to visit it which is great. Initially, the website was just a small demonstration of what can be done with standards for my customers but now I would be so happy if it could be used as a way of promoting web standards in Belgium because there are a lot work to do here on that matter.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (I do realize that spare time, in this context, is pretty relative)?
Benoit: Spare time… What a strange word… well, I answer my first online interview for example and I try to find time to be with my understanding and lovely girlfriend but as my furniture shop requires a lot of time, it is not easy at all. Also, I have always been a kung-fu movie addicted so I tried some martial arts and then discovered Taekwondo 8 years ago—but I should train more than I do now. Besides that, I spend time on the web just to find some cool websites and some new ideas.

Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?
Benoit: I love Morito, wine and hot chocolate.

Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Benoît Rondeux?
Benoit: I Wake up around 7:15am then I get to work at 8:30am, start working by reading my e-mails and RSS headlines then working for my shop and for my biggest customers as a consultant, calling, meeting with customers, in various order… I take a break of 15min at around 12:30am and then start again as in the morning until 8:00pm when I go back home to work mostly on my freelance projects. I usually go to sleep when my eyes tell me that I would not be able to read anything on the screen in a few minutes. I do the same about 7 days a week but I try to take some time off in the weekend to see friends and do some sports.

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
Benoit: Word of mouth, for the most part. The hardest thing to do is to find your first customer and to work twice more than expected to produce a real good website for him. If he is satisfied, the machine is on… you do a second one, a third one and then you are beginning to be known as someone who is doing a good job. In my case, I have always been active in students organization, sport clubs etc which were cool opportunities to acquire some references.

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?
Benoit: StyleGala, CSSBeauty and all the designers that are selected on those websites along with some really great artists in Deviantart and on the webdesign market in Belgium (Globule Bleu, Duoh, etc.) and finally all the web designers who take time to write articles that give me ideas and help the community go forward.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like? How did that take place and why?
Benoit: Not at all, I have studied commercial engineering. As I have always been passionate about computers, I have learned a lot by myself or with my father in the MS BASIC era. At that period, because the computers were using only two colours (black and matrix-lime-green), I only used a computer to play or to program and paper to draw. With years and time, I have been using more and more my computer to draw and create some small and modest programs. I have started to create websites in 1998 when I join the High School, it was a three pages website coded with wordpad. I realized that the web was the perfect mix of code and creativity with the possibility of sharing your work with so many people. Than, as I said, I had the opportunity to create the website of my sport club and since then…

Marko: If you were not a designer/programmer what would you be?
Benoit: Someone who travels a lot and spend a lot of time outside.

Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net? (optional)O it’s really that bad? ( :)
Benoit: This idea is great! It is a great place to know a bit more about some real impressive designers (and from a different perspective than on their blogs)! >From a technical point of view, there are some things to improve but it is already a good start.

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?
Benoit: It depends of what I am doing… those that I like a bit more than others: the Corrs, Sting, Jean-Jacques Goldman, Travis, etc.

Marko: What’s your favorite food?
Benoit: hum… I don’t know… really.

Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?
Benoit: Well… anywhere with smooth/lounge/jazzy music, cinema, cool restaurant and my living room with friends.

+++
some relaxing question to follow
+++
Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?
Benoit: I would like to try some Thai food. I don’t know thai food.

Marko: Coke or Pepsi?
Benoit: There must always be a challenger… Pepsi!

Marko: html or css?
Benoit: If you could add a x before html, I would answer both of them. I fell in love with web standards, 2 years ago and I hardly believe these are the future of the web.

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
Benoit: Television… you mean the screen without keyboard and mouse with which you cannot interact? No, hardly ever, visiting a good website can be as relaxing as watching TV. But I like Alias.

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
Benoit: Deviantart, CSSBeauty, Clubic.com (french), MCville.net (Now that I know this website), AlistApart, MyFavouriteWebsite, etc… Oh and the so good Essential bookmarks for web designer by Vitaly Friedman.

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Benoit: Everything and anything…

Marko: Thank again for having this interview, cya m8!
Benoit: Thank you too and Good luck. It was a pleasure.

Lucian Slatineanu David Hellsing Interview

Events:

Promotion:

Links

powered by

Monitored by

Support

Benoit Rondeux Interview

Nov 16, 07:11 PM by Marko