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.

Chris Garrett Interview

Nov 21, 10:59 PM by Marko

Chris Garrett Interview


Interivew with Chris Garrett at minimology.com

Marko: Heya Chris!

Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)
Chris: Well, my name’s Chris Garrett. I’m 16 years old and kinda new to this whole thing. I ;ike to blog and have like 4,000 blogs at the moment (although I don’t update half of them :D). A few of these are portsrevue.com, minimology.com and indieanthems.com.

Marko: How are you doing these days?
Chris: Well I’ve been really busy over the past few weeks with schoolwork and getting Indie Anthems off the ground, it’s been hectic. It’s all started to slow down now though, just got the last of my exams out of the way, so it’s time for some serious chillaxing before christmas.

Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?
Chris: Oh now you’re testing me. I was very young, 6 or 7 I’m told, but it seems like I was born holding a laptop in my hand.

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?
Chris: http://www.mattbrett.com/ – I’m not really a fan of grunge but this geizer has coupled a dark colourscheme, grunge and a complex layout (he clearly doesn’t like making things easy on himself) with cross-browser code to pull off a super-hot blog.

Marko: when you launched minimology.com are you happy with the result of the site?
Chris: NO! Well… I suppose I was initially but I soon became tired of it, probably because it wasn’t especially creative and made no attempts tobreak away from the standard 2-column blog layout. Since that May 1st reboot the amount of posts I’ve done have lessened and now there’s no updates :( I’m working on changing the site now though, and it’s definitely breaking away from the traditional blog this time.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (We realize that spare time, in this context)
Chris: I do alot of photography and spend many hours snapping up the surrounding country side. I’m also an avid badminton player and play with my friends and family alot. Other than that it’s just the usual stuff you’d expect of a teenager: cinema, listening to music, etc…

Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?
Chris: Double Mocha coffee, without a doubt! I could drink 9-10 mugs a day but I tend to limit it to about 4 depending on availability and necessity (somedays are very slow going :)

Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Chris Garrett?
Chris: Well I get up at 7-ish AM, take a shower and shave (although somedays it’s all about design stubble). Whip on my school uniform and grab something to eat. Hitch a lift to school which goes in at 8:35AM. Spend like 5 hours in lessons, going into Stroud which is the local town for lunch, and then head home at 3:25PM. When I get home I normally spend an hour or 2 doing homework and then I do a little design work and blogging, depending on how hard the days been and if I’ve got a deadline coming up. Friday nights and weekends it’s drastically different, but I won’t go into that.

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
Chris: Well I’ve only been doing “work” for about a year. I spent a few months improving my skills and portfolio by doing personal projects and sites for family and friends and then last summer emailed alot of the large firms in the UK and a few in the US to see if they could outsource me any work. A large amount replied and I’m still dealing with the work I got from doing that.

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?
Chris: Ryan Simms without a doubt. I love the way he uses subtle gradients to give his work a subtle depth. His color choices are also highly emotive and very inspiring. In terms of blogging Paul Scrivens is probably my biggest inspiration, to make a living out of writing about subjects you’re passionate about is something of an ideology to me.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like?
Chris: Alot of my family are very artistic and I think I inherited my design principles from this. I progressed from the photo manipulation, which is one of my favorite artforms, into web design when I saw the layouts and detail people were adding to their designs with CSS. I was lucky enough to come to the platform once the CSS train had gained substantial momentum and was spurred on by the promisings of new found design capabilities from the likes of Zeldman. So far I haven’t been disappointed.

Marko: If you where not a designer/programmer what would you be?
Chris: Oh that’s a tough one actually. Probably something like an architect where design is still fairly prominent, I’m not really sure though to be honest.

Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net?
Chris: Clean, easy with some eye catching elements. All the essentials for a highly functional blog, me likey :) Also, I just noticed that javascript-y navigaton… I’ll be here for hours now!

Marko: If you could change something on the site what would it be?
Chris: I don’t think I’d have black and white photos, colour is the spice of life!

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?
Chris: http://indieanthems.com, ‘nuff said…

Marko: What’s your favorite food?
Chris: Lamb Phillet, without a doubt the nicest chunk of meat you’ll ever have!

Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?
Chris: The Cinemas alot, I also play badminton at the local sports center and just generally chillax with my friends.


some relaxing question to follow

Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?
Chris: Neither!

Marko: Coke or Pepsi?
Chris: Coke

Marko: html or css?
Chris: CSS

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
Chris: I’m digging Lost at the moment, but it’s been mildly spoilt by one of my american friends blurting out the plot of the entire series.

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
Chris: Not alot, I don’t really use bookmarks. At the moment there’s a few sites with hot designs yet un-memorable names, a few wordpress plugins I want to try out and a guide to maiking a Dashboard (OS X) widget.

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Chris: The scenery around me. Although it doesn’t change it’s still dynamic, even something as simple as a sunset changes the entire face of the landscape. Makes for some good photos :)

Marko: Thank again for having this interview Chris ,Cheers!
Chris: Not a problem mate, I’ll slip an invoice in the post ;)

Leave your comments
Your name:
Your email:
Your website
Your Comment:

Note:Textile is available for use with your comment.




© 2009 Mcville.net All Rights Reserved. Published with Textpattern. Hosted by +Plus