Interview with Jeff Croft

Web Standards Creativity recognizes you as as one of the 10 best minds in web development today. How straight has the path been to you reaching this level? Surely there were some bumps along the way. First off, let me say that I wouldn't put myself in the 10 best minds in web development today, although I was certainly flattered and honored to be included with the brilliant folks who worked on that book. I never set out to be recognized as a "great mind in web development" or anything of the sort. I have always just been interested in making things the best way I possibly can, and in sharing the information I learn with others. My goal was never to become well-known, or to write books, or to speak at conferences -- that stuff all just happened by accident. Rather, I simply was interested in designing for the web, so I did it, blogged about it, and that's about it. To this day, I do almost nothing to actively "promote" myself. I prefer to just do work, speak my mind, and let people see it how they may. What triggered your interest in co-authoring your first book, Pro CSS Techniques? I've always considered myself a good writer, even as a kid. I never for a second thought I'd write a book, but I was approached by Chris Mills, who was at Apress at the time, about doing a CSS book. I jumped on the chance, simply because I thought it'd be pretty darn cool to be published. It is great to say I've written a book, but I never anticipated the amount of work that goes into these things -- and trust me, you don't do it for the money. Many of your web designs are for content-driven sites. How do you maintain balance between a sensible, pleasing design that doesn't take away from the content? I always look at graphic design as a practice that exists to honor the content it is dealing with, whether it's web copy for a brochure site, stories in a newspaper, or the details of a show at a local music venue on a poster. How exactly to strike a balance between drawing enough attention to a piece that it will be viewed (or read, or experienced) and yet being willing to relinquish that attention to some degree so the user (reader, experiencer, etc.) can make sense of it is a tricky matter, but definitely an important one. I find that putting the content first always helps. It's when we design layouts without knowing what the content will be that we begin to run into problems. Unfortunately, the web is very "templated," so this sort of "design-first" process happens a lot. Sometimes it's unavoidable, but I really believe that the results suffer when it's done this way. How has your very illustrious blog elevated your knowledge on matters of design and development? What the blog (and now, social networks like Twitter) has allowed me to is engage in real, meaningful, sincere conversations with people who are also doing this stuff. I started writing a blog way back in 1999 as a personal journal of sorts, and when it started to bleed into talking about web design and development, I began to learn as much from the commenters as I was teaching them with my blog posts. Although I never started a blog to learn more about web development, it certainly did work out that way. In your opinion, what direction is new standards in web development taking? Is it evolving at a fast enough pace? Truthfully, I'm less and less interested in codified web standards and more and more interested in what browsers can let me do in a way that's compatible, accessible, and useful. In other words, I'm more interested in best practices than specs coming out of the W3. So much so, in fact, that I've paid very little attention to what's new from that body. This is what I'd say: web standards, the "official" specs spewed forth from the academics of the W3, are moving too slowly. It's irritating and annoying and obnoxious, but there's not really anything we can do about it. The good news is, in the real world of web development, things are moving faster than ever. Browser vendors are very quickly implementing new features (some of which come from W3 work, and some of which don't), and doing so in ways that are largely compatible, accessible, useful, thoughtful, and avoid the sort of "browser wars" chaos of the 90s. It's an exciting time to be working on the web, no doubt. You give speeches at major industry conferences around the country. However, many up and coming designers cannot afford to get their foot in the door at most of these conferences! What alternative ways can they elevate themselves in design and development in the absence of attending such conferences? First, nearly all of the major conferences post materials (slides, audio, video, etc.) of event sessions. Check 'em out. You really can get almost the same experience as watching the talks in person. The second, and perhaps more meaningful, part of attending conferences, is making connections and relationships with people whose work you admire. This is a bit harder to do online, but networks like Twitter have made it easier than it ever has been before. Just join the conversation. Be real. Be yourself. Don't be a douche. Just join the conversation, and you'll make meaningful connections that can help you in countless ways. Do you think it really matters whether a designer receives his education from a top design institution as opposed to being self taught? Do you see any differences in levels of discipline and commitment? I don't think it matters one iota whether a designer has formal training or not. However, I do think it's vital for web designers to learn the fundamentals of graphic design. There are far, far too many people calling themselves "web designers" without understanding design. Understanding HTML, CSS, and Javascript doesn't make you a web designer. It makes you a front-end developer. If you want to be a front-end developer, that's terrific. But if you want to be a designer, you need designing training. I don't care if you get it in design school, by reading books, by reading online, or by working with other great designers -- just get it, somehow. Check your bookshelf. If it's full of titles on HTML, CSS, and the like, instead of typography, color, and layout, you may be missing a key ingredient in the designer's knowledge diet. How does a designer take the next step from being popular locally to gaining international appeal? People ask me how to become "well known" all the time, and it's very difficult for me to answer, because I never have set out to do it, myself. All I really did was do good work, talk about it publicly (blogs, speaking, twitter, etc.), and form sincere relationships with other great web professionals. I can't promise it'll work for you, but it worked for me. Read Tara Hunt's "The Whuffie Factor." It's aimed at companies, but "raising your whuffie," as she calls it, works for individuals, too. The stuff she discusses is basically what I did, although I had no idea I was doing it, at the time. What's the most common mistake(s) you see web designers making? I think it's focusing too much on tools and techniques rather than the greater good of what we're doing. Web design, to me, is about communicating messages, connecting people, and finding ways to make the world a better (and more beautiful) place. Discussing whether we prefer XHTML or HTML can be interesting, but I think there's way too much of this kind of thing and not enough talking about the bigger picture -- and I'm guilty of it, myself. Can we look forward to any more books from you? And besides your own, what are some of your recommended readings for web designers? As for books from me: I'm not sure. If the right opportunity comes along, maybe. Books are a ton of work for very little money, so it'd really have to be on a topic I'm extraordinarily passionate about. We'll see. As I mentioned before, get some design books, rather than a bunch of web books. Web books go out of date quickly. A great design book is full of timeless principles. As a designer, developer, speaker, writer, AND blogger, no doubt you've got some master tips on time management to share! How do you even begin to prioritize your tasks? Probably not as well as I should. :) Seriously, my one tip is this: learn to say no. It took me a while to learn this, and I still struggle with it at times, as I am, inherently, someone who likes to please. But the best thing you can do for yourself, from a time management perspective, is figure out project and tasks are really important and get rid of the rest. If you take on too much, your work will suffer, your morale will go straight to hell, and you won't have enough time for karaoke. And everyone needs time for karaoke. I think it's very iconic to the freelance industry that one such as yourself made a move from agency work life to freelance again. Has working in an agency for the past 2 years given you any extra tool, knowledge or skills that someone who's been freelancing their entire life might not know of? Absolutely. Working at an agency really helped me understand the client relations part of this business. From contracts to estimates to meetings to what keeps them happy and what doesn't, I'm a million times better at dealing with clients than I was before I started working with agencies. Thanks a lot for taking time out of your busy schedule to answer our questions, they were insightful. For our readers, you can keep up with Jeff Croft via Twitter and his website: jeffcroft.com. Interviewed by Khadija Benn