Jackie Reid (Designspace)
Who is Jackie?
Jackie is a freelance web designer in Cape Town, South Africa – I specialise in interface design. I have over 10 years of experience in the industry – 2 of which I’ve been freelancing fulltime. I work with agencies based in South Africa, but also UK, USA, Australia and Dubai.
Do you have a personal Brand?
I’ve branded myself as Designspace – my portfolio is online.
How do you find design inspiration and colours for a new project?
As soon as I get a new project/brief, I like to draw up scamps for the website before working on the computer. I find that a design can become too expected, if I go straight into Photoshop. Each brand has it’s own personality and style, so it’s important to adjust your design style to fit the brand. I think that’s a sign of a good designer, when every design doesn’t look the same. For colours, I pick the appropriate colour pallete by visiting Adobe Kuler or Color Lovers.
What does your typical day look like?
The first thing when I turn on my computer, is open Twitter – updating myself with all the latest twitter feeds. Then I usually respond to any emails that I’ve received overnight. Sometimes I’ll have meetings during the week, which I try to schedule all on 1 day, so that it doesn’t disrupt my work schedule for the day. I keep a weekly project plan which I try to stick to. At lunch time I try to get out of the house for an hour, otherwise I start getting cabin fever, I also find that I feel refreshed when I get home, and ready to work till the end of the day. I try to finalise as much as I can for the day and tick off projects as soon as they’re finalised (such a good feeling!) At 6:30pm my husband usually comes home from work, which signals the end of my day as well. :)
What do you do in your free time?
I had a baby – a month ago, so I don’t have alot of free time at the moment! :) In the old days I used to love meeting with friends and going out for dinner. I have 2 Labradors, Zee and Mylo that love going to the beach when the weather is great. I also love shopping and watching movies.
Current favorite apps?
I recently got invited to join Dribbble, really interesting to seeing what other designers are working on. It’s also made me see ‘new’ designers who I never heard of before. For my accounting needs, I use a great app called Pulse Application, it makes my taxes so much easier. Twhirl is a great twitter application which I have open on my computer all the time.
What OS do you prefer?
I work on a PC, but I love my iPhone as well :)
Small picture for your Workplace?
Favorite: Color, Font, Language, JS Framework?
- Favourite color & favourite font, changes daily!
- Language: CSS
- JS Framework: jQuery
Name something that has inspired you recently?
Logging into Dribbble and seeing the brilliant work done by designers all over the world, totally inspire’s me to push my creativity.
What do you prefer (and why)? Freelance work or full time employment?
Definately freelance work! Although you do work harder, it’s just great to be able to manage your own time and to be able to work in different surroundings and not at the same desk everyday. If I ever get bored at home, I can take my laptop to a coffee shop/restaurant and work from there. The more you work as a freelancer the bigger the rewards!
What are your personnel projects and goals for 2010?
You’re only as good as your last project, so I try to make every project a masterpiece in my portfolio. I also have a couple of side projects that will hopefully be live before the end of 2010!
Thanks for inviting me to be interviewed on Geek Talk.com!
