In the Workplace with John Phillips
Name: John Phillips
Title: User Interface Designer/Developer
Website/Blog: www.tridea-design.com and www.jwphill3.com
Location: Royal Oak, Michigan
Tell us about your educational/professional background.
I graduated from Michigan State in 2005 with a degree in Professional writing, where I gained a strong understanding of web usability, designing/writing for the web, and project management. After graduating, I worked Marketing & Creative Services in the University Relations department of MSU. There I was a lead designer on many large scale web initiatives including the MSU and Admissions sites.
Tell us about your current job.
Right now I currently have two jobs: my full time job is working at Campbell-Ewald as a user interface engineer. I work on a team with other developers planning/building and maintaining our marketing sites for the clients of CE. In the evenings I run my own web design/development company, Tridea Design, with two colleagues from MSU: Andrew Sautler and Tyler Smeltekop.
What does a typical day look like for you?
A typical day at Campbell-Ewald consists of not only developing client and internal websites, but communicating with project managers, art directors, account managers, as well as others on my own team on various aspects of website projects.
For Tridea, my typical day/week consists of finding and approaching new business leads for projects, going to networking events, client communication, project managing our current workloads, and making sure the overall operations of the company go as smoothly as possible. I also assist my team in doing design and development work.
What kinds of documents do you produce?
The normal documents produced for my job are project quotes, contracts, and project explanations communicating what we do on project in a non-technical fashion. With Tridea, we also create budget/finance documents and company goal documents.
What communication skills are needed for your job?
Good communication is extremely essential in my role. I’m regularly having to explain the technical aspects of my job to people who don’t have a clue what goes behind web design/development and the jargon used. Knowing how to project manage and keep everything on track is very key as well. Good people skills come in handy because often we’re looked at as people who don’t leave the computer, so showing a personable side has proved beneficial.
How did you prepare for your job?
Reading and research. Before I got into the industry, I was constantly reading hundreds of blogs about design and web development. When my friends were out partying, I was designing and coding. I couldn’t get enough of learning, so I gained a huge passion for my work.
Passion shows to everyone you talk to about your job and has helped me in job interviews. I also asked a whole lot of questions to people in the industry already. I emailed “celebrity” designers trying to pick their brain about the industry. Basically, anything or anyone I could talk to about the industry, I did.
List three of your favorite professional resources/references/tools and tell us why they’re your favorite.
http://www.alvit.de/handbook/ — Web developers handbook. I love that there are TONS of resources there for designing/developing websites.
http://svn.37signals.com — 37signals has a great principles on the business and the industry, and many of their philosophies are very similar to the ones I follow to run Tridea.
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/ — Everyone needs inspiration (if you’re a designer) and there is more than enough there. I love Smashing Magazine.
How do you stay up-to-date in your field?
I subscribe to just over 50 blogs and go to conferences. I also keep up with interesting links through my network of people on Twitter.
How would you define professional writing?
Being clear and concise when communicating a message.
Do you have any tips to share with other professional writers/editors/designers?
Be passionate. Know how to write for the web, it makes a huge difference. Stay up to date with new technologies and trends on the web. Build a personal network of people around you because you never know when you need to leverage those.
Build relationships, that is extremely important. We’ve been taught that it’s not what you know, it’s who you know. That is very true, but to build on that: who you know gets your foot in the door, the relationships you build move you up the ladder. And lastly, learn business because it helps things make sense sometimes.
Tags: In the Workplace