IM260/291 mark graybill

I recently had the opportunity to interview Steven Snell of Vandelay Design. He is the owner of the Mount Laurel, New Jersey, based company which serves clients throughout the United States, and in other parts of the world.

You can follow him at Vendelay Design Blog or his other sites; DesignM.ag, Folio Focus, and Cart Frenzy.

How many people work at your firm? What are their jobs

It’s just me. I handle design and development (although I have worked with some PSD to HTML providers), business activities, and the management of my own sites and blogs.

Do you ONLY do web sites? What else do you do?

No, I do other types of sites as well. I work with WordPress themes pretty frequently whether it is for a blog or using it as a CMS for a more traditional website. In 2009 I have not been designing for clients full-time because I have been focusing on building some sites of my own, so client work is only a part of what I do (at least at this point).

How did church sites become your specialty or niche?

Church was always a big part of my life, so part of it is just that I had a lot of contacts in that area. Also, churches typically have less-than-effective websites, although there have been some major improvements in recent years. I think churches can benefit a great deal from having an attractive, effective website, so that has been something of interest for me.

Do you use the same CMS for all your church sites? What kind of platform to you use?

No, it depends on the project. As I mentioned already, I use WordPress a lot, but not particularly for churches. I really like LightCMS for churches, but the monthly fees can discourage a lot of smaller churches that want to keep costs to a minimum. For small sites that just need basic options for editing text and photos, Cushy CMS can be a good option.

How are church sites different from other types of sites?

One of the big differences, in my opinion, is that church sites have two specific and very different audiences. The first audience is made up of church members and attenders who are looking for information on upcoming events and maybe listeing to sermons online. The other audience is people who have never been to the church and are possibly searching for a church in their area. Both of these audiences need to be addressed for the site to really do it’s job.

Do you get a lot of creative freedom for these designs?

It depends on the project. Some people have very specific ideas of what they want and others have no idea what they want, they just leave it up to me to come up with something that will work. Generally I like having some creative freedom, but it’s helpful if the client can give me some speciifc ideas about what they are looking for, or at least some examples of sites that they like.

How do you resolve consensus issues among decision makers?

Usually that’s not a big problem as I typically just have one contact person. If there are issues that have to be worked out (and that usually is the case with churches) those are usually discussed and taken care of by the decision makers. Having one contact person can help to avoid situations where you are getting conflicting instructions, although that doesn’t mean that they won’t change their minds. One of the issues that is common with churches is that they can be very slow to make a decision on who to hire. It’s usually not one person’s decision, so there is often a waiting period. Typically there is one person that is in charge of gathering information from designers and then they present the info to a committee. My approach is to provide information to the contact person and ask them to get back to me when they’ve made a decision. I’ve learned not to count on anything until the first payment is in hand.

What current projects are you working on? Anything fun and exciting?

At the moment the only client projects I am working on are for on-going clients that I do a lot of maintenance and updates for (usually on a weekly basis). I’ve been passing on new clients recently because I have been spending a lot of time on my own sites, particularly http://designm.ag, http://foliofocus.com, and http://cartfrenzy.com.

How do you select which projects to take on?

The biggest factor for me is availability. If I have no time, I have no time, regardless of the budget of the client. Another factor for me is if I think I am the best person for the job. Being a one-man shop there are some situations that I am not well-suited for. For example, some clients want to use a particular content management system and it may be one that I don’t work with. When I was freelancing part-time I learned to turn down projects if I didn’t think it was the right fit for me. I took some projects that I should have turned down (at least at that time) and they were pretty miserable to work on.

How would you describe your creative process?

I don’t know that I have a particular process that I always follow. Some things are consistent, such as a discussion with the client to find out exactly what they want and need, and to try to get to know their business as well as possible. Also, I always start by sketching a layout on paper before doing anything in Photoshop or any coding.

Where do you draw inspiration from?

I get inspiration from online resources like gallery sites and design blogs because I am online all the time. I try to also get inspiration from print design, such as magazines. Color inspiration often comes from photographs.

Can you give a little history of the things that lead you to where you are now… education, experience, connections etc.?

and/or

What type of opportunities were you expecting after school and what ended up being the reality? How did you apply what you learned to what was expected of you in the real world?

The only formal education I have in design or development was a one semester class on web design. It was very basic. We learn HTML and by the end of the semester I could create a bad table-based layout. We didn’t even touch CSS or Photoshop. My degree is in business and I worked for a few years after college in a few different positions, the last one being about 4 years as an internal auditor. While I was working I continued to study web design on my own and got motivated to move to self employment. I picked up some clients, started builing my own sites, and a year or two later I was making enough money to justify going full-time with only very minor risk.

Are there other designers whose work you find especially inspiring?

Because of my gallery sites I see great design on a daily basis. One designer that I really like is Collis Ta’eed from Envato. He’s actually the CEO and does very little design work now, but he used to be a freelance designer. His work always looks great, but simple, with incredible attention to detail and spacing.

If you could land any design project in the world, what would it be and why?

I would prefer just to work on my own sites. I’m more of an entrepreneur than a designer in that way.

When did you first become interested in web design?

During college. I took the course as an elective and I really got caught up in the potential of using it for a career, either for clients or to manage my own websites. It took a while to get to the point where I could really do anything with it (and there was some time where I really wasn’t working on websites for a while).

What was your first design gig?

For the course that I took I did a site for a counseling organization, and I continued to maintain the site (and re-design it) after the class was over.

What is a typical day for you like?

I probably work about 10 – 12 hours on average, although it varies. I start work at 6:30 (that’s the good part of working from home, I lose no time on a commute). My day starts with email, stats, and other basic stuff. Then I move on to whatever I have to work on for the day. Sometimes it’s client work, sometimes it’s content for my sites, sometimes I’m writing an article for another website (I used to do more freelance writing). I generally have some flexibility to decide what I want to work on, which is nice.

How has blogging affected your business?

Without blogging I don’t think I would be in business. The blog is what started the traffic flowing to my site, and helped me to start landing clients outside of my contacts from friends and family.

In what way do you see the design field changing?

There’s always new technologies, that’s just constant. Conttent Management Systems have become incredibly common and I don’t anticipate designing any sites without a CMS any time in the near future.

Any advice to designers just starting out?

Focus on learning and improving your skills more than making money or getting a lot of clients.

Thanks so much!