Interview with Collis Ta’eed

July 11, 2008

About a week ago I mentioned that I would start interviewing some big names in the Graphic and Web Design sector, and they don’t get much bigger than one of the co-founders of Eden Creative Communities, Collis Ta’eed, bringing us sites like FreelanceSwitch and PSDTuts.

Collis has been an inspiration to me for a while now and it was his sites that spurred me on to work hard on making Help Developer what it is today, so I was pleased when Collis agreed to answer some of my questions.

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About Collis and Eden

Collis Ta’eed is an entrepreneur, blogger and designer currently living in Hong Kong and travelling the world. He co-founded Eden with 3 of his friends just 2 years ago and since then it has become one of the biggest networks for design related sites in terms of users, PSDTuts alone has over 25,000 regular readers and over 4 million views a month.

From his personal site, Collis writes:

After working as a web designer - both employed and freelance - I cofounded a startup with three friends in 2006. Our company, Eden, has since grown and I’ve had the good fortune to work on lots of very exciting and interesting projects, everything from FlashDen to Blog Action Day.
(Source: CollisTaeed.com)

Collis has been working on 8 projects with Eden which are:

FlashDen - The best place to get awesome Flash components
AudioJungle - A new audio marketplace
How to Be a Rockstar Freelancer - A book I cowrote with my lovely wife
FreelanceSwitch - The highly successful blog on freelancing
PSDTUTS - The best photoshop blog around!
NETTUTS - Web development tutorials
VECTORTUTS - All things vector explained
Blog Action Day - A nonprofit, annual event

Interview So sit back and listen to Collis

How many years experience do you have in this field?

Quite a few now, I started with Photoshop and Dreamweaver about 7 years ago, got into design a year later and shortly after managed to find a job as a web designer. After a couple of years of working as a web designer I freelanced for 2 years and then I’ve been building websites like FlashDen (http://flashden.net) and PSDTUTS (http://psdtuts.com) for the last 2 years now.

How did you get started in web designing and webmastering? What sparked your turn into this career?

The very first website I built was actually for a Quake 2 clan that I was playing in. It was a pretty dubious looking site, though at the time I was very pleased with it. I built it using a copy of Photoshop and Dreamweaver that I’d borrowed from my flatmate and it began my love of building websites. Although I’ve since done some print design, there’s something really cool about building websites because it’s so immediate and you can see the traffic and watch them interact with your creation.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

This is a real tough question because I can’t even imagine what the web will be like in 10 years. When you think back to 10 years ago - 1998 - and what even big name sites like Yahoo looked like. It makes you realise what a long way we’ve come, and how much further we’ll be in 2018.

If I could wish for anything I think in 10 years I’d like to have moved into a non-profit sector using the internet to improve the state of the world. I think projects like the One Laptop Per Child have enormous value and that the internet itself will prove to be one of the great equalizing factors in the affairs of the world

When and how did you realise that this is what you wanted to do?

When I left high school I _really_ didn’t know what I wanted to do. A few years of university taught me that it was a very bad idea to do something you don’t love. Even if you have a talent or aptitude for it, there is no replacing the passion of someone who enjoys their work, who is willing to go the extra mile simply because it’s fun.

It was only after seeing Photoshop and the web, that I realised I wanted to be a creative. And I think that desire translated into helping me apply myself and actually do well. I found that work didn’t feel so … work-like!

If you hadn’t got into web design what other career paths would you have liked to take?-

Well I’ve always loved history, so I imagine being a historian and writing books and giving lectures would be pretty fun! Though to be honest I can hardly imagine myself not being a designer any more.

What advice would you give people who would like to get into web design?

I would say that the most important thing is to be passionate about it. Immerse yourself in design, learn the fundamentals that our print counterparts have been practicing for decades and of course don’t forget the technical element. I think web design is a profession of many skills, which is kind of what makes it so fun!

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Afterthoughts

After getting these answers it spurred me on even more to try and become more successful in the web design sector, as Collis says in the final question, “the most important thing is to be passionate about it”, without this you and I will not enjoy life. It is important to me that I can wake up in a morning and be happy when I go to the office because I know I am doing something I enjoy doing.

I would like to thank Collis for partaking in this interview I am sure that your answers will aspire some of Help Developers readers and to the readers, if there is anyone you would like to see interviewed on Help Developer then please let me know below with any questions you would like them to be asked.