Five Questions with: Eric Meyer

1) Describe yourself in five words?

Allergic to arbitrarily limited biographical statements.  (See also: “This Song Is Just Six Words Long”.  Besides, I thought the thing now was to describe ourselves in 160 characters or less. Or at least via haiku.)

2) Which design tool makes the biggest contribution to your creative output and why?

Photoshop in my case, as I can make it sit up and sing the theme from “Moonlighting” in four-part harmony.  Also because I’m usually turning design comps into markup and CSS, and said comps are almost always Photoshop files.  Or else flat image files.  Either way, good old PSD has what I need. If you want to know what development tool makes the biggest contribution, then it’s Firebug.  Nothing else even comes close.

3) Tell us what you consider to be the most useful technique in the design/development process?

Repeated failure.  Not only do you learn what works from what doesn’t, but sometimes what didn’t work out like you planned shows you the way to something awesome.  I do trial and error like it’s the only thing keeping me in oxygen.

4) Web creatives love designer fonts. What’s your favourite and why?

New Century Schoolbook.  I know, it’s old and musty and all the kids love Georgia now.  I don’t care.

5) What is the one tip that you would give to anyone trying to get into the industry?

Love it like you love a family member– with all that that implies.  Web design and development is a profession that will chew up and spit out anyone who doesn’t have real passion to be involved. Oh, and prepare for a continual soaking from the Firehose of Knowledge, because you can never stop learning.  In fact, if that doesn’t make you even more eager to jump right in, then don’t. You’ll save yourself and your theoretical future co-workers a lot of heartache.