David is a designer, social media marketer and a keen motor racing enthusiast. Here he tells us about his career in the wonderful world of web design.
Name: David Perel
Company: Obox Themes
Job Title: Co-founder, Designer , Marketer
Nationality: South African
Age: 24
What are your skills: Design / Social Media Marketing / Motor Racing
Web Designer Interview
For those who don`t know about Obox or From the Couch or even WeAreNotFreelancers, can you tell us a bit about you and your various projects:
Sure, Obox is our web design and dev company… it’s the money make for Marc and I. We Are not Freelancers is a blog about Obox and the companies products/developments.
From the Couch is an online TV show hosted by Marc and I, it’s what got us recognized in the design world.
How long have you been a web designer?:
5 very short years
About how many sites have you made?:
To be honest, I have lost count of how many sites we have created. Probably between 30 – 40 client sites and 15 themes.
What made you want to be a web designer?:
I had to support my ambition to become a racing driver, so during the week I worked at my father’s software company in the web development division. From there Obox was born.
What was the first web site you made?:
www.peresoft.co.za – its quite a technical site, it has custom reports, client login sections, forums and more. Every item of the site was custom built, no plugins, no code snippets, no framework. All Obox dev and design.
What would be the ideal web project for you?:
Just working on our themes 24/7, lately we have only been taking on client projects which we think can be fun and obviously pay reasonably well.
What projects are you currently working on?
We have 5 clients projects on the go and 4 themes (two WordPress, two Micro Blogs) being developed. We are overbooked which is my mistake.
What is best part of being a web designer?:
That I can create whatever I want and release it tomorrow. I love that aspect, there are no boundaries at Obox except time.
Tell us about your best as experience as a web designer?:
Launching our theme company and also winning South Africa’s best new blog for From the Couch. That was a pretty cool evening which seems to have launched us upwards and onwards.
Tell us about your worst as experience as a web designer?:
I have plenty bad experiences. Some clients can be a nightmare, especially the ones which always want a good deal. They will expect the world from you but pay nothing and have a huge attitude. I hate that, but they sneak up on you every now and then J
What are the most important things to learn to be a good web designer?:
Learn how to convert your own designs in HTML and CSS. Also learn about whitespace and line-heights. Critical, critical elements in design 😉
What advise would you give to our Web Courses Bangkok students:?
Just never give up, always try new things, if you love it then work as hard as you can. Start a blog, network with other designers on Twitter and Facebook. Also try and go to as many events as possible.
When you start out, don’t worry too much about how much to charge. Just take the job. It’s all about experience at the beginning.
Thank You David
David’s sites are listed here :
http://www.wearenotfreelancers.co.za
http://www.from-the-couch.com
