Thanks Tom, it’s a pleasure! I’m Chris Spooner, a graphic and website designer from Sheffield, UK. I’m also the guy behind tutorial, freebie and design article related site; Blog.SpoonGraphics.

In terms of my background, I’ve always seemed to enjoy being creative, and found Art was my best subject throughout education. I followed this right up to university where I graduated in Art & Design. Since then I’ve worked as a designer at two local studios before heading out as a freelance designer earlier this year.

2. Tell us a little about your blog SpoonGraphics. What inspired you to start it, and how did you get it to the point that it’s at today?

Blog.SpoonGraphics is my little corner of the web, it started as an experimental add-on to my portfolio. At the time it seemed every designer was setting up a blog, so I decided to give it a go myself! I started out posting the odd tutorial and free giveaway, soon some of the posts gained decent exposure and traffic and the site has grown from there! I’m now proud to see over 10k subscribers and increased exposure for myself as a designer.

3. What first got you into design and what do you think makes design so special?

I love how design can manipulate the sub-conscious thoughts of people, just like in traditional art that forms different emotions, design is used in the real world often to generate sales and promote products. I’ve seen many examples where design has resulted in the success of a product or service while competitors without a polished brand or any professional design material haven’t had as much success. Obviously more factors are involved in whether something takes off, but I think design is one of the important aspects of success.

4. Your portfolio is home to some pretty amazing work. Where do you get your ideas from?

Thanks! I do enjoy experimenting in many different areas of design, browsing the web often generates some inspiration from checking out the work of other designers. I also find it useful to read through tutorials, even if the outcome is something I could already create myself, I regularly discover new methods and techniques which can then be applied in new areas.

5. What is your favorite aspect of designing? For instance, do you prefer web design, logo design or photo manipulation?

I like to work on a wide variety of projects including logo design, print design, illustration, character design and web design to mix up my day. The underlying elements of design are the same throughout, but the application is usually different, for example putting together a design for print is a little different to coding up a website, but techniques from both areas can be mixed up and used for different purposes. Right now I’m quite intrigued at learning the basics of 3D modelling tool Blender to see if I can reproduce some characters in three dimensions or maybe use some 3D elements in my illustrations, this kind of project I’ll look into in my spare time but I’m sure the new techniques will come in handy for mainstream projects.

6. What do you predict will be the next big design trend and why?

I’m really looking forward to wider support for CSS3 in the world of web. Such features of multiple background images, border images and @font-face styling are going to open up some wicked opportunities for unique website designs, making it much easier to create that out of the ordinary style without the extra markup often associated with crazy designs! I think the rough and ready style with hand drawn elements and snippets of paper is going strong and gaining wider popularity, a contrast to the shiny effects of the whole web 2.0 malarky!

7. What are your favorite design websites to visit?

I enjoy visiting a wide range of sites through my feed reader, ones I tend to find exceptional content through are sites such as Design Float and Designm.ag that compile links to hundreds of articles across the design community. Other favourites in my collection are CSS-Tricks, Vandelay Design Blog and GoMediazine, all of which have interesting tutorials, roundups and sources of inspiration.

8. Thanks very much for this interview. Do you have any closing words of advice for aspiring designers out there?

Thankyou for the opportunity! I’d advise new designers to keep up your work, experiment with different techniques and applications as well as jumping off the computer and creating some hand-made resources for use in your digital designs. Anything to mix it up and add diversity to your work!

The Prize Is:

EITHER:

3 Non-Exclusive logos of your choice from LogoMaid.com OR
3 Products of your choice from DesignLoad.com OR
3 Products of your choice from ProCartoons.com.

All you have to do to win is leave a comment to this post, explaining what you’ll do with the prize, or why you want to win. I’ll select a winner on December 1st based on what I think is the best answer, and then distribute the prizes.

It couldn’t be easier for you, and the available prizes are really awesome.

Start leaving those comments folks!

This texture set is courtesy of Frantz Jeitz, who you may remember we interviewed recently. Franz runs the design blog FudgeGraphics, and was kind enough to offer this texture set to our visitors.

This texture set is huge! Images are 3264X2448px in size - perfect for large scale designs.

The Textures

Free Download

You can download this texture set using the link below:

10 Super High-Res Wood Textures (Download)

Ee Venn Soh is a young graphic designer from Malaysia. You can view his design work here. He is hugely talented, having written tutorials for sites such as PSDTUTS, and having his work featured in huge publications such as Computer Arts and Digital Arts. Anyway, I’ll let you be the judge of his talent when you read his thoughts and check out his work…

1. Thankyou for doing this interview. Could you please tell our readers a little about yourself and your design background?

I am the person behind the creative identity of EIII. I work completely on my own,
without any formal training. The only training will be late night experiments and
tutorials. Currently I am studying computer science in University of Auckland, New
Zealand. Now, I am under an international student exchange program with Nanyang
Technological University of Singapore. I’ve had a passion for arts ever since I was
young. It just comes naturally. However I don’t believe in studying formally.
Designing is part of my life and I enjoy every moment of it.

2. What motivates you to design? What do you think makes design so special?

It all started when I was young. I love things that are unique, catchy and original. I
am constantly inspired by things around me. Things I see, hear and feel. It is just
always part of me. Designing creates possibilities. I enjoy the limitless imagination
and creativeness that we can achieve.

3. What is your average day like?

I wake up around 9am. Take a bath. Check my mails and read some interesting stuff
around the internet. Pack my stuffs and go to school. Study the entire day
and when I really need time to relax I will just head back to my room and surf the
internet for designing related stuffs. Chat around with friends on msn and sleep at
2am.

4. What is your workflow like for creating your images?

I would normally get an idea in my mind first. I do all the mapping in my head
without drafting or draw it out. I will start collecting resources and inspirations
that suit the piece. First of all, I will work on the overall composition,
background and montage. Soon after i will add all visual effects to the piece. A
touch of final colorization to the overall piece.

5. What are your current favorite design websites?

I use RSS nowadays so basically I visit more than 40 websites each day. To list out
those I personally like will be FFFFound.com, FormFiftyFive.com, TypeNeu.com,
blog.ISO50.com, Ibelieveinadv.com, behance.net.

6. What is your favorite piece of design? It can be by any designer, created at any time, for any purpose.

Emmm… favourite piece of all time. It is very hard to decide as my style is
constantly changing and evolving. However, I am a big fan of Peter Jaworowski works
(Hejz). I got into designing seriously after inspired by some pieces from him. Such
as his Nike commercial pieces. http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Nike-Air-Lab/40072 &
http://www.behance.net/Gallery/Nike-City-Motion/55604 back 1 or 2 years ago. Those are
also the pieces that made him a big hit.

7. What is the best way to create truly interesting work?

Designers have to be resourceful. Constant updating and keep tracking with the
latest happenings in the industry is a must. Failing to do so will keep you off.
Even though you are a digital photo artist you should also check out various genres
of works. I check out works from as old in the 50’s daily. It serves as daily
inspiration intake to me.

8. Which basic Photoshop techniques do you find yourself using time and time again in your work?

The brush tool, dodge & burn tool, smudge tool, color adjustment settings and
sharpen filter. You don’t need any fancy filters plug-ins to create some awesome
pieces. It is all about attention to details using tools so simple you cant imagine.

9. Thanks again for taking the time to do this interview. Do you have any closing words of motivation to aspiring young designers?

Be original, be hardworking and love what you are doing. Be a trendsetter rather
than a follower. Don’t get blinded with the vague promise of being a designer. Start
off as a hobby or interest rather than a tool to make money.

Thanks for the interview.