Auteur
I have a personal style. When I lead a project it becomes part of my life. And when I'm finished, the project has indelibly taken a piece of me with it. It's an inevitable osmosis; an unavoidable end-point. I often create similar things, but I personally love to create novel things. As such, everything I do will have an inevitable, recognizable feel, even projects that look, sound, and act almost entirely different from each other.
Trust
Clients pay me to design. But it's more than that. We are in a relationship. I trust my clients won't pull the rug out from under me; clients trust me to design A) what was asked for, and B) what my experience and taste tells me is best.
Belief. Not faith.
Faith is belief without proof. I don't want you to take what I say, or what I say I will do, on faith. I want you to believe what I say because you've seen what I've done before. And while past performance is not necessarily an indicator of future performance, I'd like to think if I created something great yesterday, I will create something even greater tomorrow.
Maker vs. Talker
I'm not like most people. When I see a problem, I take action. (Sometimes, that action is doing nothing, but only after considerable thought.)
Maker vs. Manager
Makers make things. Managers manage makers. They run on entirely different schedules. Managers often have every hour of the day blocked off, usually for meetings, lunches, and conference calls. Makers often... don't. I can do both, but my work suffers when I mix both in the same day.
Flow
It's science: it takes about 15 minutes to get into anything, and 15 minutes to get out. When I sit down to design, it takes 15 minutes just to stop thinking about what I was thinking about. Inspiration doesn't follow a schedule. More science: flow is a measurable state of mind when people achieve 100% focus on one thing. This isn't just for stereotypical artists; everybody experiences flow. Flow can't happen with frequent interruption.
Constant Growth and Iteration
I learned everything I know through reverse engineering. I never took a design class, or a development class, or a web class. I taught myself like so many pixel pushers do: found a website I liked, and then took it apart. I learned coding, photo editing, typography, and almost every web-related skill by teaching myself. This constant state of growth and learning has taught me that iterative change is key to success.