First I want to thank Collis Ta’eed for taking the time out of his busy schedule to do an interview. Collis travels the world and lives in different countries, most recently Hong Kong, currently Australia, next stop Canada. His design focus is on Web Design & Print Design.
Please tell us more about your art and design background and what made you become an artist and web designer?
This is embarrassing but the very first time I used Photoshop was because I wanted a wallpaper with a gorgeous girl on it, and oddly I couldn’t find any I liked. So I asked my flatmate who was in design school and he showed me how to use the pen tool to cut stuff out, and then I was hooked.
A little while later I found DeviantArt and started contributing and talking to people there and got a lot of encouragement to make more stuff. Eventually I thought it would be really cool to do this for a living so I started trying to figure out web design. Though I wanted to be a graphic designer, my flatmate counseled me to at least keep a bit of the computers from my degree in there.
How did you get started? Did you study something in particular or are you self-taught?
After studying Math & Comp Sci at university and realizing it wasn’t what I wanted to do, I started teaching myself. I read a *lot* of photoshop tutorials, magazines and design books, went to design conferences and talks, started attending night school and studied every piece of design I came across in daily life. It took quite a while but eventually paid off.
What do you feel are the most important skills for a web designer to have/develop?
I think the most important skill for a designer to have is a fascination with how things look and function. When you look around you realize that design is everywhere there is man-made objects, and there’s so much to analyze and process. I love staring at signs, the typography in movie credits, posters, labels, foreign languages, and anything else that has design in it.
How do you typically start a new project?
With the exception of logo design, I start everything in Photoshop - logos start in Illustrator! I started my design career in Photoshop and that’s where I feel the most comfortable, creative and work the fastest.
Where do you go for design inspiration?
If I’m indoors I go online, especially for web design. There are so many great galleries of work and ideas out there. I also like finding stock illustrations or photos and letting them be the starting point of a design. When I’m outdoors I just look around for inspiration. I also quite like reading design magazines as they help keep me up to date with what people are up to.