Michaelbox

I will be the first to admit here, that think­ing of unique and cre­ative ques­tions every cou­ple weeks can be a bit dif­fi­cult. How­ever, some­times they just flow out of me. It’s even eas­ier when I can play off char­ac­ter­is­tics of the inter­vie­wee. I do what I can to frame my ques­tions in ways that show that I’ve done my research and show that I had each inter­vie­wee specif­i­cally in mind for that ques­tion. I am proud to say that I was able to do that a num­ber of times with Emtay­lor (Twit­ter). Shall we get started and get to know Emma a bit better?

Admin note: You’ll noticed a strange amount of lit­tle yel­low cir­cles. I can only imag­ine how much Emma smiles in per­son. Per­son­ally, I blame liv­ing in Cyprus. Color me jealous.

Who are you for those who don’t know and what is it you spe­cial­ize in?

Emma Tay­lor: I’m Emma! I’m a free­lance web designer liv­ing the dream in Cyprus (orig­i­nally from the UK). Spe­cial­is­ing in User Inter­face Web Design (mostly PSD mock­ups) and love clean sim­ple designs, the inter­webs, pos­i­tive think­ing, any­thing apple & my fam­ily and friends

How does it feel to share a name with the Em mea­sure­ment in web design? Are you as fluid and scal­able as it is?

Emma: Well spot­ted. Would you believe i’ve never really thought about it, now you’ve brought it up it feels pretty darn good!

If you were given the cap­i­tal to start up a firm or grow your cur­rent brand, using only twit­ter peo­ple, who would be in your first round of hiring?

Emma: You’ve gotta love Twit­ter!! I’d have to go all out and men­tion a few of my favourite & super lovely web gals, they’re incred­i­bly tal­ented design­ers and great fun to talk to!

• grace­smith (Twit­ter) — Grace Smith (web­site)
• sazzy (Twit­ter) — Sarah Par­menter (web­site)
• amerz (Twit­ter) — Amy Mahon (web­site)
• yaili (Twit­ter) — Inayaili de León (web­site)
• design­space (Twit­ter) — Jackie Ellse (web­site)

…wow, this is harder than it looks, i could go on and on, there are so many won­der­ful peo­ple on the web!!

When birds stand on power lines and don’t get hurt, it’s most likely because of:

• good tim­ing, they only land between calls
• body mate­ri­als that are insu­lated from current
• not touch­ing any­thing else at the same time
• they do get hurt, they just express it poorly

Emma: good tim­ing, they only land between calls

The fonts folder on your com­puter spon­tan­iously com­busts into a huge ball of fire with ser­ifs fly­ing every­where, what three do you attempt to sal­vage first?

Emma: Firstly, i’d need to check to see if my sans serif fonts were ok (mainly Hel­vetica Neue)! Cur­rent fav Serif fonts: Hoe­fler Text — Italic, Baskerville & Archer

I remem­ber, awhile back, agree­ing with you that the best pens tend to be the most basic, is there any pen on your desk that you tend to instinc­tively reach for no mat­ter how many may be avail­able and per­haps closer to your hand?

Emma: Any that works…mostly the basic blue biro does the job.

What is the story for the ori­gin of “Twig­gle” in your per­sonal branding?

Emma: When i orig­i­nally started out as a full time free­lancer nearly 3 years ago now i branded myself under another name. After a year i was unfor­tu­nately pre­sented with a not so nice email from a legal team and so it goes i was no longer to able to use that domain name or brand. At the time I was pretty much in a state of panic and quickly needed to come up with a new brand and domain name. After plenty of research, plenty of name ideas and plenty of (most prob­a­bly annoy­ing) emails to web friends i finally set­tled with Twig­gle Graph­ics! In a way although it caused a lot of anx­i­ety and panic at the time its been a bless­ing, i’ve learnt so much since then, took my work and myself more seri­ously and have been busier than ever.

Are there any old design habits of yours that make you facepalm your­self? If so, why?

Emma: If any­thing it’d be cod­ing. I’m pretty lucky to be able to spe­cialise my ser­vices to design and cre­at­ing PSD UI designs for other free­lancers and agen­cies and absolutely love it, the only down­side to this is that i find that i’m not com­pletely up to scratch with my cod­ing skills at times.

If you could per­son­ally choose any web­site to improve and evolve, what site would you pick and why?

Emma: *hold­ing my head in shame* Mine! It’s way over­due and in des­per­ate need for a redesign and update, but help­ing my lovely clients comes first!!

What is the nerdi­est pickup line ever used on you, if any? If none, make one up!

Emma: lol, hmmm, errrr…

What type of projects or styles would you love to dip your toe into in the future? Surely a woman with your skills has only the sky as the limit.

Emma: I recently helped out with an iPhone app icon, it’s great fun and loved it…i def­i­nitely want to get into this more.

Have you ever taken, or been tempted to take, the font Papyrus for a swim in any of your designs?

Emma: Errrrrr, no. Along with comic sans, curlz mt and any oth­ers that fit into that cat­e­gory!! lol

Any per­sonal quotes you’d like to share with the peo­ple of the internet?

Emma: When­ever i get in a lit­tle rut about some­thing or i need a lit­tle nudge i ask myself a very sim­ple ques­tion … What’s the worst thing that can hap­pen? Go for it!

Have you ever con­sid­ered bot­tling up Cyprus sun­shine and sell­ing it for a lit­tle extra money in the pocket? Surely it is a higher qual­ity sun­shine than some other places in the world.

Emma: Now there’s an idea!! lol

Final thoughts?

Emma: Thanks for ask­ing me to take part in a fun and cre­ative inter­view!! Keep up the great work