Post by urbancinderella on Jun 2, 2007 9:52:52 GMT
Interview with $lollydeviantART - Miscellaneous
Administered by Jongos
Thank you very much for agreeing to do this interview with me, now let us begin. How did you find deviantART?
In October of 2001 I made my own little message forum on ezboard called the Black Iron Prison link after discovering it while looking for game guides on Silent Hill 2. The damn Triangle Head guy kept killing me and I needed some help. Prior to this I had never gone on the "internet" but my room mate was on his comp all the time so I asked him and he pointed me to alta vista, showed me how to look things up and I discovered the world of forums. From there I decided it would be cool to make my own little thing, which happily still lives on somewhat today.
But back to the original question, it was a user there, umaeril, who is *uma on deviantART who pointed DA out to me after I began posting scans of my artwork on my board. I have painted and drawn most of my life but got into digital around the same time I got online. it all hooked me almost at once and shortly after she showed me this site, I made my first account here, ~waynemanor23 in December of 2001.
And how did you become an administrator on deviantART?
I was first brought onto print staff by $spot and was initially noticed by `musicinmyhead due to me just being generally helpful in the print forums. I had just recently gotten a print account and luckily had also taken some basic graphic design courses that focused on printing so I knew the information and could offer a hand. Some people find the initial print process daunting so I was glad to help out and put things in laymans terms for them. I was initially supposed to be customer service, answering help tickets and what not, but I found a better niche in print approval aka quality control and eventually ended up being the supervisor of that department. About a year after that $spot was stepping down as Director of Prints and I took over as Acting Director of Prints from December of 2004 till August of 2005 when I took on this new position. I was mainly picked for this because I was always out in the community anyway, and to be honest, as much as I loved prints it never quite felt like where I wanted to be. It meant being behind the scenes a lot more and curbed my "out and about" time so to speak.
It sounds like you worked hard to get to where you currently are. What got you into the designing that you do?
Ever since I can remember I have been drawing. As a kid it was comic books comic books comic books. That got me hooked. I would just sit and copy comic books over and over again. As I got older I moved into more varied fields but that's where I came from. Eventually I discovered pop art and somehow the two styles have merged into one thing over they years and into something else entirely beyond that. A couple of years back I actually took some courses in 3D, life drawing, color and design theory and compositional technique to get some actual technical skill under my belt.
Outside of all of that art you do, what are some of your favorite non-computer activites?
Reading and listening to music mainly. I read a lot, graphic novels, magazines, fiction, non fiction. I am attempting to teach myself to play the bass for about the 23rd time in my life! Haha! I am also known to like to sit around and drink the occasional beer or two with friends.
23 times, that is a lot I hope you get it this time. Sidetracking a little, how did you come up with the name "lolly"?
My user name that I ended up sticking with was `lllo0o0olll and nobody had any flipping clue how to even begin to pronounce that, heh. So in the forums people began referring to me as lololmal or lolls and `helloitsjanet officially coined the term “lolly” and it stuck. Then when I became staff a name change became a necessity as people literally had issue trying to email me.
It is funny how names stick sometimes, getting back into talking about design, what are some of your favorite designs, and why?
If by designs you mean art styles, pop art is one of my absolute favorite things in the world. It’s simplicity and flashiness just grab my eye and Warhol is my all time favorite artist. His use of repetition and snide mockery of the fine arts world combined to make a brilliant statement. His influence can still be seen in many aspects of art, even in the digital world with use of repeated images and logos and big bright colors.
Seeing as you have been designing for a long time, do you have any recommendations to new designers?
Practice practice practice. And learn to draw with paper and a pencil. Learn composition and color theory and even life drawing even if you do only web design. The more you know the more you can apply to all fields. It’s better to have a full tool box then to have only a screwdriver in your pocket.
You mentioned Warhol as your all time favorite artist, who are some designers that you also find inspiring, and why?
As far as in a sheer design sense, I will pick 2 people from here on deviantART and that would be °liquisoft and ¢starvingartist. °liquisoft aka Ryan, is just a master at minimalism and smooth stylish design and labors over his typography. His sense of color is dead on perfect and has taught me a thing or two. And ¢starvingartist does all our CSS work for the site and news articles. He just has such a clean, crisp look, and he works amazingly fast.
Do you have any news on the future of deviantART that the readers would be interested in?
With the coming of dAv5 there will be a lot of changes made to optimize speed and add things that users have been wanting for ages. Smoother browsing, more options etc.
Well this concludes our interview, but I will end it with one last question. This is one I have wondered for a long time, is there a single main admin of deviantart, or should I say, who founded it?
Rather than try and go into that I can just point you to this as it is the most accurate version out here: History of deviantART