As a part of the MacStories Apps Tree event (where you’ll find a huge giveaway worth $10.000 of 300 Mac and iPhone apps licenses), I had the chance to interview Jon Phillips, a web-designer from Canada who runs SpyreStudios and Design-Newz.
This is the 4th of many interviews and guest posts I’ll publish on MacStories during this week.
Enjoy!
Hi! Can you please introduce yourself to MacStories readers?
Of course! My name’s Jon Phillips, I’m a 27 year old web-designer from Montreal, Canada. I run a design blog at SpyreStudios (which also holds my portfolio) and I also run a design community/news site called Design-Newz.
What can you tell us about the design scene in Canada?
Well, my clients and contacts are from all over the world, I don’t know many designers from Canada and I’ve worked with only a few Canadians. What I can tell you though is that there is a great interest for design and for the web, with events like WordCamp. I’m hoping Montreal will eventually hold events like FOWD and FOWA. That would be nice!
SpyreStudios blog has become one of the most popular design blogs out there. Are you doing this all by yourself? Do you use Macs in your office?
Thank you! I am managing the site myself and I also write articles, but I do have many regular contributors helping me out, and I’m very thankful for that. As for my setup, my own blog and every website I’ve ever designed were created on a 15’ Macbook Pro running OS X 10.5. I use Fireworks, Textmate and WordPress quite a lot. Those are the 3 tools I use every single day.
Have you ever tried other apps besides Photoshop / Illustrator?
I have tried PixelMator, Gimp and a couple other apps. For what I do, I find that Fireworks does a great job though. For photo editing I actually prefer PixelMator over Photoshop. I guess it depends on the project and what the needs are.
Which are your favourite Mac apps?
Textmate: I used to write markup and CSS in TextEdit, so when I discovered TextMate it quickly became my favorite editor.
Paparazzi: Pretty cool app to take website snapshots.
Fireworks: Not really an app per se, more like a full software, but I spend so much time working with it that I had to include it in the list.
PixelMator: Useful and inexpensive image editor.
MAMP Pro: I use it mostly to run local installations of WordPress
Skype: A must-have when you deal with clients from all over the world.
Little Snapper: I recently started using Little Snapper and especially the iPod Touch app.
DropBox: I probably couldn’t live without DropBox!
The Adobe CS suite for Mac. Many people think it’s a simple porting of the Windows version, with an outdated UI and not so many “Apple style” features.
I personally don’t mind the UI, I think it’s fine actually. Of course apps like PixelMator are prettier, but I think it’s what you do with it that matters. :)
Do you use a specific software to organize all your work stuff like Yojimbo or Evernote, or do you still prefer a well organized Finder?
I’m a bit old school in that department haha I use Text Edit to write down my daily to-do list and use my own system of folders to organize my work. I also use Mail App to keep track of conversations and project infos.
Is there something of Mac OS X interface you’d change?
I think it’s near perfection, but there’s always room for improvement. One thing I would add would be the ability to put the labels on the left of the icons in the Finder. In OS X 10.5.8 you can put the labels either at the bottom or on the right. I’d like to have the labels on the left.
Do you think the Mac platform is more suitable for designers?
I’m sure it’s possible to achieve great results on Windows, in fact I know many great designers who run Windows only. I personally find the OS X interface is way easier to use. Every time I’ve tried to do something on a Windows machine, I ended up pulling my hair, so I work with Mac exclusively.
Do you have / have you ever tried a Magic Mouse? Is it good for designers?
I’ve tried the Magic Mouse and honestly, I didn’t like it. I really like my Microsoft mouse - Ok, I know… Microsoft. But that’s the only thing I own that has the Microsoft logo. :)
As a designer, what would you like to receive for Christmas?
I’d love to get a FontShop or MyFonts voucher. There’s so many beautiful typefaces I want! I could also use a tablet, that would be fun.
Thanks for chatting with us! And keep up the great work!
Thanks for inviting me!
