Intervista con Spicy Web Designer

Questa è una intervista di un anno fa per la quale ringrazio Luc, il quale gestisce un blog molto interessante: Spicy Web Designer.
Leggi l’intervista originale.

Massimo Ciotta is a web designer from Florence, Italy. He started designing websites 6 years ago and has been freelancing for the past 2 years. He is also a web designer who values quality and high standard and applies that to the designs that he creates for clients and adds an “Italian” touch to the websites that he designs.

1. When did you first start designing websites and what initially got you interested in web design as a career?

When I started surfing across internet, and found how amazing could be connecting people all over the world, I understood that the only job I could do in my life with passion was something related to web.

2. How long have you been designing websites?

I started six years ago, and I’m a freelance from two years.

3. You seem to design a lot of websites for Italian clients. Do you also do work for clients internationally or do you prefer to only work locally?

Just now I’m open to international challenges, expanding my online reputation on sites like 99designs.com and guru.com, but the reason is that Italian request of skilled developers is unhealthy. People just ask the lower price coders and designers, and don’t care about standards and quality. Surely, I would choose always local clients, because I like a lot physical contact with my client; I think is more funny taking my Mini Cooper and go to meet someone, traveling in my beautiful place (Tuscany) and have an informal talk with him, drinking a good white wine, about his business… And I like to say that I apply an Italian style (if it exists..) in my job!!!

4. Where did you go to school and what did you study? Have your studies helped you in your career so far?

In my high school I studied scientific matters. Then I did a course for web designers. Sincerely, I learned in the field, 95% of all my competences, and every day I continue studying and studying and studying by myself. Anyway, the course was useful for me, because I started to work where I did my stage. Good culture from high school was useful to make me a good person in whole my life.

5. I see that you also do Flash and Actionscripting. Do a lot of your clients ask for flash-based sites or scripting currently?

Of course they ask!!! Everybody thinks flash sites are amazing, I think too. But when I explain the benefits about SEO of a good XHTML site, they often change idea. I suggest that you have a flash site when you have a good and valid photo stock, such as a clothes shop or a photographer online portfolio. And now, with AJAX plug-in, it is not difficult put some nice light animations on web sites.

6. Is there a large web design community of professionals in Italy and do you network with other local web professionals?

You just need a strong network between professionals. Sharing resources, asking for help on forums, joining professional competences and online groups is an everyday task to grow as a professional. At the same time, we don’t have a corporate union that protects our interest; then we have to join everyone’s experiences to understand how to move. There are plenty of young designers and illustrators, which are jobs that guys like most, but there aren’t important landmarks for them.

7. Are you concerned with maintaining web standards and accessibility in the web design work that you for clients?

My premise with new clients is that I will always work concerning accessibility and web standards. I want projects on my portfolio to be uniform to all modern standards, because they are, first of all, the “bricks” for my future business. But, we all know, cross-browsing is a hard and dirty job today to do right!!!