mcville: Kevin Leitch Interview

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Kevin Leitch Interview

Nov 16, 06:58 PM by Marko

Interivew with Kevin Leitch at kevinleitch.co.uk

Marko: Heya Kevin !
Kevin: Hey there Marko? How’s it going?
Marko: Fine, I have to check some 300 mails- but yeah I’m fine :)

Marko: For our reader’s could you tell something about yourself? (year old and other stuff)
Kevin: Yup. I’m 36, married with 3 kids, knackered, broke, grumpy.

Marko: How are you doing these days?
Kevin: See above.

Marko: When did you first encounter a keyboard or computer?
Kevin: I first encountered the Rubbery Keypad of Yore (thats a ZX81 to you and me) and then later a Dragon32 and became addicted to Jetset Willy. A few years after that my I watched in awe as my brother attached his 1mb of external hardrive to his Amiga. “A meg!” I remember saying, “you’ll never fill it!”. Then I got my P75 with a shonky copy of Windows 3.1 and that was that – I was officially a computer nerd.

Marko: What is your favorite art work /website!?
Kevin: Well, the site I return to again and again is Bear Skin Rug. Its just…perfect…beautiful, ordered, purposeful. In terms of artwork, two words: Sistine chapel. Cliché? Yes. But it fulfils the requirement of all works of genius in that the first time you see it, you will feel like the breaths been knocked out of you. I’ve also got this weird thing for Tudor period gardens. Don’t ask. Its the structure wrought from nature I think. Oh dear.

Marko: when you launched kevinleitch.co.uk are you happy with the result of the site?
Kevin: I don’t think any designer is ever 100% satisfied. I was happy that I’d learnt something new and I was happy that the underlying semantic layer was getting more and more accurate (Wordpress is great but the code it spits out would make a grown man cry sometimes). I wanted something that was warm and inviting and yet was intiguing as well. I am begining to get that little tickle in the back of my head though that means I’m getting bored with it. I’m going to try and bury this urge by starting to write Project: New Part II.

Marko: What do you do in your spare time (I do realize that spare time, in this context, is pretty relative)?
Kevin: I like to read books and kill aliens with my XBox. Admittedly however, having three kids means ‘spare time’ is something of an aspiration rather than a reality!

Marko: Do you have a favorite drink? How much of it do you drink?
Kevin: I have two – Jonnie Walker Black Label and ice cold Grolsch. I don’t drink very much at all anymore. I’ve reached an age where comfy slippers and a nice cup of lemon tea are much more appealing than nights out on the lash.

Marko: Would you care to give us a brief overview of what a typical day is like for Kevin Leitch?
Kevin: Well, my eldest daughter has sleep problems (she’s autistic) and hence my day can frequently begin at about 1am. I take her downstairs and we do some PECS (which stands for Picture Exchange Communication System – its part of her Speech Therapy routine) or maybe she goes on the PC. After that she’ll want to watch a DVD so I do a bit of work if there’s some to do.

Around 8am I leave for my day job which is to produce standards based, usable, accessible interfaces for web based apps. Its a bloody great job as I can fart about in markup, CSS, javascript and Photoshop all day.

After I get home, we aim to get our eldest daughter to sleep by around 8pm and then we take it in turns through teh night to feed our youngest daughter who’s only a few months old. If its the weekend, my son is over from his Mum’s as well.

Marko: I am always wondering how people such as yourself go about getting work? How do you do it?
Kevin: As an in-house designer its as easy as getting a brief emailed to me from my boss!

Marko: Who are some of your biggest influences?
Kevin: Thats tricky. I’m sure I have lots of influences I’m not even conciously aware of. We all do. However, I can remember watching an old series of a Gary Rhodes cookery show and really liking the interface of the program – the way they presented the list of ingredients for each dish and the clean but striking look of the presented dish. So, um, Gary Rhodes. There’s lots of people who I’ve read in relation to a particular concept and thought ‘damn…I get it’. People like Colin Moock, or D Keith Robinson, Or Jeremy Keith. I think for each of us, the ones who resonate the most with us are the ones that seem to share an idea that we have – a sort of confirmation of a direction we believe is right.

Marko: Is your background in design? What was the progression into web development and design like? How did that take place and why?
Kevin: I once helped to layout ads on a creaky old Mac (and learned to detest Quark into the bargain) which I suppose is sort of related. Other than that I started pretty much when the web did. I think for a lot of people in the standards community its a similar story – get online early, become self taught etc etc.

I actually specialised in Flash and it nearly cost me my career. I got a job with a design agency on the strength of my Flash work and we did work for Disney, Jarvis, NatWest etc but as the dotcom bubble burst Flash work dried up and I was made redundant. It was then that a couple of friends (Gez of Juicystudio.com and Sam of hampton-smith.com) basically told me to look to web standards. So for me the idea of ‘redemption through standards’ is literally the case.

Marko: If you where not a designer/programmer what would you be?
Kevin: Bored mate. Really bored.

Marko: How do you like our site mcville.net?
Kevin: The black and white’s a bit sexy – not sure about all the wee buttons though. And the side menu made me grit my teeth once or twice ;o)

Marko: O it’s really that bad? :)
Kevin: Ha! Its not bad at all – the content (‘king’ remember?) is great!

Marko: What kind of music do you fancy?
Kevin: A fair mix. A quick glance at my MP3 player reveals The Clash, Slipknot, Thin Lizzy, Pantera, Buzzcocks, Muddy Waters (Mannish Boy could be the best song ever written) and erm, Britney (kidding!!).

Marko: What’s your favorite food?
Kevin: Anything I can eat either standing up or chasing after errant children.

Marko: Where do you get out on Saturday’s?
Kevin: My armchair ;o)
Marko: hahaha :)

some relaxing question to follow

Marko: Chinese or Thai (food)?
Kevin: Thai.

Marko: Coke or Pepsi?
Kevin: Coke – its the real thing apparently.

Marko: html or css?
Kevin: CSS as I don’t use HTML anymore.

Marko: Do you watch television? If so, do you have a favorite show?
Kevin: I’m addicted to ‘Lost’ and I’m a diehard fan of ‘Twin Peaks’ (Damn you David Lynch – when will Season 2 get released on DVD???)

Marko: What would we find in your favorites bookmarks-bar?
Kevin: Loads of stuff on autism, loads of stuff on design, loads of stuff on development.

Marko: What inspires you? This doesn’t have to be design related.
Kevin: At the moment I’m totally in love with those 1920’s Soviet posters – thats a pretty iconic style. I’m toying with the idea of implementing something similar for a blog reskin. My wife and kids are pretty inspirational too.

Marko: Thank again for having this interview, cheers m8!
Kevin: No worries mate. Thanks for asking me.

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Kevin Leitch Interview

Nov 16, 06:58 PM by Marko