Interview: Pat Queisler

Pat is one of those designers that lurk around deviantART, not submitting the trend-whore designs, gets little fave or attention but is truly skillful and passionate about his craft. Today, we'd like to do more than showcase his work where you can see here: patqueisler.deviantart.com/gal…

Today it's about getting to know the designer. Who he is, what he thinks and what does he do for the most part of his working life? This will give us an insight that we wouldn't normally see from one's gallery at deviantART. So without further ado, I present to you, the interview with Pat Queisler, designer at i22.de GmbH.

Pat, how are you? Firstly, thanks for having this interview with us.
Hi Damian, thanks for this opportunity of sharing some experience with all the other people on DA. I’ve got a little cold, but that’s somewhat normal in our agency here. No one ever goes home with a cold and we’re infecting each other. We really should work on that .


Many may not know you at Designers'Couch or deviantART in general so why don't you tell us a bit about yourself?
I’m 25 years young and live in the former capital of Germany, Bonn. It’s also the place of birth of Ludwig van Beethoven, so we got a lot of history here. I moved to Bonn about five years ago after I got the opportunity to start working in a small local agency. I was the first “designer” in this company (with a total of 3 people). Now, just a few years later, we are 30 people here. I absolutely identify myself with this job, it’s now just my work I have to do to live, it’s what I love.

A while ago I found a design here on DA saying something like “creativity gives you a headache, lots of stress, it’s hard and you’ve always to give you best – but I’d rather die than doing something else”. I think that describes my point of view pretty good.

I am absolutely addicted to my job, which is pretty crazy, because I’ve always been a lazy guy. But when I do something, I do it right. Before I started to work in our agency I quit school just 3 months before my graduation because I just wasn’t able to work with my teachers. So studying at a university never was an option for me, I really, really hate all that theoretical stuff. I’m good in the practical parts.


How did you get into design and what is it in your personal opinion?
As a child I loved drawing, mostly comic stuff like Batman or characters of Street Fighter. I tried to draw real things, like the classic fruits on a table – but failed miserably. Then, until I was about 14, I did’t have that much to do with anything design related. But then something came up that changed my life: the internet! I remember my first hour and the web: I thought “oh cool, that’s a website – how can I create my own?”. I think that was when it all started.

I started creating websites with Microsoft Word (dear reader, you may laugh now). But just a few days later I wanted to change things on that website I couldn’t do with Word, so I had to look at the sourcecode. And I understood pretty fast, that Word doesn’t create usable sourcecode. I started to learn HTML just by creating my own websites. Of course everything was done with tables, what funnily helps me today when working on newsletters.

I always loved things with a special design, now just cars or gadgets, also architecture and photography. My grandfather was a photographer until he died when I was 2 years old by cancer. Maybe I got some of his skills. When I was a teenager I had a REALLY hard time in my life and it’s sort of a miracle that I’m still alive. But that was a time when I learned a lot about how to “design feelings”. How to express anger, love or hate in a design?

From my point of view that sort of learning is the best that can happen to you. I met a lot of designers who came from a university and knew almost anything about the history of typography, but they never created a complete website for a product. So those were the guys talking what is good and bad in design, and I’ve been the one just doing the damn website and get the project rolling.


How would you describe your style in design and why do you chose this style?
Ah, that’s difficult. As someone who works for different clients I have to deal with their styleguides. During the years I added more and more of “my style” when I thought that would be better than what the styleguide said, and clients listened to me. I always try to design in a way like nature may have done it. When all those glossy style buttons and effects came up, I spent hours watching windows just to see how they reflect light and how to make my designs look more real.

I also try to bring in some haptic. I’ve seen an interview with Walter de Silva, who designed for Seat during this time, a few years ago. He was speaking about haptic in car-design and how to make things look like you want to touch it. I thought about that for a long time and was sure, that haptic is something what is missing in webdesign. Of course you can’t touch elements on a website with your fingers, but your mouse is becoming your finger and so you should see which elements on a website you can touch and what will happen – before you hover your mouse.

I often see things that are so far from reality, they just look wrong. Just yesterday I’ve seen a website which had green grass as a background image. And on that grass was a shiny button with a reflection. Wow, that grass is made of shiny metal or what? Grass doesn’t reflect things, so why add a reflection? These are things not only designers will see, my grandmother could see that something is wrong with that layout.


Many haven't seen most of your works because they're highly confidential so can you tell us who are some of the companies done web design for?
T-Mobile Germany, T-Mobile International, T-Com, T-Systems, T-Online, Deutsche Telekom, PPD Paperproducts Design, Volksbank, OCRANA, Al Rayyan Farm, Congstar, Defence Professionals, Hahn AG, Apple, D-Link, ATI, … and a lot of small projects for local clients.


Tell us about your work at T-Mobile and what it was like working on the iPhone section of the website?
We’re working for a lot of different departments at T-Mobile, but that’s nothing special. We are a full service company, so the do nearly anything, from design to programming, SEO, video, newsletters, concepting, writing etc.

The iPhone project was a little different. Our two CEOs came in from a meeting at T-Mobile and asked me and a colleague (call us Art-Directors if you like, we have a really flat hierachy) to come over. They closed the door, and on a table was a pretty long document. They put a blank paper on it, so we couldn’t read anything – “just sign here” they said. I’ve out my shirt on them, so that wasn’t a big deal for me and I signed it. That was the NDA. They told us what happened and what we have to do. The problem was: No one was allowed to know that we do. All our designers are in one room and we never close any doors. We had one empty room in the office, because we just moved there a few months earlier. So, we packed our computers and tables in the afternoon and moved to that other room and hanged a paper on the door saying “Do not disturb”.

The next day everyone was asking what’s going on and we had to tell them that we are working on a styleguide and need silence.

The first thing I did was to write a presentation how Apple sells products and how the Apple users in Germany think. There were a lot of fake layouts in the internet weeks before, so I had a look at all the comments on the blogs and forums. With that presentation we went over to T-Mobile and showed the responsible persons what we definitively should not do. We then started working on some layouts in different styles, from 100% Apple style to 100% T-Mobile style, and tried to merge those two styles of design and communication. A lot of meetings later we had a final layout and were able to start programming. I asked another colleague if he could help us out with our “styleguide”. He had to sign the NDA and move to our room. It’s a small room and the door had to be closed, so it started to get a little annoying.

When we talked about the project outside our room we said “Voldemort” instead of iPhone (He who must not be named) and “Hogwards” instead of Apple. So, anyone knew that we weren’t working on a styleguide, but our colleagues and friends were so kind not to ask. I even wasn’t allowed to tell my girlfriend, but she understood that breaking that NDA is not a good idea.

I really, really enjoyed that project and met some very interesting people during that time. It’s a dream of most designers to do something for Apple, isn’t it?


I personally loved wiiarefree.com. Tell us a bit about this project.
When that “Web 2.0” hype came up a lot of clients asked for the possibilities of communities and social networks. I’ve always been a part of communities, as a normal user like here on DA or as a writer at planetquake.de and inUnreal.de. But I never created a community by myself, so I just didn’t know how to deal with users and handle all that stuff. The launch of the Nintendo Wii was imminent and I really liked the idea of that console, so I launched a simple blog called wiiarefree.com. It took a few months until the first users came, and I added more and more features to the website, like a forum, friendcodes, etc.

I wrote some very personal articles about how I am thinking about the Wii and the site became a place for very friendly people to comment and meet each other. A few times I wrote articles with a bad tone, crying about lack of features, just to see how the users react. I was surprised that it was that easy to keep everything together and make everybody understand what I’m doing and why. I even added more and more ads to the site and was absolutely sure that users would complain, but no one did. So I learned some lessons how to work with your users, how to listen to them, how to make them understand. That was a pretty interesting process.

Sadly I lost interest in the Wii a while ago, but I found other people as dedicated as I have been to keep the site running. I didn’t want to close the site just because I’ve lost interest, that wouldn’t be fair.


As a developer/designer, what are the differences in designing and developing a website in another language than English, specifically, German? What are the considerations?
German and English aren’t that different when it comes to design. The only problem is, that it’s “cool” to use English words on a German sites, which leads to “Denglisch” (deutsch-englisch). That sounds awkward sometimes and doesn’t make sense at all, so you have to get around this. But I’ve seen on of those “PC/Mac” ads from Apple, where the Mac says “Gesundheit”. Seems German words are a trend in the US as well.

I did a website for a sheikh from Qatar and was really thankful that he wanted it to be in English .


Do you feel that as a web designer it's required for one to know xhtml/css? What's your reason?
It’s not required, but it helps a lot. For example, some designers make every link look different or use different text-sizes for headlines. As a programmer you would never do that – and of course every designer knows that is sucks when the programmer asks him what the heck he was thinking.

Sometimes I just got an idea of a cool website or application, and I make a design, code it, order a domain and it’s online, like my Home Sweet Home concept. That’s what I like. I am just like the fire department in our agency. If any project is on fire, I can help out. I can do concepts, drawings, write a text, design it, code it, animate it with Flash, convert videos for streaming, create music for the background, optimize it for search engines and sell it to the client.

I don’t have to wait for a colleague to help me out, that’s a good feeling. I even can deal with PHP and databases, at least a little.


Can you lead us to some inspiration by providing 5 websites that by your definition defines good design?
Oh, that’s difficult. I surf a lot on the web and have some sites I visit a few times daily, but on all those sites content is king. So, talking about inspiration, those sites inspire me and my work:

- deviantART.com – it always helps to have a look at some designs to see how others dealt with this         and that problem.

-  freshome.com – Tips, Gadgets & Inspiration for your home.

- smashingmagazine.com – They always have some nice ideas.

- macnotes.de – It’s a german blog about Apple, and I really like their design. It’s so simple and clean, no glowing Apple logos or something like that.

Damn, I think that’s it. I don’t visit those “css gallery” sites that often, there are a lot of stunning designs, like on DA. Most of those super clean websites have the luck to be focused to one product only. It’s easy to design those sites, show a nice looking model with the product, list a few features, a big “buy now” button and line some awards . But it starts getting difficult when you have to design a website featuring about 10 to 20 products, features, plans etc. Or create a nice looking table with contract-details. That’s where design meets functionality, where you have to deal with usability and expectations. That’s what I like, application interfaces and such stuff.


Where do you see the internet and design in say, 10 years and where do you see yourself in relation to that prediction?
10 years is a pretty long time in the internet. I don’t know if webdesigners will still exist then, or if the client just tells his computer what he wants to show and a nice application does the design by itself. But speculating about the future of the internet is useless in my opinion, no one knows that’s coming. Have a look over to asia to see what’s coming next.

The internet is still something that has to do with computers under your desk, a monitor, mouse and keyboard. That is going to change step by step. I really love my iPhone just because of it’s Safari browser. Most people still don’t understand that adding more and more features to a mobile phone doesn’t make it the “iPhone killer”. It’s about usability, suckers! But that’s a different topic.


What advice do you have for budding designers?
Learning by doing, buddy. It never stops J. Don’t be a trendwhore and find something that you like in design, like I love application interfaces. And don’t listen to all that “design bla bla” and conventions. Nothing lasts forever.


When can we expect a personal portfolio site showcasing all your works?
Maybe never. Of course I’d like to show my work to other designers to get some critics, but I’ve got contracts and a satisfied client is worth everything. I don’t have to show my work to the world, it’s ok that way.


Is there anything we can expect from you in the near future?
Yeah, wiiarefree.com is getting a relaunch and name-change soon. I think about releasing the last 3 Wordpress themes of wiiarefree.com to the public to help other people to create their own websites and speak about that they love. I’ll release them on DA when the new website is online and I cleaned the source code.

Being a member of Deviantart.com for over 4 years, do you have any suggestions on design, brand or functionalities?
It’s more than 5 years . The problem all those big websites have is the amount of features. Users scream for new features every day, and sometimes you add some because you think they’re really cool. But every new feature make the site a little more messy and cluttered. It’s difficult to handle. I’d love a simple DA where you can just show your work and ideas and comment on other’s work. No forums, no daMN, no favorites, no whatever. Keep it simple, stupid . I can’t tell anything about the design and brand, it’s not my decision and I don’t want to criticise that enormous amount of work they’ve done. It’s a pretty cool band, and with Fella DA got a nice mascot. If I had one wish: Bring back the yellow alien!


Given your experience with wiiarefree.com, what is your advice to Designers'Couch and where do you see it going?
The problem designers’COUCH has is, that it is currently all about submitting artwork, but it’s not automated. So, a user submits something and an admin has to submit it to DA – and we all know that submitting artwork to DA isn’t just one click. I remember that DA planned something called “clubs”, but until now it hasn’t seen the light of day. Maybe those clubs would add some functionality that could speed things up for admins. If dC is going to launch an own website that would make things a LOT easier, but you’ll also have to face a loss of attention when users have to create a new login for another site. Using DA is pretty easy for them. I see a lot of potential for dC, but I can’t see the road ahead. It’s not clear where it is going, at least to me. But that’s a question the members of dC have to answer: where do you want go?


Again, thanks a lot for letting me speak about what I love here on DA. This community teached me a lot and I’m willed to give something back!
- Pat

Pat, again, thanks for the interview. It was insightful. We how there's more ways you can contribute to dA and DC.
- Damian