I have a signed painting from this Featured Artist, it is actually still unframed and it is sort of propped on top of some speakers on my entertainment center… What I mean is it is well displayed for all too see. Steve and I grew up together through our teen years, I have countless memories of us and all our other friends creating extraordinary moments in time, times to be remembered and that are. Much like Steve may tell you, I developed my artistic skills in high school, being constantly pushed and motivated in one of many art classes Mr. Shohada taught that I was in. Enough about me, I asked Steve to answer some questions for me about his painting starting with a brief background of himself, enjoy!

Give me a brief background on yourself:

I was born in Youngstown, Ohio and enjoyed the first 17 years of my life there. Summer before my senior year I moved to LA and finished up at Reseda High. This is ultimately when my life shifted gears. Music and Art seemed to flow quite naturally after taking a tour of the country and I feel blessed to have had these experiences… as, experience is the true artist in my life and its how I discovered what aspiration meant to me. In my short 25 years here on earth my life has been an abundance of adventure, peppered with sadness, but ultimately filled with memories I wouldn’t trade.

When did you notice yourself becoming artistic?

Well, I guess I was born with it… I’ve always liked to draw. I think High school really defined me as an artist only because everyone else thought I was haha. I did have a sketch book with me most of the time though so there was probable cause for the title.

When and Why did you take up painting?

Painting came when I moved to California. It was the era of changes in myself so I decided to put down pencils and pick up paint brushes.

Where or who do you draw your inspiration from?

I have something inside of me that likes to paint. Sometimes I don’t even feel like I’m in control of what I’m painting. Other times it feels like its trying to teach me, like it stands and watches over my shoulder. There’s a long story as to how I acquired it. But it seems to help channel places I’ve seen in dreams or maybe in other lives I don’t know where I find some of the landscapes that come out… but I rarely paint a picture of a picture I found on the web or somewhere.

Do you think your Art carries a message, or messages?

Absolutely, “perfection is subjective to an individual’s perspective.” – me
I believe everyone sees slightly different, so an image of something like, a blue wild flower in a field, sends a message, though one might take it as serenity and one with nature, while another sees loneliness or lost soul in a big world… either way it sent a message.

Who is your favorite painter (or artist), if you have one?

I really don’t have one in particular as a favorite. I will say that I’m not a fan of Picasso.
I really enjoy Alex Grey, Salvador Dali, and Thomas Kinkade as far as famous artists.
Bradford Rigby, Mike Lohr, Jules Muck, these are friends and talented artists that aren’t famous YET…

What mediums do you use in your Art?

Oils are pretty much all I use anymore. Though I dabble with spray paint and pencil/charcoal stuff as well.

How long does it take you to complete a work of art?

That has many variables to factor in, in order to give it a time measurement. For example, canvas size the bigger the longer… is it a commissioned piece (meaning does it have to be something specific that someone requested) or is it a personal doesn’t matter what comes out piece? (my favorite) So it all depends on the piece at hand really. For me, I enjoy spending more time on big canvases.

Do you ever have a problem knowing when a painting is finished?

Yeah I think that happens to most artists… My imagination can really run sometimes so it just wants to add so much more detail to its world for everyone else to really experience what kind of place it is.

Steve of course refused to comment on the pictures of him and actress Carr– just kidding! Seriously, I thank my good friend Steve for answering these questions, and sharing his Art with us.

Please be sure to go visit Steve Avila’s own website which features a portfolio of his art work and painting. You can contact Steve through his site for inquires into purchasing a piece from him. And remember to keep your eyes on TripleOneSix for more future Featured Interviews and Articles like this one!

When I had the idea to start doing a Featured Designer Interview series I had little doubt in my mind with who I wanted to begin with. That being said, I wanted someone who embodied all the attributes a good designer would need: creativity, experience, the skill sets and of course the obsession to get whatever they were working on just right. Christopher Cecill has all those attributes, and more. He has also been a long time acquaintance of mine since the days when we were both timidly stepping out into the brave new world of web and graphic design.

I began my online friendship with the Vancouver based designer on an online art and design forum known as, thePAD. Then I knew him only as his alias, “illcec” (a play on his last name). We would both post our artwork for others to critique, albeit sometimes a little too brutally, but I can speak for myself when I say it always helped me improve. Sadly thePAD was eventually shut down, so along with a few other members that I had become close too, we started our own graphic and art discussion forum and I believe I chose the name, inFLUX. Chris, or illcec, joined our new forum and resumed posting his work. This was when I really got to know Chris, I can’t tell you how many times I would get an IM from him telling me that I once again misspelled a word on the newest version of my website, he was like my own personal editor and one that I apparently needed badly. Knowing Chris not only improved my spelling and grammar but my design and coding skills as well. In fact I can say that I credit him with turning me onto the now standard XHTML and CSS languages, without which knowing you wouldn’t be reading this on my website, or maybe it would have frames…yuck.

Okay so now that I have given you a bit of a background on this month’s Featured Designer, I asked Chris to answer a few questions that mainly pertain to what he does for a living, design. Enjoy.

How was it that you began getting involved with graphic and web design?

It was around 2001 and I bought my first-ever PC/laptop. I bought it to play Team Fortress and Tribes 2, but a friend of mine was a Marketing Consultant and he needed help managing a few websites and print catalogs. I started with preparing images for print and web. It was a lot of cutting out product shots and adding a background. After that I started using Front page and making web layouts. I’m sure I still have them saved somewhere, but I’m too embarrassed to look at them!

Have you had any formal education or training in your current field, or were you completely self taught?

I did a lot of sculpture, drawing, and painting when I was in school. With web, graphics, and software I’m self-taught via the internet, trial and error, and 30 or so revisions of my personal portfolio site.

Working for clients, what are some tips you can give for dealing with the frustrations of the clients needs?

Most clients have an image of what they want in their head, but it isn’t always easy for them to convey that to the designer. With a controlling client, I do try my best to arrive at an agreeable compromise, but I have had a few jobs where the client and I just could not agree. I try to pass those jobs off to another designer, or just get them out of the way and leave them out of my portfolio.

Have you ever had a project go over budget or over schedule due to something you did?

Yes. I’ve taken on too much work in the past and been unable to deliver everything on schedule. I did have to finish a site one time while on vacation in Indonesia. It actually wasn’t a bad thing and it showed me that I can do my job from just about anywhere.

If something is going over budget and it’s my fault, I will usually eat the cost. This happens all the time because I want a site to shine, or I’m fighting for hours with some obscure WordPress, or JQuery plugin.

What strategies do you employ to make sure a site is easy to use?

The web is old enough now that there are some conventions about where you put things on a site. A lot of it is fairly obvious and goes without saying. With larger monitors, websites can be bigger and have larger elements. You can go pretty far with good content hierarchy and large headings, a navigation that is quickly and easily understood, and key information where the user would expect to find it.

What can you offer that other designers can’t?

Photography, copy writing, email marketing, web hosting with on-call support, exposure through my website and featured client spreads.

I try to make every design unique. It’s not the most time-efficient approach, but I take pride in delivering a completely custom-built site. Also, I’m a one-man WordPress/Drupal/ExpressionEngine shop with some decent Javascript/AJAX/DHTML chops.

Chris is one of the lead designers behind his design group Factotum. Together with his brother, they create unique and user friendly web sites for their clients. You can check out his work on both his personal site, as well as on the company portfolio of Factotum Design Group. Also, don’t forget to follow @Factotumdesign and visit their Facebook page!

Chris also provided me with a “ProTip”:

I’ve recently started using a program called WebDrive that enables me to access a web server as though it were a drive on my computer, and edit the files directly on the server. It saves a lot of dragging, dropping, uploading, and time.

Before posting this, I downloaded the trial of WebDrive, and have been using it since, I recommend it to any web designer. In closing I would like to sincerely thank Chris for doing this interview, and for always being helpful when I needed it the most whenever I would be stuck on some random code or graphic problem. I consider him a friend, and I have never even met him in real life, I think maybe we should change that fact Chris.