The Great Discontent is this amazingly designed and written interview site ran by Ryan and Tina Essmaker, featuring creatives such as artists, illustrators, photographers and musicians. If learning about my story is your bag, head on over to the site to read the interview.

How have you come to have the success that you’ve had?

It’s only through God’s grace. He’s really just put me in the right places at the right times.

I can’t honestly say it’s been anything I’ve done on my own. I’ve been really blessed to have met some wonderful people, and doors have been opened through them that I never could have expected.

Tell us one thing we don’t know about you.

I’m a sneaker fiend. Working at Foot Locker and its subsidiaries all through high school afforded me the luxury of having a new pair of sneakers every day for a few months.

I’ve cut down to about 25 pairs nowadays.

Name the top tools of your trade. Go!

A sketchbook and imagination. I love to sketch because it’s one of the only mediums where I’m more concerned about getting an idea across than perfecting elements like alignment, colors, or typography.

As far as digital tools go, I’m in Photoshop every day, and probably couldn’t do what I do without it. I also just got into using a Wacom tablet, and I see no signs of turning back!

Name three people that you admire and why.

My wife. From the first time I met her—in fifth grade!—I knew she was a passionate person. Whenever there’s something she’s driven to do, you better believe she’ll get it done. She’s got a really fine sense of people: how they’re feeling, what their body language is saying, how to be empathetic. I’ve learned so much from her about how to love and how to live.

My dad. He’s a very smart man and many people go to him for advice. Whenever I go to him, though, he never seems to actually tell me what to do but instead points me in the right direction to make the decisions on my own. It’s a unique quality to possess both wisdom and humility, but my dad has a great balance of both.

Superman. Flight, strength, speed… What’s not to admire?!

Favorite 3 typefaces on impulse, even if it’s Comic Sans or Papyrus. Go!

Mustardo, Bauer Bodoni and Estilo Text.

Tell me a story about your favorite project you’ve worked on.

In December 2006, I had the chance to travel to Dublin for a project with Happy Cog for Comhaltas, an organization than promotes Irish music and culture. We went with all of our significant others to attend the Comhaltas holiday party.

One night, Emily—my girlfriend at the time—suggested a horse and carriage ride around Dublin Square. She had a chance to see the city already, but because I had been in a training session with the client all day, I hadn’t had the chance to see much of the beautiful city. I agreed to the ride.

About halfway through, I reached into my coat pocket, pulled out the engagement ring we had shopped for months earlier, and popped the question.

Her response? “Hell yeah!”

What is the most important skill to possess as a designer?

Open-mindedness. And some sick design chops.

What is your biggest passion in life?

Living, of course! As a Christian, I try to claim the promise that we should have abundant life. Although I love what I do for a living, I try not to work too hard. Instead, I love spending time with my wife, family, and friends.

Also, I’ve been a musician my whole life. My other passion is sharing the gospel through music. Until recently, I was a singer/keyboard-player for Philadelphia-based contemporary Christian band Four24. I’m not playing or singing anywhere right now (other than studio work with the band), but I’m sure it’s just a matter of time until it becomes a part of my new New York life.

Can you share any hard lessons you’ve learned being a designer?

I think the Art of Clients™ is a difficult one to master. Getting a client to articulate their thoughts in a way that gets you excited often seems like voodoo to me. Listening—not hearing, but really listening—and asking the right follow-up questions take a lifetime of repetition. Occassionally, there will be a client with exceptional communication skills, but interpretation and appropriate action are generally skills you’ll have to work hard on your own to hone.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

Happy!

What piece of design work are you the most proud of?

Just yesterday, I started and finished a redesign of my own site that I’m finally happy with. So, new site coming soon! (But beware: I’ve been saying that for the last 4 years.)

Any advice to complete noobs on any subject?

Dear noobs: you can do anything. The end.

One thing I love about teaching is seeing students that think they can do everything. “No need to hire an illustrator, because I can illustrate. Why commission a photographer when I have a decent camera and a good eye?” That’s the kind of mindset that moves mountains.

I’ve been lucky to work on projects where it was feasible to commission illustration or outsource some 3D, but the danger is that it sometimes produces negative and siloed views at one’s own skills. I grew up drawing my whole life, yet because I drew less and less, I started to believe that I actually couldn’t draw anymore. There are definitely people that excel at their trades and there’s wrong with specializing, but believing in the fact that you can do anything can bring a confidence to your work that generates surprising results.

You’ve recently transitioned from Happy Cog, a very highly respected design firm to Big Spaceship, another highly respected design firm. Can you share anything that you have learned from Happy Cog and tell us what you love about Big Spaceship (other than the insanely cool name)?

The most valuable lesson that I’ve learned from working at Happy Cog comes in two parts. Part one: only do work that you stand behind. Part two: fight for work that you’re proud of.

I think the level of work that comes out of Happy Cog is top notch, and the only way to maintain that level of quality is to really be committed to every piece of work that is created. Happy Cog always strives to work with interesting clients doing interesting things, and that has its rewards. Conversely, they aren’t afraid to walk away when there’s a client disregards the fundamental values that make the work what it is.

An insanely cool name implies an insanely cool place, and Big Spaceship more than fits the bill. There were 3 big things that sold me on uprooting my established Philly life and moving to a new city:

1. Big Spaceship’s work is what made me interested in web design in the first place. As you can imagine, being a huge fanboy made it impossible to turn down this offer.
2. Everyone is creative. At Big Spaceship, the term “creative” isn’t reserved for people who know how to use Photoshop. Brainstorming and ideation are a company-wide activity. All ideas are treated as valuable, regardless of where they come from.
3. The company culture is one of experimentation. A lot of our time is spent just figuring stuff out. When people are in this mode 24/7, it produces astounding results, whether it’s for clients or not. For instance, when we were interested in physical computing, we “hooked the Twitter API into a servo motor”, seen here. I’ve got a decent handful of new ideas between my sketchbook, my inbox, and physical objects sitting on or around my desk that will probably soon see the light of day.

Got any samples of your work you’d like to show off?

All the work that I’m proud of—and am allowed to show—can be found at portfolio.danielmall.com.

Epilogue

Dan Mall is an award-winning interactive art director, designer, and developer. He is an enthralled husband, Senior Designer at Big Spaceship, technical editor for A List Apart, and former singer/keyboard player for contemporary-Christian band Four24. Dan writes about design and other issues on Twitter and his industry-recognized site, danielmall.com.

Housing Works, Art Direction & Design by Dan Mall

First, follow Dan on Twitter. I do. You should because he’s awesome. Ok, phew, that is out of the way.

I first came to know of Dan through Twitter through my friend Jesse Gardner (another great designer). The first design I saw of Dan’s was Housing Works, which of course, I was blown away by. I loved it. I loved that it seems original and unique. I loved that it didn’t follow all the trends in the book. It was gorgeous and seemed to tell the story of Housing Works, an organization moved to help prevent AIDS as well as the people it helped. Great direction.

Dan has also been involved with designer-loved organizations such as Mozilla and A List Apart. He’s got a ton of amazing work in his portfolio, but the pieces that really stand out to me are his recent work with Preventiv (view in his portfolio), the website for Four24, Housing Works and Parc Rittenhouse. To me his art direction exudes such a timeless classic nature (a sort of holy grail for designers) with a focus on rich typography and photography. I think it’s safe to say that I’d like to be like Dan one day.

I absolutely loved interviewing Dan. He is such a kind and humble person, always giving glory to God and not himself. It is this quality that I think makes him so great, not good, but great at what he does. He truly is a stunning designer, yet he presents himself in a manner that encourages others at their level. He is careful not to step on peoples pride when assessing their designs, yet ready to give his own opinion when asked in a way which honors the designer. I say he has the Art of Humility™ down. I can’t wait to see what great designs he churn outs next.

Why do you enjoy social networking?

I love people. When I’m out and about, I am always people-watching. I’ve been known to drift off in conversation because I find myself intrigued by people nearby and what they do. This is why I love Twitter so much. It’s interesting to know what people are up to and what they have to say. This is also why I enjoy anthropology classes in school. So social networking is like this for me but online. It’s fun.

Favorite 3 typefaces on impulse, even if it’s Comic Sans or Papyrus. Go!

Hoefler Text, Myriad, Helvetica

What is your specialty in your industry?

I focus on both visual interaction design and CSS architecture. Oh, and I’m really good at eating cookies. I should do a conference talk on it one of these days.

Name one of your favorite webbies and why.

Only one? I have many to choose from… A recent favorite is Meagan Fisher (owltastic.com) on Twitter @MeaganFisher. She is a very good designer, a cool chick to chat with on Twitter, and a fellow fan of Twilight.

Sushi & Robots. I gotta know. Why the obsession?

Uh, because they are AWESOME? Jeez, like you even have to ask.

Haha, seriously, though, these are two of my favorite things. So I figured… why not put the two together for my site’s name? I like it. It totally works for me.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I want to act in a Tim Burton movie one day. :) Especially if it means I get to make out with Johnny Depp.

Any advice to complete web noobs?

While it is definitely good to know as much as you can about the web, find your one thing and get good at it. REALLY good at it. People will eventually seek you out for that… and you’ll get to do the other stuff along the way. At least that’s how it was for me.

Also, stand up for yourself and learn to say no. It’s easy when starting out to let people walk all over you and take advantage of you, especially if you are new. Your health and emotional state is a key part of your life, and more important to you than how much work you can get. I still sometimes struggle with learning to say no, but I work on it constantly, and advise you do too.

How did you get into art, development, speaking, writing, and design?

I’ve always liked creating things, whether they were handmade greeting cards, drawings, hand-made plush teddy bears, or whatever. Ever since I can remember I’ve been making stuff. When I was about 14, my dad showed me a website he made by himself using AOL’s web site creation tools back in the day. I was fascinated. He could type something and out popped a website! He was using very minimal HTML code (and relied heavily on tables), but this was enough to get my big hobby going. I would sit for hours and hours doing this in my evenings and weekends.

When I went to college, I chose art school because I wanted to be a graphic designer. Somewhere along the way I realized I could merge my hobby of designing things with my hobby of HTML — and actually make a living doing it.

The speaking and writing came as an added bonus. Once I got the first writing gig (the chapter for The Art & Science of CSS), the rest kinda fell into place. :) It’s great — I enjoy doing it and it works well as a primer for one of my future goals of getting into teaching.

Favorite Robot. Go!

Eve from Wall-E. She’s so cute.

Favorite Sushi. Go!

If sashimi counts, I really love sake (salmon). If not, and nigiri counts, I really love unagi (eel). But if we’re talking strictly rolls, I tend to go for a spider roll… or a caterpillar roll.

What is your one passion in the web industry?

Again, I only get one? :) I suppose I would go with sharing/teaching. I love that the web industry seems to be one of the most open industries in terms of sharing skill sets and techniques. This is something I want to be more of a part of.

Who is your favorite vampire and why?

Celine, the death dealer from Underworld. She is such a bad*** and she looks super hot in that black outfit.

Epilogue

Jina’s words and things can be read and bought over at her blog, Sushi & Robots. You can follow her on twitter @jina and she’ll probably talk with you, considering her social butterfly’ness. She is currently employed at Crush + Lovely, a company that shares her vision in creating relationships. If you want to read Jina’s works, I suggest checking out the following of her writings:

• The Art & Science of CSS
  Published March 2007
• 23 Beautiful Examples of Web Site Archives
• Writing an Interface Style Guide
• Make it Modular
• Creating Sexy Stylesheets
• Breaking Out of the Box

It’s apparent that you’ve been a great designer for years, but why the recent success?

Good question. I ask myself that all the time! Well the obvious answer is Weightbot. Little did I know that the day I started designing a weight tracker on the iPhone would change my career so drastically. And I think the only reason was that great design was far and few between on the iPhone. People were craving for apps that were polished and well-designed. I couldn’t really break through as a web designer because there’s so much great talent (including you!) getting all the attention.

Favorite 3 typefaces on impulse, even if it’s comic sans or Papyrus. Go!

This is tough, but I’d have to say Helvetica, Din, and Univers. I know, I’m boring.

What is your specialty in your industry?

I guess that would be user interface design. But I’m far from any expert. I’m the Mario in the Super Mario Bros. world. I’m not great at one thing, but average at a lot. I think it has something to do with the way I was raised. My mom is Korean and I grew up in somewhat of a Korean cultural environment. They tend to want to try everything.

Name one of your favorite webbies and why.

Are you speaking of web celebs? My top 3 favorite web designers are Tim Van Damme, Shaun Inman, and Bryan Veloso. I’m not claiming them as the best of the best (although they very well could be). Their work just speaks to me personally. Oh you said one? I probably couldn’t pick one between them.

Tell me a story about Tapbots and how it started.

I was working for Oakley at the time. Paul Haddad (also at Oakley) has been developing Mac software for many years and asked if I was interested in helping him do an iPhone app. He wanted to do a weight tracker just to test the market and I was just excited to give it a shot. I had just finished watching Pixar’s Wall·e a few weeks earlier and had an idea about creating utility “robots” from that scene in the spaceship where you saw all the different defective robots. Everything was smooth sailing from there.

What are your tools of choice?

Behance Dot Grid Books are amazing. If you design interfaces, I highly suggest them. Other than that, I just use Photoshop and Illustrator for 99.9% of my work.

What is the most important skill to possess as a designer?

For me it’s humbleness and the never-ending will to learn and grow. Technology changes so fast. If you want to be useful 10-15 years from now, you really need to keep an open mind. You also have to realize that there are 8 year olds building websites and using photoshop. There’s a new breed of designers coming who will be better, faster, and work for half the price. I’ll never see myself as an accomplished designer. There’s just so much to learn and so much room for improvement.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

When I was a kid, I wanted to be a baseball player. My uncle in Korea was a famous pro ball player over there. My dad almost got drafted into the majors and his dad knew Ted Williams. It was destiny. But reality caught up with me and I ended up being a designer. Where do I see myself 20-30 years from now? Not sure really. But I have a lot of hobbies and maybe one of them will grow into a new career when I’m older. I’m really into photography these days. Maybe in 20 years I might be good enough to make a 2nd career out of it.

How hard is it to start up a iPhone application design store?

You mean a company? It couldn’t be easier. Apple has made things fairly easy to make a successful business on the app store. That’s assuming you bring the right ingredients to the pot. The App store is very magical in the way it can take our product and put it in the hands of people around the world. Sure the web does the same thing, but in the app store, it’s so much easier.

Any advice to complete noobs on any subject?

If you are a young designer, take risks. Change jobs often (unless you absolutely love your job, of course). Use all that free time you have to learn and grow as a designer. The older you get, the less time you have and the slower your brain wants to work. Keep all your old work around and go back to look at it very 6-12 months. You have no idea how much motivation comes from seeing how much you’ve improved over time. Don’t think you know everything. Every time I think back to my past, I see how ignorant and foolish I was. There was a time when I thought WYSIWYG editors were the best way to build websites and that hand coders were crazy and wasting time.

I see that you love to sketch. Do you have any sketches you’d like to share? Do you use your sketches in prototyping your applications?

I’ve been drawing since I was a kid. In high school and college, instead of taking notes, I was drawing pictures. I wanted to be an illustrator, but didn’t have that innate talent in drawing. My drawing capabilities are based on a lot of hard work. And even then, they aren’t that great. At least not good enough to do as a career. Here’s the last free-form sketch I did. I drew/painted it with a tablet and used a mix between Sketchbook Pro and Photoshop. I ended up using this guy on my website with the intention of having more, but never had the time.

I do sketch when prototyping apps. It keeps me from thinking so much about textures, colors, and shapes. I can focus on general structure and usability.

What is your one passion in the web industry?

Not sure the best way to answer that, but I can say this. The part of being a web designer that excites me the most—the moment in the process that makes me love my job, is when I’m writing the CSS and see my design come to life section by section. I can’t speak for other designers, but that’s the most enjoyable part for me. And I don’t really have an answer as to why.

Dogs or Cats?

Dogs. I’m not a cat hater though. I’d love to have a cat, but I’m allergic to them. They seem pretty entertaining, but to be honest, I always feel like I can’t trust them. Probably because I’ve never owned one. Dogs on the other hand, are just great. I’d be pretty sad if I were allergic to them, but fortunately I’ve been blessed with the ability to live with man’s best friend. My first dog was a chocolate lab. She was great, but stayed with my family when I moved out for college and she died a few years ago. My wife and I have a 3 year old female Shiba Inu now. They are awesome dogs, but need a lot of work. They are almost like wild dogs in the sense that they weren’t bred to be domestic in looks or behavior. Everyone who sees our dog says she looks like a little fox. Anyways, dogs rock and Shiba Inus rock (although they aren’t for everyone).

Thanks for the interview! It was fun.

Epilogue

Mark Jardine has impressed and inspired me in his ability jump ship to the freelance world, to create such pixel-perfect products as well as such innovative products. His contributions to the design world and especially the iPhone world will be the model and inspiration for many applications and websites to come.

I want to thank Mark for letting me interview him. He’s a great soul and a kind fella. If you love Mark Jardine’s work as much as I do, I highly recommend the following links:

• markjardine.com Mark’s personal website
• twitter.com/markjardine Follow Mark on twitter
• radiantmars.com The works of Mark Jardine
• Los Angeles Aiki Kai One of my personal favorite’s in Mark’s portfolio
• tapbots.com Mark Jardine and Paul Haddad’s iPhone app website
• pth.com The website of Paul Haddad, Mark’s developer in arms