Interview: EWebscapes Blog Design Studio
Interview with Lisa Sabin-Wilson of EWebscapes Blog Design Studio
[Mike] Firstly can I say a big thank you for agreeing to take the time to participate in this interview. I tend to say a big thank you to anyone who agrees to provide the Voisd Webmaster Blog and its readers with an insight into the running of their business however your schedule appears to be fuller than most at the moment due to you agreement to undertake the task of writing the official “Wordpress for Dummies” book for Wiley Publishing. This is obviously an excellent opportunity although thoroughly deserved, how did such an opportunity arise?
[Lisa] A big thank you right back for your interest, Mike. My schedule is extremely full right now, especially with the WordPress for Dummies project. It has been quite a large project that eats up the majority of my time, lately. I am, however, almost finished with it, so hopefully I’ll be able to get things back to ‘normal’ - whatever that means.
The WordPress for Dummies project came about through a referral from a colleague of mine, Susie Gardener from Hop Studios.
[Mike] You’ve been running EWebscapes since 1999 and since become the most recognised Wordpress design business on the web, not only due to your reputation but also because of your prominent rankings in the search engines. Where did the idea of EWebscapes come from – why the decision to specialise in the niche Wordpress design industry?
[Lisa] E.Webscapes started out in 1999 as a hobby site. My career, at the time, was nursing. I worked full time as an RN in home hospice, providing care to terminally ill patients, and their families, in their homes. Graphic design and website development was how I de-stressed after a long day at work. Back then, the title of the site was actually “Elegant Webscapes”. The word “Elegant” is obvious, however I chose “Webscapes” because building beautiful site designs is like landscaping, except for the web. In 2002, I shortened the name to “E.Webscapes” because it seemed less clunky and gave the site a trendier name and brand.
My hobby, back then, was graphic design. I was using the graphics I designed to build HTML pages and gave them away, for free, as ‘linkware’. It was in 2002 that I discovered blogging and began a natural transition from creating HTML based sites to creating blog templates. At first, I developed templates for Movable Type and started giving them away for free. People started using my free templates and eventually came back with requests for custom work. When WordPress was released - I made the switch and never looked back, once.
WordPress became the platform I focused on because it appealed to me more than any of the others. E.Webscapes does provide custom design solutions for all blogging platforms - I think the fact that E.Webscapes is known for WordPress designs is a direct reflection of my own passion for the software.
In 2003, I started a hosting division called Blogs About Hosting (http://blogs-about.com) where we provide free installations of WordPress for all new hosting accounts and give a design discount to clients who host with us. I would say that move helped push E.Webscapes further into the WordPress arena because today, of the 400+ sites we host with our service - 99% of those clients are WordPress users.
[Mike] With your high reputation for both design and code quality of Wordpress templates, you have obviously be inundated with clients due to the quality of your services. Since your launch in 1999 you have taken on various additional associate designers who are all female. Was this a conscious decision and does having an all female work force in anyway affect any aspects of the business or the way you work? Does having an all female team have advantages over the competition?
[Lisa] The first time I took on an associate designer was in 2003. That is when the demand for services at E.Webscapes started to become more than I, alone, could handle. The decision was not an easy one to make because I place a lot of trust in the designers who I work with. Since then, I’ve had to bring on a few more designers to help with the workflow at E.Webscapes. The group I am working with right now… I would not trade for the world. Not only are they talented designers, but they are the greatest people to work with, both from a customer service standpoint as well as my ability to trust in their skills, work ethic, integrity and professionalism. Those are the most important qualities I look for when hiring, and retaining, designers at E.Webscapes.
The fact that they are all female, at this time, is just pure chance. Gender doesn’t play a role, at all, in my decision to bring in a new associate designer. Actually, I had a male designer who worked with me for about a year. Usually, when I feel it’s time to bring on additional designers - I will post a job opening on my Design Blog, or put out some feelers with some design groups or other freelance individuals to spread the word. What I look for has everything to do with talent, skills, experience, a good work ethic and customer service skills. It just so happens that, right now, all of our associates are female.
I haven’t noticed that having an all female design team has affected any aspects of the business, one way or the other.
[Mike] As well as providing a design service for other Wordpress blog owners, you also have a very unique and inspirational site design. What was your inspiration behind the site design (was it primary based around your ideas or the input of all your associate designers) and are there any additional sections or features you are considering adding in the future?
[Lisa] The inspiration behind the current (as well as past) design at E.Webscapes was my own. The associate designers who work with me generally aren’t involved in the operation of the site, itself. The entire behind the scenes work on the site, including the design, is something that I do on my own. I’ve recently added a new feature to the site at our Client Desk which is being used as a project management tool for the designers and our clients, who now have a secure area to login and check the status of their project, communicate with the designer and keep track of each project phase. That is something I had wanted to do for quite some time and now that it’s completed, it has become an essential piece of each project we have.
For the immediate future, I plan on building up the Knowledge Base in our Client Desk to help our clients out with their most pressing questions. Further on down the road, I would like to develop and downloads area of the site where I can provide helpful blogging tools and free themes for people to download and use.
My own site development takes a backseat to client projects, however - so finding the time to develop my own site is always a challenge. This most recent design was completed in July 2006 and it took me about 3 months to complete. It was a complete overhaul of what used to be there and I actually took a brief hiatus in spring 2006 in order to get it done.
[Mike] One of the less noticeable aspects of all your Wordpress designs (although still rather important) is your ability to produce HTML compliant code. Obviously having valid code is a sign of the quality and attention to detail that you provide as professional designers however most of your clients are likely to be oblivious to these design standards. Do you feel that compliant code is a must within the industry and do you feel that the majority of other CMS (content management system) fail to fully address the importance of HTML guidelines? Is Wordpress an example of a well designed CMS that addresses the issues of authentic and valid HTML coding?
[Lisa] As a general rule, end users don’t pay much attention to valid code and web standards. Some do, but for the most part, our clients typically don’t notice. However, it’s like the air we breathe… we don’t really notice it or think about it very much, but we’d sure notice if it wasn’t there. All of our projects start out with compliant code - that is the standard for us. Obviously, once the project is delivered and in the hands of our clients, anything can happen to it at that point, however - we deliver a valid, compliant product to make sure that our clients are starting out on the right foot.
We test all designs in various browser systems to make sure they render successfully in the major browser platforms on the market today. That piece is very important. While Internet Explorer still has the lion’s share, Mozilla is more popular than it used to be. When we are designing sites for our clients - we also keep their readers in mind, as well. We want everyone’s experience with our designs to be positive - and, of course, all of us share the desire to do our part to help create a valid, complaint web, overall.
WordPress does a fabulous job of adhering to valid XHTML compliance and makes it incredibly easy for a designer/developer to produce compliant site designs. WordPress is compliant right out of the box, however a designer/user can muck that up with just a few keystrokes - this is why W3C.org should sit in every designers bookmarks.
[Mike] There are always competitors in any good industry and I’m sure the demand for Wordpress can be very fierce. Not only are there other design companies that offer Wordpress templates but there is also the saturated freelance market. Do you feel that EWebscapes has set the professional pricing structure for Wordpress design jobs and what impact does under pricing freelancers have on the business? Do you feel that a certain level of quality, attention to detail and communication with your clients is something that sets EWebscapes apart from the competition?
[Lisa] The more popular WordPress becomes, the more I see WordPress designers popping out of the woodwork. It’s really great to see, quite honestly - there is a lot of talent out there in the design community. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that it’s saturated - - if that were the case, then I wouldn’t be turning down as much work as I have to in order to keep my own head above water. Turning down projects is a painful reality, yet there are only so many hours in a day and I have no interest in putting quick turnaround over a quality product. I could put out several custom WordPress templates a day, if I wanted to sacrifice quality. So, competition is always welcome and I am a strong believer that there is more than enough room for more designers to step into the ring.
I do believe that my pricing structure is a fair reflection of the work involved in creating the entire package. I do not publish my prices for the simple reason that each and every single design request that we receive is vastly different than the next, and it’s really impossible for me to publish a blanket pricing structure to cover everything - so I quote projects on an individual basis.
I’m not sure what sets E.Webscapes apart - or even if E.Webscapes is really set apart from everyone else. E.Webscapes has been around for quite a few years, so there is name recognition to consider. The search engine returns are excellent for what I do and many of my clients find me through Google or any of the other major search engines. With over 600+ design projects that E.Webscapes has been involved with, quite a bit of my business comes from direct referrals and returning clients, as well.
E.Webscapes has a proven track record and obvious staying power. Clients who come to E.Webscapes know that we’re not a fly by night operation, as we’ve been in the blogging and site development business for several years, as well as having an active hosting division in play. E.Webscapes is a sure thing, in that regard - and I think that immediately puts our clients at ease knowing that they will not have to chase us down in order to get what they paid for.
[Mike] As with any design project there are always problematic issue that arise during the various design processes. What are the major issues you encounter when designing a Wordpress template and are there any specific Wordpress mods that you find clients asking to be integrated into designs? Do you have a favourite mod?
[Lisa] Some of the biggest challenges I encounter really has nothing to do with WordPress, or any other CMS - but, rather, cross-browser compatibility. Especially with the latest release of Internet Explorer 7. Keeping the code clean, compliant and valid — and cross-browser compatible all at the same time is something that I juggle every day. Even with valid code - what works in Firefox doesn’t always work in Internet Explorer, and sometimes I need to get very creative to make sure it looks the same, no matter what browser your visitor is using.
Talking about WordPress, specifically - I have yet to come across something that cannot be done. The WordPress development community is vast and extremely talented. There is a plugin for almost everything imaginable available out there, allowing WordPress users to create a site that is completely individualized to their own needs. I do write an entire chapter on some of the more popular plugins available for WordPress, so I guess you’ll have to read the book in order to get a listing of my favourites! 
Allow me this time to put a plug in for WordPress plugin developers. These ladies and gentlemen provide extremely useful tools to the WordPress community, and they do it for free, which is amazing. We can create websites and blogs that offer a very unique experience for our visitors using tools provided to the WordPress community for the cost of absolutely nothing. So, any WordPress users out there reading this interview…if you have come across a plugin that you find you just cannot live without — consider dropping by the developer’s website and letting them know. If they have a “donate’ button on their site - - consider giving them a tip for such a great tool. Disclaimer: I am not a plugin developer; I just have a great deal of respect and appreciation for those who are.
[Mike] Obviously Wordpress is the CMS software backend to all your projects however to create the front end you not only need inspiration but you also need a variety of imaging and coding software to design and develop a clients vision. What software do you use (do you run on PCs or Macs?) and are there any specific online tools that you use when testing new Wordpress templates you have designed?
[Lisa] Wordpress is the CMS software backend to most of the projects we deliver. I have also done projects using Movable Type, Typepad, Blogger and Expression Engine, as well. Though, the majority of the requests I receive are WordPress projects. Usually when you have the graphic design and CSS completed, it’s just a matter of plugging in the various template codes and tags used with whichever CMS system you happen to be using at the time.
Setting the CMS aside, there are a variety of tools that I use on a regular basis to get the job done:
For graphic design:
• Adobe Photoshop
• Corell Paint Shop Pro
For coding:
• Notepad
• UltraEdit
One very little known fact about me is that I am colorblind. For a designer, that’s a tough lot in life - I know. So, color is always a challenge for me, so I use various tools to help me in that regard, such as:
• ColorCop
• Color Schemer
I develop blog and website templates in a sandbox environment - that is, a password protected domain that I own. I have each CMS system installed on the domain and use it as the testing environment for all site development. It’s a nice way to test everything out, get the cross-browser compatibility issues ironed out and install and configure the different plugins and scripts that my clients have requested. This way, my clients can also preview their design in a ‘working’ environment and we can work together to iron out any bugs or make last minute modifications before launching it live on their site.
I have a Mac and a PC that I use regularly, depending on what I am doing. For some graphic development, I use the Mac. I have all browser systems installed on my machines - but for any that I don’t, or if something is displaying or behaving strangely with different operating systems, I use Browser Cam to test things out on different OS and browser systems.
[Mike] Can you tell us what a general design process is? What occurs once that initial ‘Request a quote’ form is completed? Are there any areas of the design process that specific members of the team deal with or is each project assigned to a specific design associate?
[Lisa] The first step is always having the client fill out our request form. That form asks some very generic, but vital, questions to get the ball rolling. When they fill out that form, it automatically creates a project ticket in our Client Desk where our Asst. Project Manager begins to work with the client on what their specific needs are. We use that time and opportunity to get a clear picture of what they want their site to look like, visually. Then we move on to determine which CMS platform will suit their needs best and then work with them to make a decision on any additional plugins or script needs they may have in order for their site to do what they want/need it to. The key here is communication between E.Webscapes and the client - and really getting the client to describe exactly what they want because the ultimate goal is to provide them with an end-product that they are completely satisfied with. Sometimes, that is more challenging than other times - it all depends on the client.
Once we have all the details worked out - the client receives a quote and a timeline for their project, and then the project is assigned to either myself, or one of our associate designers. From there the designer gets to work and provides the client with creative mock ups of the visual design, followed by a complete preview of the working template(s) in a sandbox environment. We work together until the client has exactly what they want.
[Mike] Finally, what are your plans for distressing during and after you’ve written the ‘Wordpress for Dummies’ book? A bottle of wine (red or white)? Relaxing at home? Or is your ideal form of relaxation to simply carry on with one of favourite passions – starting the design of another Wordpress template?
[Lisa] That is a good question! Wine is a good first step toward de-stressing — I’m a red wine fan.
I’m so buried in the book project right now; I cannot even begin to think about what life is going to be like when I don’t have book deadlines and editors to keep happy! My final deadline is April 19th and my husband and I have a date on April 20th to see Christina Aguilera live, in concert - so that will be a night of celebration, for sure. The WordPress for Dummies project is great, and I’ve been having a lot of fun with it, as well as meeting several wonderful people involved in the WordPress community — but I would be lying if I said that taking on a project like this doesn’t completely consume every waking minute of my life. When it is all done, my biggest goal is getting myself back into my usual routine of working and living - that is all I’m really looking forward to right now. I’m positive my family will appreciate that, as well.
[Mike] Lisa is due to finish ‘Wordpress for Dummies’ later this year, in the mean time she and her design associates can be found designing and blogging at the EWebscapes website http://www.ewebscapes.com – alternatively take a peak into Lisa’s life by reading her personal blog, found at http://justagirlintheworld.com.
