1.
You're most well known at this point for
your creation of the FireFox logo. How did
you get involved in this project, and did
you create the full logo from scratch to
completion?
JH: A chap called Steven Garrity wrote a
in-depth article on Mozilla's 'brand' an how
it could be improved to reach a wider
audience. After he published this Mozilla
asked him to set up a 'visual identity team'
to look at all aspects of Mozilla's design.
Steven had liked some alternative icon work
that I had done for the Camino browser, and
asked me on board to look at Firefox's icon.
We all put forward sketches of ideas, but
the chosen one was the fox/globe idea by
Daniel Burka and Stephen DesRoches. I then
took this and rendered the final icon. You
can see this development here:
(http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/branding-firefox)
2. How long have you been working in
graphic design? What inspired you to get
started in the field?
I've been working as a designer for 11 years
now. Originally I trained to be a wildlife
illustrator, but after leaving college,
discovered that the market in the UK is
impossibly small. So I decided to follow
graphic design instead, and got a job as a
junior designer with a local council. It was
a great first job, they trained me up, and I
got to work on some big projects (such as
the exhibition centre at Coombe Country Park
in Coventry). After 8 years working for
other people, I went freelance under the
name 'Hicksdesign'. Not the most imaginative
name, but it sort of stuck! As for what
inspired me, at the time it was designers
like David Carson and Vaughn Oliver. Their
work was exciting and gave me the impetus to
try and do something like that. Seeing their
work made me fall in love with design.
3. How is your site hosted? With the
popularity of FireFox, your workload must be
quite cut out for you. Are there any
bandwidth issues regarding traffic on your
web site hicksdesign.co.uk?
I host with
Segment Publishing in Australia. The
level of service, and the quality of the
servers is superb. Hicksdesign and
PimpMySafari combined are just under my 40gb
allowance each month! Firefox does account
for most of my traffic, with my blog post
about the process of creating the logo being
the most popular.
4. What do you see as the future of your
career at this point? Are you working more
for technology companies now than in the
recent past?
I am, but I would like to continue working
for charities and social causes. The
Forgiveness Project is a great example, and
I'm very proud to be involved with that. A
lot of my work is now moving away from
strict 'web design', and more into
'interface design' which I find fascinating.
5. Everyone must rave about FireFox and
want logos looking similar to it. What
aspect of your work are you personally most
proud of? Is it the FireFox logo or some
other project, perhaps something you created
in print, or a logo for a different company?
I used to get tons of requests for various
animals on fire wrapped around a globe.
They've tailed off a bit now fortunately! My
proudest moment has been seeing the Firefox
logo on the cover of Wired and in a double
page spread advert in the New York Times. I
can't tell you how pleased that made me
feel. Not just a personal pride - but a
pride for the visual identity team and the
hardworking folks at spreadfirefox.com. I
never thought I'd see that happen, but it
did. Something to tell the kids! My
favourite piece of work so far is the
identity I came up with for 'The Escape
Committee'. Its what I think a logo should
be - clean, simple and memorable.
(http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/portfolio/the-escape-committee-logo)
6. What is the future of hicksdesign? Are
you hiring more people, growing quite
extensively, or trying to maintain your work
as an independent operation?
I've always been keen to keep it a one man
operation. One of the reasons I went
freelance in the first place was to avoid
the management route and keep doing the
creative stuff. Its also such a different
ballgame - going from a 'sole trader' to
someone hiring people, and being responsible
for keeping the workflow up. However I think
inevitably, the business will need to grow,
and at
some point in the future, Hicksdesign will
become a studio. Ask meagain in three years
time!
Thanks
Jon! Appreciate it.