Interview With Adelle Charles From Fuel Your Creativity – Design, Blogging And Business
Posted August 20, 2008 in Business, Graphic Design, Inspiration 24 Comments »
Hey everyone! Today we have an interview with Adelle Charles of Fuel Your Creativity! Adelle is awesome, I’ve known her for some time now and have been an avid reader of her blog since the day I found it. I hope you enjoy the interview! :)
Jon: Hi Adelle, can you please tell our readers a little about yourself, where you’re from, what you do?
Jon: Have you studied anything in particular or are you self-taught? What’s your background and how did you get started?
Jon: You have your own portfolio site (adellecharles.com), did blogging on Fuel Your Creativity helped you get new clients? How did blogging helped your design business?
Adelle: Funny that you ask that – I have been thinking about that for a little while. When Fuel Your Creativity started out about 6 months ago, I had no intention of ever mixing my portfolio with my blog. The main purpose of my blog was to help others “fuel their creativity” and engage with other creatives in the community, to network and to get my name out there as a blogger. I never thought twice about getting my name out as a “designer“. Strange as it may seem! I’ve been thinking about incorporating the two more and have been working on a site design (fuelbrandstudios.com) hopefully set to launch by January – maybe sooner.
Jon: Please tell us, what are the tools you simply couldn’t live without? (software, web-app, etc…)
- Graphics: Adobe Photoshop & Illustrator
- CMS: Wordpress
- Invoicing: Invoice Journal + Paypal
- Organization: iCal, Evernote and gmail
- Sketching, Brainstorming and To Do’s: Pen and my moleskine notebooks!
- My Writer/Editor: Michelle Krasniak – Seriously I’d be lost without her!
Jon: What would be your single best tip for people looking into a graphic design career?
Jon: Do you have any idols or mentors in the graphic design field? People you look up to and that inspire you, who are they and why do you like them and their work?
- Collis Ta’eed – I really love what Collis has done with all of his sites, especially psdtuts.com and vectortuts.com, he always seems to have big projects in the works for envato.com and I admire his entrepreneurship.
- Chuck Anderson – (nopattern.com) He really inspires me to get more into mixed medias in design. Mixing photography, illustrations and Photoshop seem to be the current trend in design.
- Jeff Finley – Been reading a lot about him lately and I’m now hooked on his blog (gomediazine.com). His website and company are kick-ass and I love what they are doing. Go Media has branched out and offers design help via Twitter, which is totally insane and awesome at the same time!
Jon: You already have over 8 years of design experience, but where do you see yourself in, let’s say another 5 years from now? Do you have some sort of exit strategy, or you can see yourself designing and working in this field for years to come?
Jon: The infamous question: Mac or PC?
Jon: Now the question I have to ask everyone I interview: What’s in your iPod? :)
Jon: Thank you so much Adelle or taking the time to do this interview, really appreciated!:)
Jon: I hope you enjoyed this interview with Adelle. We will have more interviews soon, if you know someone who you would like us to interview, drop us a line.
About the author: Jon Phillips is a full-time freelancer, designer and blogger, he loves WordPress and plays guitar in a heavy act. He's also the founder of Freelance Folder. Oh and he'd be pleased if you would follow him on Twitter. :)
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24 Comments
Max | Design Shard
August 20th, 2008 at 8:02 pmNice interview, I love reading about what others do within the design industry, very interesting and adelle has a really good blog :) Thanks
Andrew Houle
August 20th, 2008 at 9:17 pmGood stuff, Adelle rocks. She has helped me so much in my first few months of blogging. I love the insight about sketching. I’m only now finding out just how important that is.
Tom Sinclair
August 20th, 2008 at 9:47 pmNice read before bed!
Only just started looking around designer/developer blogs and joining online communities and Fuel Your Creativity is definitely handy!
Jon Phillips
August 21st, 2008 at 1:32 amHey, I’m very happy you guyz enjoyed the interview! Adelle is totally awesome! :)
shiido
August 21st, 2008 at 3:38 am@Jon really nice interview ! thank you.
David Airey
August 21st, 2008 at 5:15 amIt’s good getting to know Adelle a little better. I hope both you, Jon, and Adelle are doing great.
Graphic Artist
August 21st, 2008 at 8:48 amnice interview jon..
adelle is a one tough designer..
God bless.
Dave Navarro
August 21st, 2008 at 8:49 amAdelle,
Looks like everybody’s wanting to move to Canada these days :-) Thanks for the interview & good luck building your freelancing practice .. I’m sure the exposure here won’t hurt!
Mason Hipp
August 21st, 2008 at 9:23 amAwesome interview.
I have passed through fuelyourcreativity.com before, but after reading this interview I stopped by to take a serious look — you have some great stuff Adelle!
adelle
August 21st, 2008 at 9:48 amWow! Thanks guys for all the positive words, really makes my day!
@Max | Design Shard – Thanks so much Max, and I appreciate the love on the blog :)
@Andrew Houle – I rock? That’s awesome to hear! And I promise my head won’t get big, it’s just a nice compliment. hehe.
@Tom Sinclair – Glad you enjoyed it, the design community is so great and I’m finding out everyone is so helpful and really supportive.
@Jon Phillips, Thanks again Jon your the best. :)
@Shildo Thanks for reading the interview.
@David Airey, Thanks for the nice compliment, it’s always nice to get to know everyone a little better since it’s mostly online communicating. Things are going well and I hope your doing great as well.
@Dave Navarro Yeah I’ve always wanted to live in Toronto since it’s so close to Rochester :) Freelance Folder is awesome and I’m happy Jon asked me to participate in the interview, exposure is nice too!
@Mason Hipp, Thanks Mason, I hope you’ll stop by FYC and stay a while. hehe. Glad you like the content!
Thomas Beal
August 22nd, 2008 at 8:43 amGreat Interview Jon. As David, I’m really happy to know Adelle a little better. :)
Nick
August 22nd, 2008 at 4:30 pmGreat interview! Nice to read an interview on someone you’ve only briefly met on twitter :D
adelle
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:21 pmThanks @Thomas Beal and @Nick! It was my first interview so I’m glad it could be on Freelance Folder :)
Angie Bowen
August 22nd, 2008 at 5:39 pmGreat interview Adelle! I love your blog and it’s always nice to get an inside look at the person behind the scenes.
adelle
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:26 pmthanks Angie! Stay tuned for more big stuff coming over at Fuel Your Creativity! :)
NaldzGraphics
August 23rd, 2008 at 11:58 pmi see a very nice interview in here:)its worth to read. Adelle really rock:)
Ronald
Jon Phillips
August 24th, 2008 at 1:54 pmHey I’m very happy you guyz liked the interview! We got more coming up soon! :)
Adrian | Rubiqube
August 28th, 2008 at 7:00 pmI met so many blogger / designers in the last couple of months and it’s always nice to learn more about them by reading a Freelance Folder Interview. So I’m definitely looking forward to more interviews!
Dainis Graveris
September 1st, 2008 at 1:40 amNice one! It`s really good to know someone known better – thanks!
Jared Walker
September 9th, 2008 at 3:42 pmVery interesting interview. I love hearing about how people (especially designers) got where they are and what they’ve done in the past. I’m glad to hear more interviews are on the way. And go upstate NY!
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