Most of you have probably heard of Matt Brett, whose blog (http://www.mattbrett.com) is very popular and is part of the 9rules Network. Although recently, Matt Brett has become more known after starting a popular standard for feed icons which is currently being spread and used everywhere.
DL: Hey Matt, please introduce yourself and tell us something about your background.
Yo! Well, besides that stuff you mentioned in the intro – I’m 25, live in Ontario Canada and currently working from home as an independent contractor. I’ve been working for the Participatory Culture Foundation since July on the Democracy Internet TV platform, but will be shifting gears to work for a small design firm based out of California as of March 13. In my spare time, I play a lot of video games and am totally into Battlestar Galactica and currently catching up on Lost.
DL: You have a great site with a very beautiful design. Where do you get your inspiration from and could you share a couple of tips and techniques for web designers?
Thanks for the kind words! I keep an eye on the various design showcase sites. You can see some of the sites in particular that caught my eye here. As far as techniques go. I get a lot of emails asking how I did some of the grungy edges on my site and some others I’ve done. The secret is Photoshop brushes. Find some good blotches and scratches and just play around until you have something that suits your needs. Deviant Art is a good place to start looking.
DL: What inspired you to create the feed icons? After Firefox adopted them as the official rss symbol, much of the web is catching on, and recently Microsoft agreed to continue using the same icons.
Just to be clear, I didn’t create the icon at all. I merely took the adapted icon that Microsoft had created and made a vector version and start distributing it. And Microsoft’s adoption of the icon was precisely what motivated me to jump on this and get the ball rolling. It’s not often MS does the right thing in a situation like this. In fact, they had released a series of mocks of the icon they were going to use in IE7 and asked for feedback on them. Some people had tossed the idea to them of using the already recognizable icon that Mozilla introduced in Firefox which prompted MS to get in touch with Mozilla and it all came together from there. We all know what power Microsoft has in this industry and there’s point in ignoring that. Millions of people are going to continue using Internet Explorer because it’s built into their operating system and it’s ‘good enough’ for what they’re using it for. It’s because of this that Microsoft’s adoption of the feed icon struck me as a very important step in the world of syndicated content. I figured, why wait for IE7 to be released to start using the icon? Let’s get things headed down the right path. And as such, FeedIcons.com was born and the standardized feed icon initiative is now in full force.
DL: How important to you think RSS is the future of the web and having syncronized content?
Extremely! I think we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of how we utilize RSS. It’s exciting to see software like Democracy taking such a simple format and turning it into full blown tv channels. I’m sure we’ll see more of this and beyond in the near future.
“I think we’ve barely scratched the surface in terms of how we utilize RSS.”
DL: On a design related question, people always like to know if you went to school to learn graphics, or if you taught yourself. Did you find it hard, or did you just keep playing around until you got some good results?
I did a year of College back in 2000 and found it to be a complete waste of time. Mind you, it was only the second year for the ‘Multimedia’ course, which was the closest thing to web design at the time. I’m sure there’s better, more focused and specific courses out there now. I learned from doing. I simply jumped into HTML and starting changing tags to see what they did and it evolved from there. Over the past couple years, I’ve read some solid books (Web Standards Solutions, Bulletproof Web Design, The Zen of CSS Design to name a few) that have really helped in terms of understanding Web Standards to the fullest and the capabilities and greatness of CSS design.
DL: Now, we could continue asking many questions related to design and everything else, but we’re all about going beyond. You used to be in a band, and you proudly display your latest last.fm tracks right on your homepage. Obviously, music is an important part of your life. What kind of music do you like the most, and what role does music play (if any) while designing and writing?
Nice! Yes, music is a huge part of my life. There’s hardly a time I don’t have something playing. While I’m working or writing something for my site, I tend to have more low-key stuff on. Traditional reggae and orchestral stuff comes in nicely here. But some times, if I’m working on something that doesn’t require attention to detail, I’ll have on some louder stuff – I mostly listen to punk rock and ska. Some good conscience hip-hop thrown in the mix once in a while.
DL: You’re also into gaming. What are you’re favorite games?
I’m a huge first person shooter fan and I play mostly on my PC. I’m currently really into Star Wars Empire at War and The Battle for Middle-earth 2, which are both real time strategy games. It’s a nice change from simply running around shooting dudes.
DL: From a regular users standpoint, what are some of your favorite sites (love the design, love how it was put together, content, etc) that you?d recommend?
You know, I don’t really have any favourite sites, so to speak. I don’t have any bookmarks I check on a regular basis, besides Digg, Flickr, Technorati, etc. I think that’s because I subscribe to everything I’m interested in, so it’s kind of eliminated the need to repeatedly visit sites. And as far as the feeds I’m subscribed to – there’s a couple hundred right now. Just did a big ‘purge’ and nixed some that I don’t value any more.
DL: Now that we got some really “in-depth” questions down, I got one more. You’re part of the Democracy Player project (http://www.getdemocracy.com). What made you get involved with this, and how will it’s usage of rss to form playlists (podcasts) benefit it?
I had been a long time reader of Downhill Battle and when PCF (founds of DHB) announced they were hiring for a web manager, I jumped at the opportunity to work with them. I’ve always felt like I was on the same page as them in regards to beliefs and how things should be. They’re a very passionate bunch and simply do the things they feel are the right things to do. Coming from a corporate environment, this was a refreshing change of pace and just had to go for it. At the time, there wasn’t a lot of details out there in regards to the player, let alone the entire platform that’s been released now. So I can’t say that had a lot to do with my decision. I think I’ve pretty covered the second part of the question previously.
DL: Any last words or advice you’d like to give to anyone?
One of the most important things to being a good designer/developer is that you keep learning. Stay on top of new and developing technologies and trends and always try and improve and expand on your skills.
DL: Thanks for taking the time to answer some questions for us. Keep up the fantastic work.
Not a problem! Thank you!
