SPOTLIGHTWhat’s on your
desktop today?
I rarely sit at my desk, preferring
instead to sit on a sofa out of the way.
On my desk are a few wires, a bottle
and Post-it notes.Three little things that make
your life worthwhile.
A seat on the train, plugging in a USB
cable first time, coffee.What do you have on
the walls?
At work, nothing. At home, I have the
worst wallpaper in the universe.What will you do for lunch?
Usually something from Tesco, although
I was drinking Huel [a nutritionally
complete, powdered food] for a bit.
When at home, I tend to eat something
that’s homemade.What hours do you work?
It varies. I do more when working from
home but an office day is 7am-4pm. I
don’t switch off, to be honest.What else do you do in
the office?
I like to play pool (badly) and annoy
coworkers during the day.How often do you hang out
with other designers?
Not as much as I should. Maybe that’s
my 2020 resolution.Describe your working culture
in three words
Exciting, collaborative, friendly.SurĽoh
Wanting to see more web pages that go against the grain and produce work that stands out, Davies set
about recreating print layouts with CSS
What are your go-to tools?
I tend to design in the browser but don’t
really use any tools like Sketch or Figma,
although that might change very soon.
My IDE of choice is Sublime Text. I do
sketch on paper a lot, especially when
working out layouts. If I need to, I’ll use
Photoshop for producing images. I’d say
my most important bit of software would
be Spotify. Music is a huge part of who I
am, so I’m always listening to music
when working.
Why do you think ecommerce designers
should get on board with CSS Grid?
CSS Grid is the way forward for the web
now. Everyone is trying to stand out from
the rest and it gives us the chance to
really push the boundaries of how the
web should look. A good designer should
be able to do that without CSS Grid, of
course. But knowing that we can do so
much more now should help free the
shackles a little bit.
What’s been your proudest moment as a
front-end developer so far and why?
I’ve done loads of things I can look back
on with some pride. Working with Stuff
and Nonsense for a few months when I
was freelancing was really cool. The job
with the London Marathon, where I got to
work with some huge brands, was
amazing. Winning a few awards for
various clients at Space48 is always nice.
And the side projects I’ve been doing of
late around CSS Grid and ecommerce
have really helped me push on into
being a designer again.
That said, nothing fills me more with
pride than seeing how our junior front-
end developer Kieran has progressed
from knowing very little to becoming a
very important part of the team in just
over a year. I remember sitting down to
plan out what I’d teach him when he
joined; that in itself helped me realise
how much I actually knew but had never
really thought about before. You just
take it for granted.
Being responsible for shaping
someone’s future was daunting but
really exciting and rewarding too. I’ve
talked about leaving a legacy as I got
older and maybe me helping him
progress is my legacy. Teaching helped
teach me too, so I highly recommend it.What’s the web design scene like in
Manchester now?
Manchester is really buzzing at the
moment. So many big companies are
moving to the city and there seems to be
a new web agency popping up every five