on a personal note

I grew up and have lived in Cape Town most of my life. Having spent some time living and travelling overseas (I have dual citizenship) I have come to realize that South Africa is without doubt one of the most beautiful countries in the world. Although I like other cities of South Africa my favourite is Cape Town. I thoroughly enjoy hiking and spending time outdoors whether on the beach or in the sparse landscape of the klein karoo.
I am very energetic and enjoy spending time at the gym, swimming and am a great fan of martial arts. My other interests are art, collecting elephant paraphernalia, music and having a good party. Family is incredibly important to me and I have a strong and close relationship with my family.
I am married but have no children other than the four-legged variety who also loves our mountain and beach runs.

nicroberts bio

I commenced my academic career at the Michaelis School of Fine Art but realized following the first year that my interests were veering more toward graphic design rather than fine art. Three years later armed with a Diploma in Web and New Media from City Varsity, my freelance career kicked off. A year later, I was offered permanent employment by one of my then largest clients – an internet service provider company called Dynacomm – and headed up their new media and web division. I had the honour of working very closely with the lead programmer and although my primary function was design and front end coding I was soon getting “down and dirty” with some basic and sometimes not so basic PHP. I was also responsible for client and project management and had to learn, sometimes the hard way, on how best to converse with corporate clients to get the most out of the job.

Two years later I left Dynacomm and entered into a partnership with a larger independent company. This was a very exciting time as I broadened my experience, developing new marketing and management skills which I found myself to be rather good at. The partnership ended two years later following the closure of this company and I turned to freelancing again, doing on and offsite contract work for a number of years.

In 2009, my wife and I moved to London to spend a year working (and some travelling) in Europe. I joined a London based agency called 73 DPI and worked on a contract basis. Other than the general requirements of design and client/project management I was also responsible for marketing the company and attended weekly networking meetings and events.

A year later my wife and I returned to Cape Town but my time spent networking in London continued to bear fruition as I landed several contracts from London based companies such as Tradewind and Sanza (International recruitment agencies) and Lee Broz (a network of Japanese network companies). I continue to freelance in Cape Town and also belong to a design and development collective called Media Elements.

nicroberts design process

My design work process begins with investigating and getting to know the client and its products or services that I am designing for. I meet with the client and get a feel for who they are, what their company is like, where they would like to take their company and what their greatest needs are. This, along with their budget, will determine whether I make use of an affordable and easy to use and self-updatable web solution (e.g. Joomla or wordpress) or whether the project needs to be custom coded.

I also critically asses the clients sector, including their competition, to determine what it is that makes them unique or gives them a cutting edge. What truly amazes me is that more often than not (established or start-up) companies have no clue as to how to relate and market who they are and what they are about with a brand or image. Nothing brings me greater joy than educating and guiding my clients into the world of online advertising, marketing and display and helping them define themselves in a cluttered and often media saturated market. Another tricky aspect is finding the balance that not only keeps the client happy but also appeals to their client base or consumers. This is often disregarded but is one of the most crucial aspects to ensuring a successful campaign.

After this careful analysis and continuous dialogue with the client, I begin the design process by jotting down words or mind maps followed by rough sketches of my concept. My concept is largely based on how the client has described their company and how they would like it to be improved on coupled with research that I conduct on the weak points and/or short comings of similar concepts/products/services. Once I have a more defined idea I move onto Stage Three using a combination of Photoshop, Illustrator and Fireworks to create several interface designs (the final and overall assembly is done in Fireworks). I generally create about three designs and present these to the client. Should the client not have one clear definitive choice he/she is encouraged to select elements that they like from each of the designs which I then combine into one interface design.

Following the assembly of the final interface and the clients approval the coding begins. The client is responsible for providing all the copyright for the website as well as any photography. Should a client not have photography I am able to purchase relevant photography or set up a photo shoot with the approval of the client.
All my work is cross browser tested to ensure that the clients website is fully accessible by all.