An Interview with App Designer Jerome Iveson of ThriveSolo

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ThisIsInspired had a chance to grab some time from a busy little company’s busy designer – designer of both frontend for the app and the website. Jerome handles design for ThriveSolo, a small developer that makes the fantastic Solo App. While also CEO of the company, Jerome makes the app work visually for the customer – no small matter for a place that makes it’s livelihood from customer interaction.

We sat down with Jerome and got his feedback about how he handles inspiration, rejuvenates creativity, and got started with design in the first place.

First question, so let’s start with the basics. What prompted you to enter the design business in the first place?
As a young boy I was always very interested in Art & Design; painting, illustrating and drawing. I’ve also always loved puzzles and problem solving, so I was naturally drawn to Graphic Design as a synthesis of the two. Computers and technology are another passion. I was quite fascinated by merging the two; creating computer art, which on a ZX Spectrum was quite a difficult task!

I attended art college then studied for a degree in Graphic Communication. I did pretty well managing to get a first class degree alongside a mildly damaged Liver. The course finished in 1997 and I decided I didn’t really want to go and work for anyone, so I decided to work for myself.

Freelancing for a few local design firms was an easy way to start, it allowed me an element of freedom but still gave me the chance to work with more experienced designers and learn new skills. While I was doing this and my confidence grew I started to attract my own clients. At this point I was still a traditional print designer. As the internet and web design as we know it started taking off I saw an opportunity to expand my skill-set.

There’s sometimes the perception that graphic designers don’t make good web designers… [but] the key is learning and understanding the constraints.

Over a period of a few years I made the transition from print designer to web designer. There’s sometimes the perception that graphic designers don’t make good web designers. Personally I think that’s bollocks. From a purely design point of view you work with the same core skills but within the constraints of a new medium. The key is learning and understanding the constraints. This is what excited me, I’ve always loved learning so I saw the web as a new challenge. As a discipline it’s very new and ever evolving, so theres always something new and interesting around the corner. As the realms of what was possible to build on the web expanded I decided my next step would be to build my own web app.

You are the front-end designer for the Solo App website (editor: insert link) for ThriveApps.com, but what separates you from many web designers is you area also the designer for the app itself. Which came first: Web design or app design, and how did you transition from one to the other?
In a basic sense web design came first. Although ever since I started using the web I had a lot of ideas for web apps floating around in my head. I eventually chose Solo as a project because it was a market that I could understand and I knew there was a need for beautifully designed apps that would appeal to creatives.

For me it was a natural progression, I’d been designing websites with pretty big CMS systems anyway. So the transition from a design and architecture stand-point wasn’t too hard.

In each of our interviews, we focus on The Muse aspect of design – what is inspiring to you as a designer – because everyone has a different starting point for creating. When you feel creatively drained, What do you do to rejuvenate your creativity?
I find starting a project really difficult and often very time consuming. During the process there’s sometimes a point where I seem to consciously avoid sitting down and working at it. Getting easily distracted. This used to really worry me, but now I know it’s just the way my brain works. I like to work on one project at a time so in the background I’m always processing this one problem. There tends to be a point where everything starts to click and fall into place.

I’m alway surfing the net looking at new things absorbing information, this tends to inspire me. Sometimes I go off and do something else to clear my head. I’m always confident that the solution will eventually reveal itself.

Is there any special place(s) you visit to ‘reconvene’ with your muse? (either physically, like a vacation spot, or emotionally, like a certain type of music)
Not really but sometimes I find Reggae helps. Other than that relaxing with friends, having a few beers and spending time with my family.

As designers, we can’t ‘put a lid’ on creativity, but we each handle it differently when it comes to how it arises in every day life. Do you notice creativity springing up in non-work areas of your life? How do you keep it from going overboard? (if it happens to be a problem; for many designers it’s not)
At the moment I’m pretty much focussed and overboard on Solo and our next product Studio. It takes up quite a lot of my thinking time and to be honest cuts quite a lot into my non-work time. When I was designing regularly naming typefaces in posters and magazines was always a quirk, as was trying to guess the Pantone colour of things. Yes, that’s Reflex Blue! Now I do find that I’m a little too neat when I colour in with my kids and I still smell printed things.

Design is a very human, very basic form of communication: Brand designers work out emotional responses to a logo and cultivate the image around a feeling they want to evoke. Interface designers (for either web or app development) find the most intuitive way for the user – the human – to interact with the product. What helps you get in touch with your current future users and provide the best design and interaction you can?
I tend to try and start one on one conversations with our users. We also send out surveys to see what people like and don’t like.

When we first launched Solo I used my gut instinct for quite a few things as I’m pretty typical of our target audience. I got some things right and some wrong but learnt a lot in the process. For Studio and the next version of Solo the process is more structured giving a more refined user experience.

Imagine you have a day to yourself. You have no pressing work commitments, no urgent emails, no deadlines on the horizon (hard as it is to imagine!). The day is your own. How do start the day? What would you spend the day doing to sort of get out of Design Mode for a bit and into Living Mode?
Yes that is quite hard to imagine! If I was completely on my own without the family I’d probably like an easy day reading the paper, going for a beer at lunchtime, playing video games during the day; that sort of thing. If I could wake up somewhere else I’d do the same thing but in a Taverna in Greece or Tapas bar in Barcelona.

I come from a print and web design background – where once I create the design, or at least make it final, it stays pretty much intact through hand off, when the client takes over and project is finished. As an app designer, you are always tweaking the product to make a smoother user path. Do you feel saddened or excited as you watch an initial design – so perfect and seamless – morph over time to match user feedback or scalability?
I feel excited as the app grows and improves. Over the course of our first year we have seen how small changes can enthuse users who will then evangelise about our product. Feedback and iteration are at the core, we can’t be continually developed in a bubble.
I find the feedback process enlightening. It’s great to speak with Solo’s users and find out that they are using the app differently to the way that was intended. Throughout the process I always stick to our design ethos.

Usability doesn’t change; How people use a website or a mobile app today is basically the same way they’ll be using it tomorrow. When things are as nailed down as that, how do you stay on top of originality in your design work?
With Solo I set out to have a unique aesthetic to try and distance us from other apps. The aesthetic came from my print design background and it resonates with our target market. Strong typography, intelligent use of space, visual hierarchy with subtle use of colour all play their part. This is a strong foundation, the originality will now be shown in extending our features and how we include new experiences and technologies.

Last question, three parts, and specifically on app development. Be honest! There are myriad apps for one task, both browser and mobile based – as consumers we have a choice. As an app designer, you notice details, functionality, and user paths – but at the same time you use apps for everyday tasks in your own personal life.

Do you ever find yourself (1) Just using an app as a consumer, not a designer; (2) Using an app as a designer, noticing what you can be inspired by in a future design of your own; (3) Getting sidetracked by others’ interfaces, sort of forgetting what makes your product unique?
I don’t use many web apps as a consumer, the apps I use tend to use in my spare time are iOS apps on iPhone or iPad. At work I tend to try a hell of a lot of different apps to see what people are doing with newer technologies, UI and UX. The influences tend not to have a dramatic effect on what I’d doing. Its more subtle; a transition here, a jQuery plugin there.