Back in June, North East-based web designer and speaker Gavin Elliott told a Vancouver conference that the web industry faced “one of the most exciting times of its life”. However, he noted that more talent needed to be drawn into the industry to meet demand. John Hilll talks to two potentially award-winning designers about their work and web design as a whole

STOP for a minute and think of how many screens you stare at on any given day. Each of our devices – whether they’re mobiles, tablets or computers – have become essential portals of information about the modern world.

And if websites and apps are our modern-day shop windows, it’s the web designers who are laying out the seductive window displays.

“It’s an exciting time to be in web design right now”, said Naomi Atkinson, pictured, who returned to the North East last year to set up her own firm.

“There’s basically far less holding us back now. We’ve got access to a million and one fonts we didn’t have before and we can look into whole new realms.”

Atkinson is one of a talented group of web designers plying their trade in the region. The Northumbria University graduate joined creative agency Th_nk in 2004, before spending three years in London honing her skills at GT and Bostock and Pollitt.

She returned to Newcastle in 2010 to set up Naomi Atkinson Design, and although she still draws a lot of her work from London and the United States, she was impressed by what she discovered on her return.

“I was really pleasantly surprised when I came back”, she said. “I noticed a real change in the region in general. The industry felt more buzzing, the Design It Build It conference had taken off, Thinking Digital was doing extremely well, and people like DIBI organiser Gavin Elliott were making a real name for themselves out there.

“It’s the individuals that get recognised the most through social media, but the more agencies get involved with companies around the country, the more they raise their profile nationwide.”

Atkinson herself may provide a boost for the region’s profile if she wins the Designer of the Year category at this year’s .net awards. The world’s best-selling web designer magazine has included her in a list of ten, with public voting open until September 30. While Atkinson has already forged a reputation outside the North East, there’s also a nod for potential Young Designer of the Year Lauren Thompson, the up-and-coming talent currently working as the designer at Hedgehog Lab.

The pair could be receiving awards at a ceremony in November and are part of a North East-based talent pool that also includes Newcastle mobile commerce start-up and Web App of the Year nominee Mobicart. To vote for your favourite nominee, go to the awards website at http://www.thenetawards.com/

The modern web designer works in a world where creativity is essential, but deadlines are crucial; in a field in which sites must be dynamic, original and eye-catching, but also simple, user-friendly and work on a number of different screens from the mobile to the Mac.

Atkinson said: “You have to be extremely careful you don’t go too far beyond the user experience. You can do a beautiful design, but unless the underlying user experience is there and for people to understand, it will delay them in getting where they need to go.

“The web has changed in the last year or so. We’ve started to design slightly differently. We’re taking into consideration the fact it should work on smaller browsers and respond to touch interaction as well as mouse.”

Atkinson’s first experience in London was at an ad agency, working with companies such as Microsoft, Audi and Aviva. She then went on to an integrated agency that needed help developing its web work and designed for organisations such as BT and Macmillan Cancer Support.

She said: “Web design goes through a lot of different trends. A few years ago, it was all gloss and what was called web 2.0, which I hated. Then people were using a lot of textures on the site.

“I try to stay clear of them as it’s the client you’re working with that matters. Sometimes clients will come to you with a style in mind, and it’s about advising them whether that’s right for them or not.

“We always make sure we go back to basics and everything we do represents them, because it’s the brand language that’s important.”

Web design is also about keeping up with the latest developments and it’s something Atkinson has looked at as part of the team behind Animatable, a hosted web app which enables users to create animations viewable on all desktop and mobile devices using HTML5, CSS3 and JS languages.

She said: “iOS native apps are doing extremely well but web apps will continue to improve and we’ll see a lot more of them.

“Google Chrome is my default browser now and I’ve seen people are forgetting these apps are even in the browser. That’s what we want, as it enables them to focus on the content on the site.”

Former Design It Build It conference producer Gavin Elliott was upbeat about the prospect for the web industry in a Tech Notes column last month. He’s even planning his own conference in 2012 called The Industry Web Conference, but he sounded a note of caution that the industry needed more talent – and fast.

Atkinson said: “I was asked to go back to my old u niversity to talk about my career and also to encourage people to code. One of the big things universities were finding was that people wanted to be designers but weren’t interested in coding.

“I spent the first four or five years of my career not wanting to touch the code, but realised that even if you don’t code yourself, you have to understand it and recognise its potential and its limitations.

“There was a general passion for design there but universities do tend to struggle to get people interested in the full package.”

Both Atkinson and recent graduate Lauren Thompson agree the industry moves at such a pace that it’s hard for formal educators to keep up.

Thompson said: “You have to be so on the ball. I went on holiday once and I felt like I’d missed so much by the time I got back. Every day is something new.”

Designer and front-end developer Lauren Thompson completed a foundation degree in web design at Newcastle College this year, but has been gaining industry experience for two years. She started developing her interest as she hit her teens and, at the age of 20, has already built a portfolio that includes website designs for events company Sailor Girl and mobile app developer Hedgehog Lab. She works as Hedgehog Lab’s UI designer as well as doing freelance work.

“I’ve been fiddling around on the web since I was about 13”, she said. “I suppose I could say I was self-taught, although my web design course was fantastic. All the modules were based on what you had to learn for the industry. There’s a lot of disagreement as to whether formal education is really the way to go and there are a lot of people that aren’t necessarily able to get a job after graduating.

“I guess the answer is that if you’re going to do a web course, make sure you do the right one, but it’s often good to learn it yourself. There’s a wealth of knowledge online and I try to follow as many people on Twitter and go to as many conferences as I can. It’s about consuming and learning as much as you can.”

A lot of the work that Thompson does as a designer at Hedgehog Lab is based around smartphones.

She said: “Everyone has smartphones these days. It’s not a niche thing anymore and you’re not just catering for a techie audience. In some ways, designing for apps can be quite restrictive as Apple has set guidelines. But iPhone apps attract a bit more appreciation for pixel-perfect high-resolution graphics and, with the new high-resolution retina display, it’s even clearer. ”

When asked about any particular developments that excited them in the industry, both pointed toward the emergence of ‘responsive design’, which suggests that when a user switches from one device to another, the website should be able to automatically react and adjust.

Thompson said: “It’s nice to watch people start to do this. You’ll see websites look one way on a full-screen browser and another way on a smartphone. I’d like to see everyone doing things that way.”

As a profession that links inspiration with timetables and clients, both have to work in certain ways to keep the ideas flowing. Atkinson likes to take a little time away from a project occasionally, finding that the solution can emerge “when you’re out for a walk, see something in a book or on a piece of signage”.

Thompson often finds the trickiest thing about a project is knowing when to stop. She said: “I’m someone that really likes to make everything perfect. If it means working until 10pm, that’s just how it has to be. It’s tough learning to let go, rather than spend that extra hour polishing the pixels.”