If you’re on Twitter and you’re a web designer/developer chances are you know John O’Nolan well I was lucky enough to snag an interview with John. So without further ado.

Q. Hello John, so why don’t we start with a little about yourself and what you do.

A. Hello! I’m a young web designer / developer / internet marketer (and all the rest) from the not-so-sunny South East of England. I enjoy long romantic walks on the beach, poetry, and discussing the origin of blue roses (not really). I currently run a small web design business called Lyrical Media, which is slowly but surely growing and getting some attention!

Q. How did you get your start in web design and development and how did you start freelancing?

A. I’ve had computers directly around me since the age of about 6, which in 1993 was no mean feat, but my father used to manage the IT for several international organizations and as a result I became computer savvy at a pretty young age. When I was 14 our Computer Tech class had a module on HTML and while the other kids were making their text bold for the first time I was embedding flash games, audio tracks, and frames-based navigation. It was great.

Much later after I’d left school and was studying music in college I started making websites for some of my favorite bands at the time (for free) – after a little while people started asking how much I charged and I thought “hold on a second, I enjoy doing this stuff… and people want to pay me for it too?”. So from that point on I guess you could say I started really developing my skills and became a professional web designer.

I recently started freelancing due to being pretty unhappy at my job as the lead designer and developer for an international extreme sports company. I’ve known for years that I wouldn’t be happy until I was working for myself, so this January I tossed in the towel on the regular pay check and made the big jump!

Q. So you freelance do you plan on joining or starting a web design/development firm anytime in the future?

A. I already have! Lyrical Media is now Lyrical Media Ltd and was incorporated on the 27th of February 2009. Plans for this year are to establish a stable client-base and monthly turnover and then capitalize on the current rock-bottom office prices, and look at expanding the business with some additional staff.

For the time being I’m going to remain based in the UK, though I have dreams of someday either living-in or taking-lengthy-vacations-to Australia.

Q. What tools/websites do you utilize to do your job?

A. Many, but the main tools which I use are Adobe Photoshop/Illustrator (design), TextMate (dev), and Billings (finance). These are rock solid pieces of software and after years of plowing through some really poor alternatives I’m been really pleased with the recent discovery of both TextMate and Billings. I work on a Mac too, that’s probably my number one most-essential tool. Yes, I paid the Apple-tax, and yes it was worth it!

Q. How do you get your name out as a freelancer and how do you prove to the client you can complete the work?

A. My primary method of promotion so far has been blogging. I’d already been blogging for a full year before I left full-time employment, writing a mildly successful internet marketing blog on http://eggrage.co.uk – When I went freelance I thought it would be great to document the whole experience in the form of a blog, and it’s turned out to be so much more. (http://john.onolan.org)

In two months of running the blog I’m managed to rack up just under 15,000 visits, and been in contact with with some big publishers and software companies who’ve been kind enough to allow me to review their products and sometimes offer a giveaway copy to readers of the blog.

My secondary method of promotion is Twitter – I love it! I’ve “met” so many great people on Twitter, and had replies and chats with some big designers and big names in the internet-business world who I look up to – which is a great feeling.

The blog and twitter between them have generated over 15 solid leads in 2 months, not to mention finding me a top-notch developer and all round awesome guy who I now use for all my back-end development work. (http://japh.com.au)

Q. Any advice for our less experienced freelancers out there?

A. The biggest piece of advice that I can offer has already been said by many people before me, and that’s that you need to LOVE what you do. If you love every second of what you’re doing, then you’re on the right track, keep doing that. Time management is tricky, and I think it comes with experience – I’m still learning to regulate myself into “normal working hours” and I have trouble, take today for example, I started work at 9am and it’s now midnight.

When I get really overloaded with stuff to do I’ve found the biggest help is a to-do list written on paper. I’ve tried a couple of the to-do list apps out there, but I’ve found with all of them that I either just forget about them or ignore them. Paper on your desk with un-crossed-off items is much harder to ignore (for me anyway).

Q. Ok, time to break out the camera and show us what your working with.

A. John’s camera died and he can’t find the charger so we are settling for this picture:

Q. Any advice you want to leave our readers?

A. Talk to everyone you meet, take an interest in other people’s problems and help them out. You may think that you’re in the web design business, but you’re not. You’re in the relationship business, and every business is built on strong relationships. Be positive (always), and the most boring cliche of all – if you haven’t got anything nice to say, don’t say it. Snarky comments on blogs or on Twitter will come back to haunt you, you never know if the person who you’re talking to might be a potential client or employer.

Big thanks, John for granting me this interview and everyone here at MDS Web Studios wishes you the best!

You can find John on twitter or at his website.

You can find MDS Web Studios on twitter and myself on twitter.

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This entry was posted on Friday, March 27th, 2009 at 7:10 am and is filed under Blogging, Marketing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.