Meet Designer & Blogger Adelle Charles
This week I interviewed designer, blogger and devoted Twitterer Adelle Charles. Adelle, is the founder of Fuel Your Creativity and co-founder of Just Tweet It. She is also a very talented designer with an amazing portfolio. View her sites, read the interview and when you’re done, add her as a friend on Twitter, Digg, Flickr, Stumble Upon and more!
Interview
Thank you so much for participating in this interview. Can you start off by explaining a little about your design background? How did you get your start? How have you grown as a designer and where do you see yourself in the future?
Growing up I was the kid who was always doodling and drawing in my sketchbook. My teachers recognized a talent so they would spend more time working with me on the details. My love of sketching grew, and from a very early age I knew this is what I wanted to do “when I grew up.” As far as the future is concerned, right now I am focused on launching a new project called Fuel Brand Studios, which is going to be a network of freelancers. It is going to be a type of a virtual company. It is still in the planning stages but that is where I eventually want it to go.
Which websites do you run and can you tell us a little about them?
FuelYourCreativity.com – Design news, resources, interviews & inspiration blog
Justtweetit.com – Dani McDaniel and I launched our site Just Tweet It, a Twitter Directory of users to help you find other “tweeters” that share your interests as well as tons of Twitter tools, links, latest news… all things Twitter!
AdelleCharles.com – Personal portfolio that needs an overhaul. Coming soon!
What is your favorite thing about being a designer?
That’s a hard question actually. Probably the ability to bring someone’s ideas to life in a design.
What would you consider to be your “Dream Project?”
Fuel Brand Studios and everything that is going to be associated with it. Also, working remotely and kind of being a creative agent, so to speak. I don’t want to manage anyone else…I don’t want a cut of the profits…I just want to pass on work that comes and have my team do the same as they see fit.
Which designers have influenced you the most?
Jason Santa Maria has been a huge inspiration to me lately. I love his magazine style layout…the simplicity and functionality of it all.
What are your primary design tools?
My moleskine book…catches all of my outlines and doodles. And the typical design tools you’d expect.
What are your favorite non-Adobe design tools?
Font Book to…well…choose my fonts. Cleaner…to compress video.
What is your favorite plug-in for Photoshop or Illustrator? How has it improved your workflow?
I don’t use plugins regularly though I’m currently trying out a new one called Phantasm Studio Plugin for Illustrator.
If you could make any one change to an Adobe product what would it be?
I (heart) Adobe as it is. I can’t wait for CS 4 to come out!
What online services could you not live without?
Paypal, Curdbee for invoicing, NetNewsWire for RSS feeds, Mint for analytics and BaseCamp for Project Management
What advice would you give to any aspiring designer or blogger looking to make it in the industry?
Do what you want. As long as you’re having fun doing it, then that’s all that matters.
Finally, last but not least; which do you prefer? iPhone or Blackberry? Why?
iPhone because it just works the best. The interface is less cumbersome. Plus I’m an Apple Fan Geek.
Adelle on the Web
Portfolio site
http://www.adellecharles.com
Fuel Your Creativity
http://www.fuelyourcreativity.com
Just Tweet It
http://www.justtweetit.com
Connect with Adelle
Twitter
Digg
Flickr
LinkedIn
Stumble Upon
Vi.sualize.us
Posterous
Posted in: Interviews
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Great interview..and totally agree – Adelle is really talented designer and blogger, nice to know :)
Yes, iPhone too ^__^
Because unlike other smartphones, iPhone doesn’t try to simulate an entire Operating System into a small palm size screen complete with a desktop look. Everything just comes so natural.
Completely agree with your mention of Jason Santa Maria – I’ve been in love with his sites for a while. So very nice! Check out this cool inspirational post about his work here:
http://abduzeedo.com/web-design-inspiration-jason-santa-maria
Nice read, great questions and great answers too! Nice one guys!
Great article. It is awesome to see Adelle getting props, I read fuel your creativity regularly and have benefited from it tons.
Congrats on another great interview, and keep it up!
~ Aaron I
@Aaron, thank you – reading your blog as well, I think you caught my attention with your post “Talk to Me” and now you’ve got a subscriber!
@Liam Thanks, I actually hadn’t seen that post on abduzeedo!
@Freddywang – I agree iphones rock & it’s made so well.
@Dainis, thank you (again) I really appreciate your support!
Adelle, you seem busy with projects which is awesome, cant wait for some of these to be launched very exciting indeed, good luck with everything, also great job you and Dani did with justtweetit makes finding like minded people a breeeze.
Always got time for Adelle’s comments : )
Nice interview, Adelle! And thanks for mention! :)
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This great Lad inspires me a lot, Nice to see her interviewed in colorburned.
Thanks guys & also thanks to Jason Santa Maria for also adding me to Facebook :) too. Your support rocks!