This week we decided to change location of our author interview and so we slid very slowly to the left a little to another Envato marketplace, arguably the largest of their network of websites that sell digital goods, ActiveDen. “FlashDen” as it was previous called (Envato had to change the name due to pressure from Adobe who own the ‘Flash’ trademark) has been a very successful site since launch. Selling every kind of component, pre-made flash websites and animation plus some excellent flash based solutions, ActiveDen is the jewel in Envato’s crown and who better to interview than none other than FlashJunkie. A strong community member, reviewer and author, he provides us with an excellent chance to see the process from both sides of the fence.

FlashJunkie managed to squeeze an interview in to his busy days of writing action script, designing the UI of his next projects and skipped a few reviews (joke!) to sit down for a few moments.

Hey Jonathan, you are very welcome. Well, as we have already established my name is Jay but I am widely known online as ‘FlashJunkie’ a name which I plucked out of the air when signing up to ActiveDen in April 2007 (or FlashDen as it was back then) I chose this name because ever since I opened Flash for the first time, I was hooked.

I found Flash in 2007 when after stumbling from dead end job to dead end job I decided I wanted to do something fun for a living, so without so much as a scrap of knowledge on anything to do with design or programming I applied for a website development position at a local web development firm. I still to this day don’t know how I got the job but I’m glad I did, on my first day I was sat down in front of a PC with Flash 8 installed on it, I was given an hour’s rundown of how flash works from a colleague and a folder full of tutorials, followed swiftly by my first project and a 4 week deadline. I worked hard, hit the deadline and haven’t looked back since.

A few months later I found ActiveDen, I signed up and for a few months I stayed in the shadows, checking how things worked and using existing files to get an idea of what was widely accepted as good design, I started uploading a few truly dreadful files and over time as my knowledge improved so did my files and their designs.

After being given a reviewers position I decided that I could go it alone so in January 2009 I quit my job and became a freelancer, life has never been better.

As for my files and what I have in store for the future, I have 2 files to be released soon, one is quite a generic file but the other is something truly unique and something I hope will really take off!

Red Steel XML Website Template – By FlashJunkie – preview here

Yes indeed there has, well to be perfectly honest Jonathan, I am a Flash developer through and through and I very rarely code any HTML or CSS so I haven’t really been keeping up with the latest other than the nasty goings on between Apple and Adobe with the whole Flash to iPhone thing. I have always been a fan of Apple products because they stand for what most web designers are all about, top quality design and functionality, but my iPhone savings jar just turned into an android phone savings jar, what Apple are doing to the Flash community is wrong.

Thank you, I personally think that there are a lot more authors that could better define the word ‘great’ but I’m not one to refuse a compliment. Yes, I’m a fulltime freelancer and I am one of the longest employed reviewers at Envato, the earnings from this position form the foundations for my income, I try to earn enough from reviewing to cover all the necessities and then any freelance work and commission earnings from sales pay for the fun things in life.

As a few people may know, especially my Skype contacts, my hours are very irregular, you can usually still find me online at around 5am, so I have plenty of time to get things done and still find time to spend with my beautiful girlfriend and my family.

iTweet by FlashJunkie – Preview here

Yes, I’m looking forward to upgrading, I WAS very much looking forward to playing with the iPhone packager but we all know what’s happening there. Instead I’m looking at some of the smaller features, in particular the ‘Code Snippets’ feature. As I am sure is the case with all other web programmers I am forever re-using and adapting code, so having a panel that holds snippets of code for loading XML, creating a menu or aligning objects to the stage etc, will come in very useful.

My inspiration for new projects usually comes from inside my head, I often have ‘eureka’ moments and usually at the most inconvenient of times, I can be out walking my dog or perhaps out shopping and wham I have a great idea for something and have to rush home before I forget about it. As for design I like to try new things, design has been the one thing I have really struggled with as people who have followed my work for some time will know. However I think I am at a point now where I can confidently design something and be happy with it.

I’ll keep this answer short and sweet,

• Learn AS3
• Learn PV3D
• Learn to drive
• Gold ‘Paw’ (note from editor – Envato marketplace authors receive “paws” by colors dependent on their sales)
• Launch my website (3 years building sites for other people and I still haven’t got around to building one for myself!)

XML Slideshow/Banner Rotator (XML Delay + More) by FlashJunkie – Preview here

I think I can safely speak for every single Envato reviewer or employee on this one. Working for Envato is a true pleasure, we are so well looked after and I hope to be able to continue working for Envato for a long time to come.

The only bad thing that comes with being a reviewer is sometimes when we reject files people take it personally. I personally think that authors should take a rejection as a reason to improve. After all the better the file is the better the sales are. Rejection in a strange way, is a good thing.

As we know ActiveDen recruits new authors daily trying to create and sell files. It can be difficult at first to get your files accepted – is there any strong advice or guidelines you can supply that may help them out?:

The first thing new authors should do is read the upload instructions, you would be amazed how many files are uploaded incorrectly.

There are many things that will help a new author get a file approved, I wrote a blog post for ActiveDen a while ago which explains what the reviewers look for and I think it’s really helpful for all authors, not just new ones. Here is a link: http://blog.activeden.net/resources/tips-tricks/get-approved-first-time-every-time/

Jay’s Workstation

Well Jay, we’ll let you get back to your review queue before the mob linches you – thanks so much for taking time out of your day to help inform our readers and fans of your work!

Thank you for the interview Jonathan, it was a pleasure and thanks to everyone who has read this to find out a little more about me. If you like what I do on ActiveDen be sure to follow me there or come and chat to me on twitter – @FlashJunkie.

The template and theme market isn’t short of some small and big players pushing their goods at discount prices with exceptional quality, in fact it seems that every month we see a new website offering something different. Lately however, we have been following a new start-up company that looks very promising – MOJO-Themes.com.

If you buy or sell HTML templates, wordpress, tumblr or magento themes then you will no doubt be aware of MOJO-Themes.com. With an exciting website design, improved viewing and buying experience than most other marketplaces, and a growing collection of some awesome products at crazy low prices, they are truly placing the MOJO back in to sites on a daily basis!

The MOJO crew managed to sit down with us and go over some insightful questions and then, offered 10 of lucky our readers a FREE $10 credit – read on for details!

First off, we just wanted to say thanks for opportunity to be interviewed on your site. It’s always humbling for us.
MOJO-Themes.com is a buy / sell marketplace for themes and templates. From popular CMS platforms to HTML templates to email templates, our marketplace is growing everyday with new items.

We look forward to adding new, innovative themes for WordPress but we’ve seen great strides in other platforms like Tumblr and Magento. We’d love to set the standard on quality themes in that space.

MOJO Themes is the brainchild of Mojoness, Inc. a startup out of Utah, which was founded by JR Farr and Brady Nord.

Our strengths are rooted in our pasts. We have both been anxiously engaged in the evolution of these online platforms. When it comes to moving forward we’ve actually come up with new ideas that we’ll unveil right out of the gate and some we’re still working out the details.

These ideas are actually what we found by simply contacting designers/developers and asking them what they would like to see in a marketplace setting. I mean after all, our goal is to build a marketplace for them.

One feature we’re most excited about is our brand new collaboration program. Recently, we introduced the very first collaboration program, which will finally unite designers and developers! It’s called JOINT FORCES. We think these features will really open doors for some seriously talented designers and developers.

Another feature we included in our marketplace was making it easier for our sellers to get their money whenever they want it. Not having to wait until the end of the month comes around.

It’s your money; take it when you want it. They would have to have a minimum balance and there is small transaction fee associated to this feature. (*NOTE – If you request money within the first 3 days of the month it’s of course FREE to request payouts. This only relates to requesting money anytime during the month.)

Building Mojo Themes was unlike anything else we have built before. We both have built our own fair share of sites, but we found this to be the most complex by far. For example, there are many security concerns that had to be addressed. The site is unique in its abilities to pull and push cash in a variety of directions.

In addition to that, we really felt it was important when buying items that the user had options. We built in a shopping cart, which is capable of using pre-deposited funds (which will buy the items at a discounted price) or simply using a Buy Now process.

Also, it’s tough to launch a marketplace without having items to sell. We ran the “March Padness” contest to entice sellers to upload with MOJO. The top 3 sellers with the most uploaded items won an Apple iPad. That helped us with our launch and was fun to create some buzz.

In the end, the real challenges were in thinking through every possible outcome that a user may encounter.

Apollo HTML Template – Click to preview and purchase from just $15

What part of your start-up process do you feel has been the most rewarding experience so far?:

Well to be honest, giving away 3 Apple iPads to our users has been very rewarding. As we said ran a contest for the month of March called “March Padness”. The contest was to give away 3 Apple iPads to the top three users with the most accepted items.

Honestly, when people notice the TRUE hard work that went into creating this marketplace. We hope our passion and dedication with MOJO Themes continues to shine through.

In other words, it’s nice to have something to show for all that hard work!

We see Mojo Themes being a real leader among distributors of themes and site templates. The business is built to be very scalable.

Many would answer this question saying that they are going to be the number one in the market or that they are going to kill their competition, or any other over-exuberant rant. Of course we seek to be the best at what we do, beyond that we also seek that Mojo Themes is respected as a leading company in quality design and code.

We also hope to use MOJO Themes as a stepping-stone into new marketplace niches and create new ventures that can add value to current markets that interest us.

Ingenious WordPress Theme – Click to preview and purchase from just $28

The design of MOJO Themes was a crucial element that we felt we had to get perfect! (Literally) In a lot of ways we are perfectionists and therefore the site is constantly “under construction” in our eyes.

For the design, we decided on bringing in Richard Fang as our partner, who we feel has delivered time after time with quality work. For the most part the design began with a blank canvas. We knew we were going to be working with our fuzzy little monsters and that the site should reflect what we interpret as “their” world.

We went through the process of design with revision after revision until we accomplished the look and feel that we absolutely loved! Even our seasoned design partner Richard was overheard as saying, “wow you guys pushed the creativity to whole new level for me!” This is the level of innovation that was and is important to us.

We knew that in order to attract the world’s top designers to upload their work on MOJO Themes the site had better meet or exceed their expectations.

Signal 8 WordPress Theme – Click to preview and purchase from just $26

With other marketplaces there can be a huge waiting time for the review process, do you do things differently when an item is submitted, and how do you gauge quality on the site?:

Yes, we completely understand this problem that most people have. We have worked really hard to make sure that we either accept or reject a theme within 48 hours.

Right now we are young and hungry enough to keep up with the current pace. It is very important to us as we grow that we continue putting our customers first.

Trying to gauge the quality of a uploaded item is the root of why the review process takes time. There are so many elements that come into play. We have a standard process we follow but there’s really no method to our madness. We recently wrote a post on our site to help our sellers get their items approved.

Absolutely, we love to see diversity in our marketplace.

We have noticed that there is a trend of people loving the clean business looks lately, but we strongly encourage a variety of tastes and niches.

We feel that in the design world, what one person may think is beautiful another might not like at all. And obviously, the trendy designs are what are selling so of course we will be more than happy to have them.

Altered Perspective Tumblr Theme – Click to preview and purchase from just $9

How about instead of an elevator pitch we do a cool giveaway to everyone that’s stuck around this long

Here’s how to win:

• Tell us your MOJO Themes username in the comments below.
• Follow @mojo_themes at Twitter
• Then Tweet this:

Win a $10 credit to use at MOJO Themes (@mojo_themes & @webtipsmagazine contest) RT to enter!

10 winners will be randomly selected and listed here next next wednesday! So get Tweeting!

ThemeForest.net is a wonderful place full of some very talented designers – anyone who has visited or uses the site will be familiar with todays interviewee – Ivor Padilla (AKA ivor / iPad) – Ivor produces some exceptionally clean and usable themes and templates on theme forest but has a very interesting background – he’s a trained lawyer! Yup, you heard that right, we have a designer, coder, lawyer, insurance broker and musician – now that’s a renaissance man if I ever met one.

Yes, I’m a 27 years old guy from Venezuela, I’m a lawyer and an insurance broker besides the Web Designer profession and I play guitar and drums too.

Meedoo WordPress – By Ivor Padilla – preview here

I’ll be honest with this question, I don’t have 10 years of experience or anything like that, before web design I was good in photoshop retouching pictures and stuff, but I was attracted by Nettuts, every single trick of CSS and the way I code my HTML lines was learned from Jeffrey Way’s screencasts, I don’t really know how this guy does it but he’s just a great teacher I’m really grateful for it.

iMaxell Premium Corporate Theme by Ivor Padilla – Preview here

I love to do freelance work, but sometimes the clients may be a real pain in your back nonetheless that’s not considered as a real challenge, as a freelancer you have to learn to deal with that.

vCard Professional Portfolio by Ivor Padilla – Preview here

Well I often see tons and tons of websites before I can start a project I use Little Snapper (Mac App) to catch my favorites parts of every site to inspire my designs, however I never try to copy any element though, I’m quite strict with that.

Stratocaster Tumblr Theme by Ivor Padilla – Preview here

Professional: Increase my sales in ThemeForest, recently Jordan and Drew (Envato’s Support Staff) chose me as one of the ThemeForest Community Moderator (Editor: congrats dude!) and one of my goal is to be as good as possible also I want to get my own office, start my studies to get the specialist in civil law degree.

SleekInColor Business Template by Ivor Padilla – Preview here

Well I’ll be humble with this one I don’t see me as one of the top authors, I need to work harder to achieve this but definitely I’ll try my best to release more quality items.

Meedoo Corporate Template by Ivor Padilla – Preview here

I have an upcoming theme called Boldr, this one will ace a strong focus in the black “color” and with bold elements.

Mac and PC I’m running a 22” iMac 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and a Desktop PC Lenovo Dual Core 2.60 GHz 4GB RAM (I’m planning to get a Macbook Pro later this year)

ThemeForest, Twitter, Gmail, Google, PayPal

Ivor’s Workstation

Ivor relaxing by the pool with a friend

Ivor, thanks for the opportunity to find out more about you – great interview and some awesome products – I truly hope this encourages some of our readers – you are a great inspiration!

Keep in contact with Ivor

Twitter
ThemeForest

Everyone meet Chris Molitor. Chris is a very talented designer, illustrator and wordpress theme developer from Themeforest and Graphic River with an impressive portfolio collection on both marketplaces. Chris took a few minutes to sit down and answer some questions with WebTipsMagazine.com and to help us understand the man behind his awesome designs.

I’m 27, living in the outskirts of Seattle, WA with my beautiful wife, Christine (yes, Chris and Christine). I received my BA in marketing from the University of Washington.

I work as the lead developer for a fantastic company called Blackwave Creative (blackwave.net) where I build custom WordPress themes all day. Recently I’ve taken up skiing as a hobby, so I’ve spent the last couple of months falling down the slopes of the Cascade Mountains. I started making themes for Theme Forest when it first opened its doors back in 2008.

WordPress HUD – By Chris Molitor – preview here

I’m a gamer. For a long time I frequented an Xbox 360 blog that was built with WordPress. I looked into this WordPress thing and thought it was so cool that I could have my own website and share all my Photoshop pictures and Chuck Norris comics (based on the Chuck Norris facts).

After awhile, I decided to purchase the CSS upgrade so that I could mess around with the actual code of the theme. I had so much fun that I decided to learn HTML/CSS so I could totally customize the look of my site. Later I decided to branch out and get my own hosting account and install WordPress so I could customize it even further.

Hobby turned into obsession. Obsession turned into profession. The rest is history

Samurai Warrior Illustration by Chris Molitor – Preview here

When Envato first announced Theme Forest, I got a sudden rush of anticipation. I knew it was going to be huge.

I first encountered the Envato marketplaces as a buyer on Active Den (then called Flash Den). I wasn’t very good with flash, so it was an awesome resource for me when clients had flash needs. I was really impressed with the quality of files on the site and how strong the community was.

I remember putting together my very first submission for Theme Forest. I spent hours and hours on it, and was so sad when it was rejected. While it was tough getting rejected, I realized that it only made my themes that much better. To this day, I’m so thankful for the high quality standards that Theme Forest enforces. It really does make us better web designers.

WordPress University by Chris Molitor – Preview here

I always start in Photoshop. I typically spend a week playing with design ideas. When I think I’ve reached the end of my creative exercise, I start developing the site in Coda. I’ve spent the last 2 years making my own WordPress framework so that I can develop a fully custom WordPress site in less than a week (in some cases a couple days). I remember when I was so excited about finishing my WordPress University design that I actually stayed up all night developing it until it was done (I love coffee). For some reason, I feel most creative in the midnight hours. Weird.

I try not to think of Theme Forest as a money making tool, but more as a creative outlet. With that mind set, I only build themes that I think are cool and allow me to incorporate some new jQuery techniques or WordPress functions I’ve learned recently. Sometimes I build themes that fill a gap, such as my WordPress Church theme or WordPress University theme, and other times I build themes just for the sake of making something cool, like my WordPress HUD theme and WordPress Glass theme (which I also use for my personal website).

WordPress Church by Chris Molitor – Preview here

For web design, I’m heavily inspired by the authors on the Envato marketplaces. Especially Collis, DigitalScience, Kriesi, Maximus, and Akay. These guys are really amazing web designers. I’m also a fan of Design Bombs. They not only have a fantastic site design, but offer really astounding designs in their gallery.

For general graphics, I’m really inspired by 17th century Japanese art. I’m not sure why, but I think it is one of the most interesting periods in the history of art and design.

Japanese Business Card by Chris Molitor – Preview here

Graphic River is great. It’s the perfect place to flex your artistic muscle. Like with Theme Forest, I don’t really focus on using Graphic River to make money, but use it as a platform to try out some of my ideas. I get goosebumps when I receive nice comments about my items and receive 5 star ratings. I honestly think making money on Graphic River and Theme Forest as an added benefit of the sites. It’s extremely satisfying just having an audience that enjoys my work.

WordPress Glass by Chris Molitor – Preview here

I have an ongoing goal of learning as much as I can about WordPress. I think for 2010 my focus will be on plugin development. I haven’t really explored this aspect of WordPress and it’s definitely one of the features of WordPress that sets it apart from all other CMS options.

I also look forward to possibly speaking at WordCamp Seattle again this year. We’ll see

The most important thing I’ve learned is to make it easy for buyers to customize your item and make it their own. That means clean code, totally layered PSD files, and lots of admin options in WordPress.

I’m amazed when I get emails from people who bought my files and totally made it their own. In some cases, they almost completely changed it to where it was hard to tell it was ever my theme to begin with. I think that’s really cool.

Also, it never hurts to have great support resources for you buyers, such as video walk-throughs or having a forum for them to ask questions.

Chris’s Workstation – nice!

I’m rocking’ a 27″ iMac 2.66 GHz Intel Core i5 and a 13″ MacBook Pro, Photoshop CS4 (upgrading to CS5 soon!), Coda and FireFox.

I’m tempted to say Google Reader because then I can still “visit” all my favorite sites.

To play along, I’ll go with Theme Forest, Twitter, Facebook, College Humor and YouTube.

Thanks for taking a few moments out of what is obviously a very busy schedule Chris to share your story, workflow and interests with our readers – hopefully you can become an inspiration to many readers!

Keep in contact with Chris

Twitter
GraphicRiver
ThemeForest

Anyone that has visited, bought a file, or is an author at ThemeForest.net, part of the Envato network of marketplaces, will be familiar with this weeks Author Interview – Make Design, Not War, AKA Brandon R Jones.

Brandon is one of the consistent top authors at the hugely successful site, with a portfolio of  29 items, most of which are in the top 10 best selling items of their respective categories, he is a great inspiration to web developers, and theme authors.

Brandon was kind enough to take a few minutes out of his crazy schedule to answer a few questions for our readers.

I’m a really active, energetic guy. I love to get outdoors and rock climb, hike, and surf. I also am an avid cook and love fine coffees and beers. I’m getting married in this August (2010), so I’m pretty busy working on planning that right now!

I actually started out as a front-end designer back in 2002, so whenever I would work with clients I would be limited by the inability to code a custom content management system by myself (which people actually did from scratch back in the day!).

WordPress was the first serious platform that enabled front-end designers to consistently rock out stable websites with CMS-like abilities.

What holds me to WordPress? The community. I’ll admit that there are prettier platforms to use, but WordPress is miles ahead of the pack in terms of support, plugins, an incredibly well populated knowledgebase, and an active team releasing regular core updates. Plus, the updates have gotten better and better in the past year, which means that whenever a competitor releases a new feature, WordPress isn’t too far behind.

With lots of platforms to pick from and the learning curve often requiring hundreds of hours of time to master any one of them, as a developer it’s important to pick one that’s going to be around for a while.

I was trained as a graphic designer, so web design was never something that I learned in school – Like most successful designers that I know, the ability to be motivated and teach yourself is crucial to whether or not you are going to make it in the industry. I started out with a few basic HTML books and then discovered that in most cases, Google.com is a far better resource than anything you’ll ever find in a bookstore.

Did I always know this is what I wanted to do? Nope! Web design was just one of my freelance services for the first few years. When I realized that I was getting tons more work from web design than anything else, I made the shift towards focusing on my web based skillsets.

I just released a massive admin panel update for this theme, and it’s rock solid in terms of usability and stability. It’s honestly my favorite theme that I’ve produced so far, and it’s gotten some rave reviews from users so far.

Click here to view and purchase

The biggest challenge that I see on a daily basis is time-management and the day to day business maintenance. I happen to think that understanding that “if you are a freelancer, you are a business” is the most important realization that you can have. Managing your time and your business are as important to your success as whether or not you are a good coder or designer. In fact, I’ll say something dramatic (and I welcome a healthy discussion or disagreement over this):

If you are good at managing your time and your business, you are more than likely to succeed in the industry even if you are a mediocre coder/designer. You can be an amazing worker though, and if you can’t manage your time & business, you will fail. I guarantee it. You just can’t succeed on talent alone.

As much as I love web design, what truly inspires me is what’s happening in the field of illustration and typography right now. I’ve always felt that web design is a good decade or two behind the actual trends happening in the real world, so when I need inspiration, I open up things like Behance, Creattica, DeviantArt, Wired Magazine, and various Graphic Design magazines/annuals.

This is probably the most “out of the box” WordPress theme that I’ve seen so far. Designed to act as a portfolio instead of a blog (although it does the normal blog stuff too), this theme leverages some hot new jQuery techniques as well as the new WP-Post-Thumb feature to yield a hot new way to look at WordPress.

Click here to view and purchase

After freelancing for almost 8 years, I was able to quit this past February 2010 thanks to my work on WordPress themes and HTML templates at ThemeForest. There is a huge market for customizable stock themes out there and I truly see this as the single most important trend within the industry for the next couple years.

My goals for 2010 revolve around stock templates and WordPress themes: As such, I’ll be working on new coding methods, new designs, and heavily pushing self-promotion through social media platforms like Twitter and my own site. I’m planning on working exclusively on my own products and promotion for the entire year, and we’ll see what comes of it!

Hah! It feels great, but I’m never one to rest on my laurels – there is a lot of talent out there, and to stay on top it’s going to take as much inspiration, innovation, and dedication as I can muster up

My Twitter account! I’m on there all the time – so if you use Twitter, make sure you add me – @makedesign

You can check out the rest of Brandon’s work at the following spots:
ThemeForest
Twitter
MakeDesign, NotWar

Thank you for taking the time to answer a few questions for us Brandon, we wish you all the very best for your upcoming wedding and your continued career success!

Our recent interview with Sean McGrath proved hugely successful, and so, we have decided to start a complete new section here at Web Tips Magazine – Interviews. We have some awesome interviews lined up from various freelancers in the coming months so be sure to keep an eye on this section.

Let’s kick of our new interview by focusing on Jonathan Atkinson. Jonathan’s story begins in a small town in Lancashire, England.  He started off selling games out of a gas station and built that up to be one of the top 20 Playstation Centre’s in the country.  When that challenge was conquered, Jonathan decided to see if he could live the ‘All American Dream’ and move to Ohio, with his US born wife.

Coming to the USA in 2000, he was penniless.  While going through immigration, which is a another long story he tells us, he decided he wanted to go back to his roots of Art and Design, since it was after all, the Major he took at Nelson & Colne College.  So he found a little website called Elance and decided to join the masses and try out his luck.  It wasn’t long after his first couple of projects that he started a career on what would go on to be his “calling”.

Jonathan has graduated from logo design, basic HTML websites and 30 second flash files shown at movie cinemas, on to Apple Motion, email templates, and now Word Press themes.  Expanding his business from Theatre web sites, to complete websites, online application design, and GUI design.

“I like to say to people that I make things look pretty – logos, websites, user interfaces, print materials and I even create animated pre-movie advertisements for movie theaters, plus I design online applications for my day job and look after the servers and a family of websites.”

Jonathan also went on to tell us what inspires him:

“I don’t have any particular people that inspire me as such, I just love clean usable design, whether that is a can of soda or a print magazine all the way to architecture and movies – I tend to gain inspiration from as many places as I can and none traditional inspiration from something not affiliated with web design etc is always a great source.

Inspiration from unusual sources, as I said before blending one media with another in style and user interface is a great obsession of mine and seeing the HDR images, flickr focus and interviews on here is a great source for improving your skill sets.”

Personal goals for Jonathan for 2010 include more Word Press themes.  He’s keen to raise the bar on his Themeforest creations.  Jonathan tells us to watch his Themeforest account for new and upcoming projects he already has in mind.

Take a look at some of Jonathan’s fresh cool and eye-catching pieces:

Since it’s been a week or two since Web Tips Magazine has created a Flickr Focus.  We searched carefully to find the perfect person to focus on this week.

Meet Sean McGrath.  Sean is a web developer who handles everything from the front end to the back end, even iPhone Apps.  Sean lives in a small city of Saint John, NB, Canada where he has been his whole life.  

Sean’s love of computers, programming and all things creative is what got him interested into photography and developing.  Photography started as a past time but with the amazing eye and skill Sean shows through his photo’s, we sure hope that he continues to increase the time he dedicates to it.

We recently had a chance to engage Sean a little to find out what drives him, inspires him and we’d like to share some of his quotes with you now…

Q:  Who inspires you and why?

Sean:  ”Everyday people in the world that can rock it just as well as the big shots, especially in photography.  There are so many people out there, that few have heard of, that are just killing it right now.”

Q:  Any personal or professional goals for 2010?

Sean:  ”I’ve currently challenged myself to do a 365 project, and while only 30 days in, it is proving to be a massive challenge.  Seeing that through to the end would be amazing, so for right now – that is my goal.  I’m really hoping that it pushes me further as a photographer and gets me thinking in new and creative ways.”

Well Sean, we’ve seen some of your 365 pictures on your Flickr page and we can’t wait to see the rest.  You have the skills, now you have the fans.  We’re looking forward to seeing more of Sean and his works.  Visit Sean’s website to see more.

Here are some of our favorites from Sean’s Flickr collection.  Thank you Sean for sharing your inspiration with us so you can continue to inspire us all.