KuraFire Network

You know them from their respective weblogs, but a little while ago, Andy Budd, Jeremy Keith and Richard Rutter combined their talents to form a new web consultancy, named Clear: left. I sat down with the three of them and asked them ten questions, hoping to get a good idea of what Clear: left is all about.

1. First of all, how did you come up with the idea for and the name of the company "Clear:left"? (CL)
Andy: The credit for the name has to go to Richard. We wanted something that was short, catchy and approachable. Something that hinted at our technical expertise but didn't lock us in to a particular market or service. When Richard came up with the name Clearleft, it seemed like the perfect choice. Most clients associate the "clear" part of our name with a our belief in simplicity and clarity, while web developers get the obvious association with standards based design.

Richard: Initially I just liked the sound of 'clear left' and that it hinted our standards-based approach (at least to our peers). Two important factors were that the domain name was available and people can readily spell the name.

Jeremy: I wanted to call it Super Best Friend's Club.

2. All three of you are slowly moving towards spending all of your time on CL. How is this process working out for each of you, and could you tell us more about why you've taken this course?
Richard: I think it was New Year's Day that we got together in a cafe and the 'wouldn't it be good to work together' conversation started, only this time it got serious. Since then we've been gradually and carefully building up to the point we're at now, where Clearleft is a full time job and a company with ambitions. Combining our resources enables us to take on more and bigger projects, and of course its always good to work with your friends.

Andy: Yes, it's going very well thanks. Even from just a few veiled references to Clearleft at the @media conference, we won some work and now the website and the company have launched fully, we've secured some very interesting projects.

Jeremy: Because I was already a freelancer, it wasn't such a big change for me. Except now, instead of working for lots of different little firms, I'll be working with my friends. My Super Best Friends.

3. Aside of making a living, what are CL's primary goals?
Andy: Good question. I don't like talking about mission statements as they usually sound too corporate. However if we had one overriding goal or philosophy, it would be "To help people make websites better".

This means everything from working with site owners to ensure they have the best website possible, through to helping other web developers build their skills though training and advocacy.

Jeremy: For me, it's the chance to work on projects that I really want to work on.

Richard: We love what we do, but from a personal point of view, we want to be in the position where none of our projects actually seem like 'work'. Obviously that doesn't exclude professionalism and graft, but if the project you're working on is exciting, interesting and challenging then the hard work becomes enjoyable.

4. What are CL's strongest points, both from the company as a whole and the three of you individually, within the company?
Andy: A company's strongest asset is its people, and Clearleft has the involvement of some incredible people. All the people involved share a very similar outlook, believing strongly in web best practice. These include things such as user-centered design, web accessibility and developing with web standards. While we all have a good deal of overlap in our skills, we all have our own unique areas of expertise.

For instance, Richard worked as a producer at Multimap for over 3 years. He has developed a huge amount of experience in planning and implementing large scale projects, and has an in-depth knowledge of Information Architecture. As such, Richard is the project lead at Clearleft.

Jeremy has been developing standards based sites for years, and brings with him a great deal of technical expertise. He is an expert in front end technologies such as CSS and JavaScript, as well as being a very proficient PHP programmer. Jeremy is also an exceptional public speaker and technical trainer, and has recently written a book on unobtrusive JavaScript. Jeremy acts as the technical lead at Clearleft.

My areas of expertise are in user-centered design and web accessibility. I believe in making web applications as simple and easy to use as possible, while retaining a strong identity and graphical appeal. I also love training and public speaking and work as the design lead for Clearleft.

Richard: Well that's the corporate answer from Andy ;-), but a question like that was asking for it :-) All fact and no hyperbole though.

5. All three of you have a popular weblog. Has coming from the weblog-scene made a difference for the company?
Jeremy: Reading and writing blogs is definitely an education. There's an incredible amount of knowledge out there and it's always exciting to be able to contribute to that pool in some small way. And, as you well know Faruk, blogs are great playgrounds. You can try out things that you'd never get the opportunity to do on client sites. For myself, I think that most of my skills have come from building my own sites, be it a blog or any other kind of personal site.

Richard: I don't believe it would be overstating the case to say that our blogs made Clearleft possible. The blogs have given us, as individuals, exposure in the web dev community. With that exposure comes a significant network of fellow designers/developers, which in turn leads to clients. Thus far, the majority of our work has come from people who read our blogs or through recommendations by people who know us through our blogs.

6. Aside of the kick-ass logo, how are you going to give CL an identity? For instance, is there going to be a Clear:left weblog?
Andy: Our identity as a company will come from our philosophy, the personalities of the people involved and the work we produce. We will all be keeping our own personal weblogs, but we will all be contributing to our company weblog, Clear Thinking.

Jeremy: We're all going to get matching tattoos. Yeah, there'll be a blog too, but the tattoos will totally kick ass.

Richard: We might all get a green mohawk too, to match the logo.

7. We're constantly getting bombarded with new technologies and new, creative uses of existing technologies: AJAX, sIFR, Ruby on Rails, you name it. As a consultancy, how do you deal with this? Do you try to stay cutting-edge or do you let these things prove themselves three times over, first?
Andy: It's all about balance, so to answer your question, it's a bit of both.

Technology is a tool you use to accomplish a goal, so it really depends on the individual circumstances. You need to weigh up the benefits of using a new technology against factors such as scalability, longevity and your audience's technical capabilities. For some companies the goal may simply be to demonstrate that they understand the latest technologies and are "cutting edge", in which case it's OK. However in most cases I'd advise against using new technologies just for the sake of it.

I see a lot of companies using AJAX simply because it's the latest cool technology. The solutions they come up with are overly complicated and it's often like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. In the rush to use AJAX, many best practice concepts such as accessibility, usability or graceful degradation are being forgotten, which is a real concern. Fortunately it doesn't have to be this way. Our new website uses a sprinkling of AJAX to increase the use experience, yet it's unobtrusive and degrades nicely. The problem with most new technologies is that best practice patterns of use have yet to be established. As such, it's important that any new technology is used sensibly and with the proper care and consideration.

Jeremy: I love fiddling and tinkering with new technologies so I tend to keep up with all the latest stuff just because it's fun. At the same time, I have an incredibly low tolerance for buzzwords. I'll happily discuss Ajax or Ruby on Rails for hours, but as soon as I hear words like "leveraging" or hear the word "impact" used as a verb, my eyes glaze over.

Richard: It's great that all these new tools and technologies are emerging, and fantastic that so many people are exploring them publicly, so we as an industry can learn quickly. Methodologies like AJAX enable us to think differently about web sites as applications, so from that perspective it's important to keep up with what can be achieved. That said, the old adage 'horses for courses' still holds true - sometimes a bunch of static pages is all that a client requires.

8. With the online world moving more and more towards web standards, what kind of future do you envision for CL? Do you expect a lot of fierce competition to emerge?
Andy: Clearleft builds standards based sites, but we don't "sell" standards. We work with our clients to help create the best website or application possible, and using web standards is just a small part of that. Personally I look forward to the day when everybody uses web standards and we don't have to worry about it anymore. When that day comes we can all start working on what's really important: making websites work better.

Jeremy: At this stage, we take it completely for granted. We couldn't build a site without web standards. It's not even something we think about. So, the fact that other agencies are also starting to use web standards doesn't worry me (in fact, I'm very pleased). I'm more surprised when I come across an apparently successful agency that doesn't use web standards.
(Editor's note: just look around the Netherlands and you'll see tons of those, regrettably.)

Richard: It's pleasing when a client starts talking about web standards, especially if they understand the benefits already, because that probably means we'll have a good relationship. But as Andy says we don't sell web standards - if a client never mentions it, we won't mention it either - from our point of view it's what we use to get the job done well.

Like Jeremy, I hope more agencies start to use web standards as it will put the industry as a whole in a better position.

9. What does a typical day look like for a "clear:left-er"?
Jeremy: There hasn't been a typical day yet. That's the way I like it. Every day is a new adventure completely unlike the day before... except that they involve lots of sitting in front of the computer with BBEdit or Photoshop. But apart from that, they're all completely different. Honest.

Richard: Having a 'distributed office' helps keep things interesting too.

10. If you were put in a giant room in front of ALL the web developers in the world, and you had five minutes to speak, what would you tell them?
Andy: Remember to get enough sleep, eat your greens, get away from your computer and spend time with your loved ones, go on holiday and have fun with what you do.

Jeremy: I would recite Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll. I'd like to see them liveblog that.

Richard: A good friend of mine recently gave me this piece of advice: Once in a while stand back and take stock of what you've accomplished.

Thank you all for this interview and your time.

Bookmark: Newsvine del.icio.us Digg