Five Simple Steps

Last week and earlier this week, we published interviews with the amazing illustrators Elliot Jay Stocks, Kevin Cornell and Geri Coady who have all produced stunning work for Hardboiled Web Design.

We've also asked our Five Simple Questions to the one and only Chris Mills who was the development editor for Hardboiled.

1. Tell us about yourself?

I am Chris! I work for Opera, the viking web browser vendor, doing lots of advocacy work and educational activities for web standards, inclusive design and best practices. This includes publishing tutorial articles, doing interviews, creating curriculum resources for educators to use to improve their courses, giving guest lectures at universities and conferences worldwide, government liaison, and a whole lot more! Some of the work I am most proud of is the Opera web standards curriculum, and the book I coauthored.

Outside of work, I am a drummer in a heavy metal band, Conquest of Steel and a proud parent of 2 awesome kids.

2. Tell us about your work on Hardboiled?

I was the development editor on the book - it was my job to help Andy put together the perfect spec beforehand, and then edit all the material, particularly paying attention to overall structure, consistency of voice and style, making sure that the arguments Andy was making were watertight, commenting on whether the examples used were spiffy and tip top, and giving Andy constructive abuse ;-)

Before we started the project, Andy told me to be as honest and brutal as I wanted to be, and I definitely didn't disappoint! Seriously though - it is nice to work with an author of Andy's calibre, who not only produces first rate work, but also deals with criticism in an professional and appropriate manner.

3. What were the tools and processes that you used?

Pages for editing the prose, web browsers for viewing, Coda for writing and editing code examples, basecamp for proj management, dropbox for sharing files.

4. Where did you get inspiration for your work?

As an editor/writer, my inspiration comes from pretty much anything I read. I am fascinated by diverse writing styles, and try to immerse myself in a variety of texts to make my own richer and more informed — I read a lot of stuff, from Chaucer and Poe to rock and roll biographies, Tolkien, Marvel and DC comics!

I also love reading online news and thinking about the psychology of advertising, and I am also a sucker for cheesy fantasy stuff!

My favourite books are Watchmen, Sandman (the whole series), The Dirt (Motley Crue's biography), and Where the Wild Things Are.

5. How do you like your eggs?

Fried, with bacon! The only way.

Hardboiled Web Design launches on Tuesday 19th October. Stay tuned for updates!