Darren Hoyt is getting famous on the internet, and I have insider info with which to capitalize on his fame

Tonight I found this website, which informed me that Darren Hoyt is “a name we all should know!” I totally agree, and that is why I have decided to publish my highly-anticipated interview with Darren Hoyt, captain of the web design blogosphere and my own buttered bun.

THE Q&A:

W- How did you get interested in web design?

D – I used to visit my Dad’s house in 1995 and play around with his Compuserve account. At the time there was a buzz about “alien autopsy” photos from Roswell that someone claimed to have published online. I was on Christmas break from college with nothing else to do, so I made a point of tracking down these photos. I finally met someone in a chat room who said he’d send me copies using whatever transfer protocol was around at the time. All I know is that it killed my dad’s 14.4 modem connection for the better part of a day. I finally found an actual web domain that promised the photos. This time it took three hours to load in the browser, and it was obvious no thinking person would mistake them for authentic. But I still stayed up til 3:00am anyway, watching a black-and-white JPG load one fragment at a time.

For the next couple years, I used the web mainly for search purposes. It was like an oracle: I’d come to the college computer labs with a handwritten list of topics no one knew much about (the whereabouts of Thomas Pynchon, the followup details to My Bloody Valentine’s “Loveless” album) and wait for the internet to give me answers, which I’d print out and read late at night. I wanted to be a writer at that time and my own personal computer was a Tandy word processor whose liquid crystal display had cracked to the point of illegibility. I fantasized one day I’d have my own Windows 95/14.4 baud machine instead of using the computer lab, and finally my dad gave me his old PC.

Somewhere around that time it became obvious the web was going to change life forever. I’d been a television and media junkie growing up and I’d always said that if TV had been invented in my lifetime, I would have wanted to be involved in it, working behind the scenes somehow.

A couple years out of college, I was living on the West Coast without a job or any writing prospects. Late at night, I’d call my sister back in Virginia and basically unload all this self-pity about the job situation. She’d already done some web design through the University of Virginia IATH group. One night over the phone she told me to open NotePad, type in some HTML, then preview it in the browser…it was satisfying and exciting for reasons I can’t really explain.

Next thing I knew, I was driving back across the country to Virginia in early 1999, living on the couch of whoever would tolerate me from month to month, and spending that first year learning whatever web design my sister and her boyfriend would teach me. The two of them had started a design firm by then, and I applied as their first employee. Seven years later, I’m the Art Director, though a lot happened in between.

W- Why do you think your passion for web design has only grown over the years? Do you feel like this is the ideal profession for you?

D – I burn out on things very fast ordinarily, but I love that web technologies change so frequently. There is always something to look forward to, something to make life easier, something to streamline the creative process. The web is in its infancy, which means all kinds of optimism for the future. Optimism being kind of a foreign concept to me ordinarily, it also means each day is a challenge to my perspective.

I read Wikinomics recently and it gives examples of disparate cultures all over the world collaborating on projects. That kind of phenomenon makes me feel hopeful. Web design is an ideal profession I don’t see myself leaving it.

W – Why did you think there was a need for Mimbo?

D – This summer I wrote a couple tutorials on how to bastardize WordPress software for non-blog purposes. Those tutorials got feedback and traffic from all over, and it struck a chord with people who wanted to break out of the traditional “blog” feel and functionality. The tutorial examples showed how to take a conventional content/sidebar layout and break the content into summarized chunks, more like NYTimes or many online magazines. A handful of readers convinced me to take what I’d written and create a downloadable theme out of it, so I did.

I’ve never been crazy about the pre-fab “theme” concept because I never thought there was any substitute for a customized case-by-case design. As a result, I kept Mimbo very vanilla and clean in hopes that users would customize the appearance to suit their needs. Many have, and the results have been really cool.

W – Why did you decide to offer the Mimbo download for free? Do you think you might charge for it in the future?

D – Mimbo remains free for the most cliché of reasons: I wanted to give back to the open-source community. That said, I’ll probably offer a much more slick and graphics-heavy version for a small price, while keeping simpler stripped-down versions of the theme free. If it’s going to have my name on it and be distributed widely, I want to have some bit of control over it.

W – What are the benefits to working for a small web design firm instead of being a freelance designer?

D – I look at anything outside design and development as a distraction: answering phone calls, figuring out billing, collecting money from clients. I’m glad I don’t have to wear all those hats. I like when there’s a team effort that draws from everyone’s strengths. If I had to work alone, I’d probably go crazy.

W – What is the funniest thing you’ve seen on the internet lately?

D – I’ve seen a lot of good video remixes of the “Dont’ tase me, bro!” incident. Also, the Tom Scharpling podcasts are pretty much untouchable.

W – You are a wizard at organizing your bookmarks, tags, feeds, Firefox add-ons, etcetera on your home PC. What tips can you give other users who are trying to streamline their surfing experience?

D – I always recommend using Netvibes (RSS) or Google Reader if you want to quadruple the amount of information you consume. And I’d recommend del.icio.us if you want to bookmark and categorize it all. Del.icio.us is actually a good search tool, too, if you want to check the waves of popularity by how many people are bookmarking something. The del.icio.us extension for Firefox saves me a lot of time.

Keeping everything centrally-located is good too. I use Gmail and GoogleDocs for storing files and writings. All day long I also use Ta-Da List for stream-of-consciousness listkeeping. Each list has its own RSS feed which can be managed through Netvibes. It’s all about creating your own personal library.

W – Do you think that someone’s reputation on the internet is just as important as his reputation in the real world? How do you maintain your web-utation?

D – In the early days, I definitely looked at the web as an opportunity for pranks. I liked controversy and anonymity. Within web communities, I think I felt like an outsider because I didn’t fit the “geek” mentality — which is ironic, it’s like the reverse experience for a lot of people. I enjoyed the pranks and message board arguments until realizing how (rightfully) seriously people take their web enclaves. If your entire professional life depends on the web, it’s better to be civil.

W – What is your favorite local bar/restaurant? [Question seems random but in Charlottesville we are obsessed with our wining and dining. – Ed.]

D – My favorite bar right now is Zinc because it’s low-key, and they’re always playing soccer on a giant flatscreen. They sometimes serve me Kronenbergs without the need to ask. My all-time favorite is probably the C&O because there is a lot of history there between friends and family over the years. My favorite restaurant is Blue Moon Diner because they’re always changing the menu.

W – If you could do web design from anywhere in the world, where would it be?

D – One place is eastern Europe. There’s lots of great design coming out of Poland, Croatia and Serbia. From an American perspective, there’s still a lot of mystery to those places, post-war, post-Communism. The photos I’ve seen of towns like Kotor and Dubrovnik make them look really rugged and exotic.

W – What’s the future of Bucks & Gallants?

D – (This space intentionally left blank)

W – Do you have the prettiest girlfriend in the world?

D – Not just the prettiest, but the smartest, wittiest and most generous. [So true. – Ed.]

Darren Hoyt is the artistic director of the prestigious web design firm Category 4 in Charlottesville, Virginia. His personal blog is read by web design enthusiasts all over the world. These days Darren is known in the web community for his “Mimbo” WordPress theme. Mimbo is a design template that Darren offers as a free download on his website. His innovative design creates a magazine-style layout that still maintains all the back-end benefits of a WordPress blog. For those of you who read the previous sentence as technical jargon, Darren Hoyt makes your quotidian cat blog look like Esquire Magazine.