Spark Off – Episode 3 – Ian

PRELUDE
The creativity in my job, I guess, is more problem solving the studio, do the design work. And then I take what they’ve designed and turn it into a working website.

INTRO
Hi and welcome to Spark Off. Get ready to supercharge your creativity with our brand new podcast, where we have chilled out conversations with the awesome team who bring you alive with ideas.
I’m Zoe Hansen, the podcast lady, here to spark off the stories that they share and everybody loves a good story.

So let’s welcome Ian to this episode.
I’m Ian. I’m a web developer, Alive with Ideas. See, I’ve probably worked with them for about 10 years, freelance and full -time, but I think full -time for the past five years.
Each episode, I ask the guest, what this episode should be sponsored by. Now, it doesn’t have to be a brand. It could be sponsored by freshly cut grass.
Biscuits that dunk really well, getting into fresh sheets. What do you reckon, Ian? I kind of inclined to go a bit retro. Something, let’s bring back something from the 80s. Yeah,
sponsored by Milky Way. Hey, sponsored by Milky Way, because Ian said so, right? Yeah, act of defiance against branding. So this podcast is called Spark Off.
What’s something that sort of sparks off creativity in you, you know, whether that be in work or outside of? I suppose Over the years, music’s always been there,
either music itself or, I guess, as a catalyst for other sort of creative directions. There’s the sort of music, but beyond that, I mean, that’s what’s led me to over the years to be sort of interested in sort of visual art and design through album covers.
There’s, yeah, sort of films I’ve watched on the basis of somebody I like doing the soundtrack for it. I think socially as well, I think, sort of whenever I’ve been somewhere and I’m there on my,
you know, when I’d say move to Hull, I was sort of moved up here on my own and I’m just heading for the small venues that play, you know, that have bands on it. It’s a very sort of leveling environment if you don’t know anyone.
Yeah. And I suppose it creates a community, doesn’t it? I mean, up here, it was generally the small independent venues. No, one of the first people I met when I moved up here, he runs a music night where it’s three sort of local upcoming bands.
Yeah. So that would be sort of my weekly night out. Yeah. And then slightly more established bands would sort of come and play the small independent venues here on the way to being bigger.
Were you there for the first Oasis gigs then? Is that what we’re talking? I wasn’t, But I was quite regular at the venue, I think. Okay. Or one of them. There’s,
in Hull, there’s the New Adelphi Club, which is like a legendary grassroots venue. And I think Oasis played there the night before they got signed by creation records,
I think. Wow. That’s pretty cool, right? But, yeah, the bands have been through there. I mean, I think Pulp played there numerous times,
obviously from Hull, the House Martins were regulars, you know, Radiohead, Green Day, practically anybody that has come up, you know, through the proper way,
rather than the manufactured route has probably played Theodelphi. I mean, musically, I’m quite sort of diverse, really. I mean, being a teenager in the 80s, but just a really good decade for music,
so many genres in the 80s. You’re obviously very passionate about it. Tell me about where the sort of art and the sort of interest in the art that comes from music.
Where does it go? Where does it take you? I think originally it came from, I mean, certainly the 70s. I’ve always been a fad of, was it hypnosis, the designers.
I mean, their famous ones, Dark side of the moon. They were friends of Pink Floyd. That’s how they sort of got the job and their career went from there. But I like the fact that it was like pre -photoshop. And yeah,
if they wanted to do some completely overblown concept, they did it for real. So I kind of like that that side of the completely overdone prog rock album covers.
And then as I sort of got older and then factory records sort of and post -punk come along with the sort of joy division onwards. I think it went through a stage then where practically every record I was buying,
had Peter Saville designing it. That’s when I started to get sort of really interested in the visual design around music, I guess. And has that shaped you in a way that you wouldn’t be doing what you’re doing work -wise if you hadn’t gone through all of that and if you hadn’t had that interest?
No, I said work -wise, I kind of drifted into IT just for various sort of family reasons and personal reasons really. I didn’t, originally I wanted to be something like technically creative.
I was always fascinated by synthesizers, again growing up through the 80s, but the back of the days when the synthesizer cost as much as a, you know, house. I would sort of pick out certain sounds in records and then I read magazines about what synthesizers the artist used and how they were programmed and I don’t know if it sounds a bit strange,
but there’s like certain sounds in records that just really capture me. Certain sounds would stand out from tracks. So that got me interested in synthesizers.
So originally I was looking at, I wanted to be something like a sound designer or a sound engineer or something. But yeah, just for various circumstances, I kind of ended up just having to leave college and get a job.
It’s different knobs and buttons, right? Yeah, I mean, I was always kind of interested in working in a studio, perhaps, but not, you know, not being on stage. You’re not the front man,
are we presuming? I don’t know that. If I ever in the music industry, I think I kind of wanted the role where I’d be working and collaborating with the musicians as an engineer or a producer or programmer or something.
So I get to hang out with all the cool people and go at all cool parties, but I could still walk across the road and get a loaf of bread and no one to know who I was. That was the sort of music industry job I’d have liked. Yeah, or a foley artist or sound design or something like that.
So yeah, creative but technical. So you went into IT and that’s the sort of technical bit. How do you… Yeah, I kind of drifted into IT. Oh, yeah. How did you end up at Alive with Ideas?
I got played redundant in 2008. And yeah, at the time I had, I was also getting divorced. And I had a young, a young child who basically wanted to see as much of,
you know, growing up as I could, really. Yes. So I decided to sort of take a side step and go sort of freelance with, you know, the website of things being effectively programming of sorts.
And with the opportunity to perhaps to bring in some Yeah, the more of the visual stuff I’ve kind of been interested in in the past, maybe. So I started to go freelance to give me that sort of freedom. And then when my ex moved up here with my son,
2013, because I’m originally from sort of Basingstoke, because I was sort of freelance, that was around the time I think I started. I was working with somebody that was doing some work for a live.
they were a bit of a character, to say the least. So, yeah, after sort of doing that work, I then started doing some sort of freelance for a live directly around the same time,
I guess, as I was moving up to Hull. Right. And then, yeah, I think to 2018, I was just sort of doing more for Alive. And then, yeah, just asked if I’d like to sort of join full time.
And what is it about alive with ideas that you love? I think the people, you know, just nice people to work with. So what’s your sort of creative process or is there one?
What tools do you use? Let’s have, you know, lay it on the table, the nuts and bolts of it. From a web perspective, I mean, it’s very much the studio do the design work and then I take what they’ve designed and turn it into a working website.
So you get everything in and you put it all together and somebody goes, wow, that’s amazing. Yeah, yeah. Yes. Take the credit,
Ian. Take the credit. Occasionally there’ll be a job that is perhaps a bit more functionality driven Yeah, perhaps I might be a bit more involved putting the event booking process or something together.
Yeah, I mean, from a sort of creative point of view, the creativity in my job, I guess, is more problem -solving type creativity. Some of the design work that comes out in the studio is quite adventurous from a web perspective.
So actually trying to take those designs and turn them into something that’s functional and accessible and works across different screen sizes and platforms. Yeah. That certainly can throw some challenges in as to,
yeah, how to, how to take that design and actually code it reliably and robustly to work. And what’s been your favourite Alive with Ideas project so far?
Is there one that you can pick out or a couple? I guess there’s one that we’ve done for NHS Lothian, which it’s visually not so complex because of the nature of the,
you know, the website and its target audience. That was, I guess, much more about sort of functionality and sort of usability. And it’s kind of still evolving. How come? Why is it still evolving?
Are you sort of tweaking it because you want to, you know, grow it or make it better? No, there’s kind of two phases to it. The first one was more of a conventional sort of front end for a more of a straightforward website with straightforward web content,
but they’re still working towards having an easy to understand version of it, which we’re looking at sort of launching later this year. But they’ve gone through quite a lot, a long process of bringing all the content and illustrations and everything together to flesh out that version of the website.
Right. It’s nearly there. It’s going live in the summer, I think. That’s when we turn the easy -to -understand switch on. But then that presents the information. The content’s all there for people with learning impairments with disabilities.
And that one’s been an interesting journey because I’ve had to learn a lot about accessibility standards and not just the box ticking. There’s the technical accessibility side of things to say this works well with a screen reader or this has got the right contrast levels.
But this one, they’re looking much more about, you know, can everyone understand it with the way it’s written and there’s illustrations to make it, you know, to help out with people that will be struggling with the reading side of things.
Right. So the accessibility side of it, but it’s right down to people that might not traditionally expect to get anything out of a website, perhaps. It must be quite satisfying to do something like that,
to know that you’ve helped people to understand something. Yeah, I mean, that’s one of the nice things, you know, so working with Alive is that a lot, the work we do is focused on,
not so much the commercial side of it. It’s either the internal communication stuff, which I guess is helping employees engage with their staff or it’s jobs like this with the NHS where it’s communicating information that is hopefully helpful and useful rather than just trying to sell stuff.
I think Alive have got quite a lot of heart. Yeah, you can feel the passion and everybody’s trying to do good. Yeah, I think I would struggle if I was just spending all day, every day, you know,
sort of putting together, I don’t know, betting websites or hard -selling tat that you know, it’s not very good. Right, right. I won’t give you my website to build, though, about selling my mops then.
I’d sell that mop. It’s the best mop ever in the world. Probably would. As long as they’re good and ethical, I’d be,
you know. But no, that’s the, yeah, it’s building stuff, I guess, that’s got some social substance to it. Yes. And I wonder, on that sort of subject,
the social conscience, it might come into this. If you were going to give a TED talk, what would be the subject and why? If I was going to do a TED talk,
I think one of the things I’ve been looking at a lot recently is on the back of my son’s diagnosis, sort of finding out that I’m probably been sort of autistic for the past few decades. Wow.
And that’s taken me sort of down a, yeah, a learning, a curve. How did that feel when you got somebody actually sat in front of you saying,
I think you’re autistic? It kind of made sense. I mean, actually helping my son put his diagnosis together. Yeah, the penny was starting to drop.
Okay. And start looking at family members and think, yeah, yeah, you know, Apple’s not falling far from the tree here, is it? It was kind of very mixed feelings. It was, I suppose,
some ways, sort of suddenly realizing that, actually, you know, you’re not wrong, you’re just different. But, you know, I didn’t really know. I thought everybody sort of laid up all night rehearsing conversations or reassessing the ones they had five years ago or,
you know, I thought everyone did this. I thought everyone consciously, you know, evaluated how much eye contact they made with other people. I didn’t know. I’d never asked anyone,
you know, do you sort of consciously, you know, count how long you hold someone’s eye contact for when you’re talking to? So it was kind of, to know why I struggled with certain things was sort of quite a revelation.
I try not to dwell too much on, you know, well, what might have been if the knowledge, I mean, just what I was saying earlier about being fascinated by a particular synthesizer sounds and then reading magazines to learn how to program and even though I’d never be ever be near going near one for the foreseeable future yeah yeah little things like that that you know looking back it’s like well that was you know it was
there to be diagnosed I suppose if the knowledge and the awareness was but I think I’ve been lucky because I’m a I’m a people talk about like high support and low support which is they talk about high functioning and low functioning but it’s actually yeah some people are good at some things some people struggle with other things more so it’s not I suppose the high functioning low functioning isn’t really before I knew
more about it that’s kind of I would say you know we were high functioning but probably a different way of looking at it is low support need okay or cynically I’m lucky to be a commercially viable in a capitalist society autistic person so I can go ahead that’s your TED talk right there there’s the title,
right? So, yeah, I’ve been looking at a lot recently about the difference between thinking and communication styles between autistic and non -autistic people and how that can have an impact on sort of communication.
Well, that’s fascinating. And I’d totally be there. Yeah, it would be something along those lines, I think. I don’t know, I’ve got an idea, I’ve just got an I had to think like that,
the, the, the overthinker’s survival guide for an underthinking world. That’s brilliant. Right, let me write it down.
The overthinkers guide for an underthinking world. The overthinker’s survival guide for an underthinking world. Right. It sounds very, it’s amazing. It’s amazing.
It sounds very pretentious and it’s all quite. But it just comes from, I guess, thinking I was an overthinker or being, you know, you start out you overthink things and then actually looking at it and kind of think,
actually, you look at the other side of things about, you know, I mean, you know, next election, there’ll be times when there’s people coming out of the poll, out of the polling boots and they’ll say, yeah, who did you vote for?
And there’ll always be someone there that said, you know, I voted for party X because I always have and my parents did and my parents and their parents and kind of I think yeah people call me an overthinker but but that person’s helping to decide yeah our democracy so you know where’s by not thinking whereas there’s a balance to be had you know that would be an incredible TED talk I know that a lot of people say
it’s about autistic people are you know they can’t see a big picture, but it’s like what a lot of us can. But it might be a different big picture because we’ve discovered our big picture via a different thought process.
It’d be something about those, I think. I’m sort of just coming to getting the hang of myself. Probably something like that, I think. Fascinating to hear where creativity comes from for Ian,where it goes as well, and all about those things that sort of spark off some sort of passion or ignite something in him.

OUTRO
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