Years of Practice, No Shortcuts

0:22Janne Parri: Okay, Joseph so people in the Webflow community literally say Joseph Berry styled when they talk a certain kind of visual and high-end websites, have you noticed that and how does it feel when your name becomes this shorthand for a design style or level of doing?

0:41Joseph Berry: Yeah, I think it's definitely something that I've seen a common pattern across the time that the stuff that I put together, people can kind of instantly pick up that is from me through the distinctive design style that I do. And of course, the way that I approach animations and interactions, I think over time I have built up that reputation where it is quite easy to see that it is done by me. I like that and I think if we look at a range of different designers I think there is a common pattern across that where you see a certain style and execution in the way that they approach web design. Jordan Gilroy, Niccolo Miranda, Jonathan Morin, you know these types of characters again they all have

1:30Joseph Berry: This distinct style. So for me, I think that's part and parcel of how you distinguish yourself maybe in a saturated place.

1:39Janne Parri: Any chances that you would be sharing your system with the public?

1:45Joseph Berry: That is a good question. This has been something that's been in my brain for a good number of years, probably about three, four years. I've wanted to create really my own personal component library where I can use elements and components into my projects. Now, again, this is not just going to be any kind of components and elements. So I was thinking about templates and, you know, I get a lot of requests from people, can I use this template, can I use this template? How did you do this? How did you do that? Could we have this? Could we have that? And most of the time, we'll see a lot of it's for clients and me thinking, I'm not just gonna give it to people. It's kind of something I've crafted on my own, but as I'm getting on now and I'm getting more projects, there's a lot of things that I'm seeing that I'm repeating over and over and over again.

2:39Joseph Berry: And I'm thinking, right, so how could we do something that's going to be really practical for me, but then also could be a great product for everyone else out in the Webflow community. And that came to the thought of creating what I've called the Master Collection, which is basically Joseph Berry in a nutshell with all of these amazing components and elements. Now what really makes the Master Collection different? To say something like Osmo's. Obviously Osmo's is again smaller components which are more custom code. What the Master Collection is a combination and a team collaboration of me and Melissa, which joined together, of really crafting and designing our custom elements.

3:27Joseph Berry: So not only are these going to be like elements that you can slot into your builds, they're really going to be designed and well thought about the design and the execution. So they could also be a starting point for how you might approach a design for a project. So what we're really creating here is something that has that really high end finish finesse and level that you expect from a Joseph Berry project, but you're going to be able to basically take that. And input into your projects. Now, they're not just going to be small individual components, they're actually going to be like maybe a section, scrolling sections, different interactions, maybe full pages. It's going to be a real combination of lots of different elements. But the thing that's going to make this really different, say from like an Osmo's or a Relume, is that it really has that design thinking and creative execution with the animation interactions.

4:19Joseph Berry: So it's going to enable you to have that level, that speed with that creative thinking, which yes, of course you could swap out the elements, change the design, but you could then also use it as a starting point, as a base, because it's really going to have that. I think that some of that thinking process, like the reason why some of the things work with the way that I do them is because the design complements the animation interaction, right? And I think that's sometimes the hardest thing that people try to create, right? Designing something

4:49Joseph Berry: That animates in a really unique way that complements the design. So this is what the Master Collection is going to really be and enable everyone to be able to tap into and reuse. And yeah, that's pretty much the Master Collection. And I don't know if you have any other kind of questions on that, but yeah.

5:07Janne Parri: First thing is it already out there where can I find it

5:11Joseph Berry: Yeah, so we're still in the process of building it. It will probably most likely be some form of subscription based model where we will release similar to Osmo's, like different components, different elements, templates. So it's going to be a real mixture of different things that you'll be able to obviously use in your projects, re-skin, re-evolve. Used to your liking. So we're still in the process of building that. The landing pages, which is gonna kind of educate you on the product and give you a glimpse to some of the initial things that we're gonna be releasing. And that will obviously give you a little bit more to kind of exactly see what I'm kind of telling you right now. I don't know the timeline

5:54Janne Parri: Guys.

5:54Joseph Berry: On that. The platform is being built so that obviously you can copy and paste these into your projects with ease. And yeah, that's kind of where we're at. Hopefully we're not too far away from getting it out. Again, all of the modules are gonna be designed by me and Melissa and built out by me. One other selling point is that you're actually gonna be able to see this stuff yourself, right? The majority of it is all going to be native Webflow as well. So we will dabble in a little bit of custom code, but it's really we're going to focus on IX2 GSAP animations. And then there may be little touches of things that we may bring in there just to, know, elevate things a little bit more.

6:42Joseph Berry: And yeah, using it as a of a learning tool as well, I think could be an interesting thing. We've thought about, you know, maybe doing tutorials as well that accompany these and walkthroughs and obviously some documentation. So, yeah, it could be have multiple different use cases.

7:00Janne Parri: I'm already excited about those. And I'm always a sucker for lifetime plans. So if you are planning that sort of thing, I'm probably gonna snatch one right away.

7:08Joseph Berry: Yeah, we are definitely. Yeah. Yeah. It's... I just want you guys to see what I'm doing with this because this is pretty much me opening my book. That's as raw as I could call it. This is a tool for myself, but looking at it as an additional... Revenue stream for myself, but really opening up that Joseph Berry kind of touch to be able to say, look guys, like here's things that we can all work with, and again, I don't know where it's gonna go. I don't know how well it will do. I've told a few people where people seem excited and interested about it. And I think once you see some of the things that we're.

7:54Joseph Berry: Putting together and the way that they're being designed and the animations interaction that we put together, people are gonna be like, shit, like this is definitely that little extra level that is, I don't think there is anything in the space right now. There's definitely people that are making good templates and things like that, but again, there's a level of gatekeeping always going on, there's that level of gatekeeping where people are not. Give you things but they don't want to give you everything right because it's kind of like giving away all your tricks.

8:25Janne Parri: Yeah, and especially on the high level. I kind of feel that in the webflow community, there is this thing that with all the cloneables and such, people give them out quite freely and you can check out how people have done those. But then there's the extra level like yourself, like I believe that there is a high demand on just the knowledge how you build those. And then the... Copy paste nature of the service will be kind of like extra or even more value on top of that. So I'm totally excited about that.

9:04Janne Parri: The Ok but we have to do little intros before we go any further ⁓ So my name is Janne Parri and you're listening to webflow and friends podcasts and my guest today is none other than Joseph Berry so ⁓ Yeah, you probably already know him you have seen his work on the internet even if you haven't like been searching for it. He has won the awards. He has talked in the Webflow Conf multiple times. He has the awards course. He has been giving those awards and all that stuff. People are really amazed of your work, but as you said, that didn't happen overnight. So what is kind of your origin story and what are the key parts that help you like stand up?

9:51Janne Parri: From the crowd.

9:52Joseph Berry: Firstly, thank you very much for having me. I know we've been chatting and excited to dive into this conversation that we're going to have and just jam and have some fun and discuss. Yeah, as I said, it's not been something that has happened overnight. I know this can vary for different people, know. It all depends on how you progress in this kind of world of design. And how you evolve as designer, there's no kind of set, rule, length, time, span. It really depends on your own personal kind of journey and for me it's taken a while but I've liked the journey that I've gone on. For me, as I originally started, it's a very traditional route, doing college, then uni and then spending a number of years

10:40Joseph Berry: Inside of the industry, of sharpening the tools, let's say, and really working and understanding how the engine works and getting to a point where it's allowed me to obviously create my own studio. So for me, my journey was really traditional, went through everything in that kind of formalised way, which has taken a good, I don't know, 10, 15 years. To get to that point. Yeah, I think a lot of people know my story, so I don't want to go into too much detail. Yeah, I think that sums it up in a short and concise way.

11:17Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. But you mentioned the goonies side, the first side of the day thing. Are there like any like key moments on your journey that you were like, okay, this really moves the needle or now jump to another level or anything like that?

11:38Joseph Berry: Yeah, I mean, I think the Goonies is always going to be a pivotal point in really pushing myself to challenge myself creatively. As I said, bring a passion project to life. Something that is like a childhood kind of thing for me, which was obviously the film the Goonies and seeing how that could be brought to life and really... You know, the intention was kind of to see if I could win an award with it. So that was kind of my objective, but I didn't actually understand what could have actually came from that. And that's the thing that really sprung, boiled everything into action really. I still to this day get people reference The Goonies site or say, I love The Goonies site. And it's just always a really nice,

12:25Joseph Berry: Talking point. What that did for me is, as I said, really gave me that exposure and then from that it was something that I could really like build on. It's kind of, you know, like, I don't know, like you're fishing and you've hooked something finally and now you're like, you can reel it in. Again, there might be different things for different people but that's what really helped me. Again, this is a lot of what I kind of say to people that are in the early parts of their career or trying to push into this freelance studio space is getting the work out there, doing some passion projects and really trying to push yourself. Yeah, try and win an award, but I always say that's not the be all and end all. It's nice to have,

13:08Joseph Berry: It's nice as a bit of self justification. Like the Goonies, if it's the right type of project, it could potentially spring ball you into a lot. So it's definitely worth doing and trying. So there's no right and wrong way of kind of doing it. But I think exposing yourself, doing something that you enjoy and pushing it out into the right spaces can definitely help. I know you spoke in earlier, like a lot of people would have maybe seen my work. Or they come through to me because they've seen my work and again that reflects back to that point that I'm trying to express that because I've put the work out there and put it into the right spaces, people are just finding it without actually necessarily searching for it and that in itself as a kind of marketing tool towards me has been huge, right?

13:58Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, totally. Those are kind of like simple things that others have talked about too, like meaning that it's simple advice, like you should do cool stuff and put it out there. But for some reason, it is not always so easy to execute.

14:15Joseph Berry: I think it all goes back to that point and you said about not always trying to do really cool things, works, and it might not get you seeing how you want to be seen, like maybe for example the Goonies project. And I think that's a case of just the practice part, So one thing I want to know is that before I even did the Goonies, I'd already spent 10 years in agency life, right? Before I'd even thought, you know what? I'm kind of getting to the point where I feel like my design and my creative thinking and the way that I'm doing things is actually at level now where I think it could be seen to enable me to go into that space. So I think that's a really important point and it's not to discourage anyone.

15:02Joseph Berry: Just keep practising, keep trying, but you've gotta be, gotta be a little bit like, well not harsh, but you need to be self-critiquing to say to yourself, is what I'm doing at that level, yeah. Because what can happen is that if you do push the go launch button on that too early, is that you could get them instances where you do feel disheartened, and it doesn't get the reaction that you want, and there's nothing wrong with that. Don't ever take that to heart. Think, you know, my story has not been full of roses even throughout my career. There was many times where I thought, I'm shit. Like, I'm really not that good and

15:41Joseph Berry: I always, you know, questioned myself but I just kept, you know, plodding along and just kept, you know, kept working on them basics and just kept pushing myself and pushing myself until I was at that point. And that's where the Goonies came along. So I just wanted to add that, because I do think it's very valuable.

15:59Janne Parri: That is so true. And there was a couple of points. Like firstly, it takes time. It's easy for us to see the end result and imagine that just came to life in an evening or something like that. And yeah, you need to practice and push yourself and critique yourself. And then you have to at some point put something out there. Those are very important points. But now to the creative process. How would you describe your creative process?

16:29Joseph Berry: I mean, I'm pretty old and I may not seem old or something,

16:34Janne Parri: You

16:34Joseph Berry: But you know, I'm nearly 40 now. So I am very traditional and I'm very like, I'm a bit of an old dog, right? I definitely keep my process super simple. I don't overcomplicate things. I definitely don't use 20 apps. Like I'm very simple in the way that I do things. I think the biggest asset that I have is how I see and interpret design and that again is through the experience that I've built up over the years which has enabled me to do lots of different types of design. So the process for me is relatively straightforward. It always starts off with discovery and how we discover.

17:18Joseph Berry: What we're trying to tackle and depending on the project. As I spoke about earlier, what kind of space is it in? Is it products? Is it SaaS? Is it creative? Is it music? Is it film? Is it fashion? Whatever industry there is, this can give you some early initial ideas of where the direction. So for me, the very first point is actually when I'm talking to the client. Listening, seeing what their business currently looks like, seeing what their business wants to be, asking them the questions of where they would like to go, what they want to do, and generally just starting to understand the business. Because I think when you start to understand the business, it does allow you to think about the target audience and where you might go with it. So that's the very, very first early part for me.

18:08Joseph Berry: Call it a discovery call it just asking them, know, what three words would you describe the new direction for your business? How do you want the business to feel? And then also getting them to give me some input in, you know, some visual direction that they may have seen. So I can, you know, see where their headspace is at. And then the next part of that discovery phase is obviously like an exploration of mood boards. And it's obviously exploring what's on the web, Pinterest, Behance. Anywhere else where we find inspiration or things that we like and we start to then build different pockets or moods or visual assets that really kind of describe some of these initial conversations that we had and giving them that mood or to then really go through and start to kind of explain, you know, I like this, I love this way of the use of the font, I like this coloring.

18:57Joseph Berry: Just little different elements and again all focusing on them basic elements, typography, colour, layout, composition, image or art direction and these are the building blocks and getting that early input is kind of the way that I like to work in terms of building up, making sure that I'm using the right things at the right points. So I would say my initial part of the discovery and into the early conceptual phase would be very incremental and making sure that I'm understanding and then I'm presenting my full process and decisions back to them so that one, I'm selling it and two, that they understand where we're going and making sure that we're on the right page before I go and start designing loads of stuff. Then once we've got the mood boards kind of down and then we would go into a concept phase, we'd probably base that round homepage, but even just before that first concept.

19:49Joseph Berry: I would do these things called like mood scapes where I'm literally just putting together some elements, colors, typography, playing around with some things, picking things from their brand, just showing them how some of these elements could come together but I'm not really focusing on anything that is, like we're not focusing on specific elements on the homepage. We're just like a mini brand exploration but it's really just going based on the mood boards and the direction that we picked. And again, this allows you to make sure that you are making the right decisions, you are picking the right elements. I mean, I think that's one of the biggest things that think maybe designers find hard is when you see something that you kind of want to evolve and take into yourself, they're unsure of how to pick the right elements to create that style.

20:37Joseph Berry: And they land up with something that's kind of a little bit like a Frankenstein because they're not understanding that taste of the elements. They're not understanding how the execution of the elements is really going to dictate how that visually looks. I struggled with that for quite a long time, was really being able to say, why does this look like this? Well, they've used a sans serif font, they've capped it, they've tightened the kerning or... You know, they're using a certain style of imagery, they've got a grid structure, they've got loose design, this texture. Like there's so many little elements that go into that. So once we've got their moodscapes, again, we would then refine and explore that into a more finalized concept. And that, once you get to that point, it's kind of really taking them on that journey. So as long as you're selling the ideas well, the reason why we picked this is because of this and...

21:30Joseph Berry: This really supports this because of that, it's gonna be easier to sell in the design. I think again, another point I would probably say that some people struggle with is, especially that early stage is being confident in them decisions. Like sometimes, I think this works. We should maybe try this. And I would say try and avoid that language as much as possible. I know it can be difficult because you wanna be, but be confident in like, this is why this is and this is why that is. And then if you wanna

21:56Janne Parri: Are you still there?

21:58Joseph Berry: Provide here's some other options that we could also do. This is what

22:00Janne Parri: Is it me or is it you?

22:02Joseph Berry: I think is the recommended. Of course these are some other ones that I really like. And again that will help you show confidence to whoever you're working with that you're not looking for their control on everything, but also there is opportunities to bring them in to get their input in, right? So there's kind of a little bit of a balancing act in there.

22:19Janne Parri: My god, my god, my god,

22:21Joseph Berry: That's kind of how I approach that situation and how I've evolved in that situation. And then once you're at that point, for me, when you've got that final concept, because you've taken them through that really nice gradual process and you've really guided them to that point, for me I feel like you get the right buy in and you've kind of got them that they're ready to commit. And then from that point of course you would go through and start to design out all of the other pages. As you move through these other pages again there would be opportunities where you would

22:52Joseph Berry: Probably provide options and variations and show maybe how different content can be presented and different ideas based on the content that they provide. I was saying before that there is points where you do want to get the client's input. Obviously one for me is very heavily on content like the copy, the assets, whether we're using stock, whether they have assets, whether we're creating assets, and then trying to work with them. So that they might have a visual in their head and how you kind of match the two and marry them in the best possible way.

23:26Joseph Berry: Obviously sometimes it's tricky because assets, if they're stock, they might not all be consistent, but again, there's that little bit of detail that I really try and spend a lot of time on is like how we create a holistic kind of visual approach with how the assets look, how they're presented. How they're cropped, like that's kind of the levels I'm going on, like is there any common patterns that we can break? Like one's an image, one has like a coloured background, one's an image, one has like the cropping, like the head sizes, are they all consistent, are they positioned in the same place? So these are some of the smaller details that we go through when we're going through this process. And then of course, as I said, we're designing out all of the other pages. And as we're going through that process again, we're gonna be...

24:10Joseph Berry: Presenting how things are gonna be working from animation and interaction point. Most of the time I'm just talking through how things are working and moving things around on a screen recording or presenting to them. This would be like this and maybe pulling up some references. It's not often that I would prototype stuff out. Again, that is dependent on the project. I think what, I potentially have is that level of trust in the work that I do when it comes to animation interaction where the client, they're like, we don't really need to go into that deal because we know what you're going to do is obviously going to be really good. And again, why I always try to do is explain to them. Obviously, what I'm suggesting here is potentially like just the starting point. So we'll evolve this when we actually get into Webflow. We'll flesh it out more. And again, we give the

25:01Joseph Berry: The opportunity for the client to see this before we actually go and start to build all of it out. The build process really again kind of follows that initial early kind of step by step point. Getting the first page built, getting the animation style executed and then giving the client the opportunity to see something that is like 90 % there. One thing that I'm a really big believer on and again this is going to help you. And this is where that communication is really important is when you're stuff make sure that you're sharing stuff that is a very high level because it's very clear to me that when you send things that are unfinished they're always going to pick it apart so try

25:46Joseph Berry: Not to think I need to send them something they need to see something right now like if you need more time and it needs to be right, like making sure that you really send them something. Like when I send them that first build or that first page that I've built, it is solid. Desktop, all the way down to mobile. So that when they go and check it and they're looking at it, they're like, they can see the vision without being distracted by, why has this not working? Why is that? Of course, again, if you do send something over early, then make sure that you communicate all of them. I just don't, then first,

26:17Joseph Berry: Like the first two key points is like really nailing that direction, getting them excited and really showing them that first point of the build. So then two parts for me are always really important and making sure that you can deliver them the best, you know what saying?

26:31Janne Parri: Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah, there's so much there. Okay, let's go into details. Before that I have to comment on that. It's clear to me that you wanna proceed with kind of like little steps and get the feedback and make sure that you are on the right track and... That is an approach that I have heard from a couple of other designers too on this show. And it is kind of a lean way. A junior designer might think that, okay, when I'm a senior and experienced, I might go to the other direction because I'm so confident with all the decisions you talked about this too, that I could just jump from the discovery call all the way to the first.

27:20Janne Parri: Concepts or something like that. But about those early stages, you mentioned the mood boards and the kind of like more curated mood boards and then like the first concepts. What do those first concepts look like? Do you like build one like home page or do you still do versions of that or are you then doubling down on just the one finalized concept?

27:46Joseph Berry: Yeah. I think let's just run back there because there's definitely a point that I'd like to make. And yeah, there is definitely two approaches. One is taking them on that kind of gradual baby step way. I wouldn't say this is a lack of confidence in the decision, in the decisions being made. What it really is getting the client on board, right? And making sure that they have a part or an involvement in what you're doing. And while yes, you could definitely just go and skip that more handheld feel, I feel what it creates when you do it that way is a lot more of a bespoke service that you're really, one, taking the client down that journey, two, educating them, and three, really showing them the full process behind what you're doing. And for me, that is where there is that value, especially when you start to get into

28:38Joseph Berry: Bigger, higher clients, yes, they're gonna want you to, they're gonna give you that freedom to do stuff, but then when you come back and you still, you make sure that they're coming with you on that, they're gonna value that, because then when they walk out the end of it, they know the reason why we've did this, and yeah, you could explain that all in one hit, but sometimes it's a bit of a process for them to like manage it and. Digest it all in one go. So it's kind of, the way that I describe it is almost like tightening a screw. If you take that, like the first bits are gonna take a bit longer, but once you've got the screw tight, then you can just roll with it. Like you can really just move through it, because all of that initial discovery and kind of conversations have happened. And it allows you to then kind of focus on the actual work part of it, right?

29:30Joseph Berry: That's the way I see it. And then to your second part of the question, could you just remind me what that was again?

29:36Janne Parri: Yeah, it was about the concepts. What do those first concepts look like?

29:41Joseph Berry: Yeah, so the first concepts really, so starting off with the mood scapes, they're pretty loose. They're not like, as I said, they're more about just the elements. And then it might be across like a few different kind of directions. You know, simple example, one's a light theme, one's a dark theme. That could be the direction or then we could look into other elements. Like maybe we're looking at different fonts, different imagery style. Different kind of design approach. So there's many different things that could change across maybe one, two or three different kind of mood scapes, mood ideas, you know, and then they go, I really love this, but maybe could you try this with this and da? Great, gives you a good, you know, actionable things. I think for me, like, feedback is always about action, like, not subjective. You know, like I said.

30:24Joseph Berry: Opinions and stuff like that. Then moving into that kind of concept phase, again, there may be, you know, one or two different directions. What I would typically do is obviously, as I said, focus on like a homepage or a key page, and then I would kind of design out a few sections of that. Again, I wouldn't go too far depending again, how confident I am or what I want to show them. What it also allows me to do with that process is just give me a little bit of time between each of the steps to also, again, validate and refine. Because every time I'm going back to it, I'm actually, again, tightening the screw on it. And I'm evolving it. It's kind of like, gives you a bit of a breathing space as well between having to try and crash and do it all in one go and then give it to them. And then you've kind of got to take it all back and then do it again.

31:09Joseph Berry: For me, I've used it as a mechanism to manage multiple products. Allows me to then, clients wanna see progress, right? Sometimes it's hard if you've got multiple projects on to do big chunks of progress in one week. So you need, you do need a bit more time and that way is, again, this just kinda comes to my head, which is it allows me to kinda be a little bit more flexible so I can manage three projects all given like. One to two days of really solid work, getting really something that's evolved and progressed without it being too much. And then again, once you get to that point in it becomes a little bit easier. So yeah, that's kind of how that concept phase and normally three rounds maximum on that first concept round. But as I said, because we're doing it in that kind of incremental way, the screw gets tighter. So by that last,

31:59Joseph Berry: Round, there isn't really much feedback anyway. And I'm really strong about trying to minimise unnecessary feedback and getting more feedback than you need. I know again that is subject to the client, how many people are seeing it, did they bring the right person at the right time? All the usual stuff that we're kind of accustomed to. We haven't shown my CEO yet. And then he's got, you know, too much feedback. So yeah, that's how that initial process would go.

32:28Janne Parri: The CEO has not been present on all the conversation and all the discovery. And yeah, that is one thing.

32:35Joseph Berry: Yeah, now we're going to murder your design.

32:39Janne Parri: But what about stuff like wireframes? I've talked about the wireframes with bunch of people and I'm surprised how few people actually still use them. So how about you? Do you ever end up doing wireframes?

32:53Joseph Berry: Short answer, no. Not really. I do a slightly different approach. And again, with my process being simple, I think the way that you should approach projects is what does the project actually need? Does it need wireframes? In most cases, probably not. The approach that I would take would be something called content mapping, which is super high fidelity. Mapping out the sections and the potential content that sits inside of them sections and then what we do is we bring that into the design phase and it's kind of a hybrid. So we're doing this UX slash UI in the design phase which is actually again allowing us to design the content the way that it's intended to be rather than being fixated by a wireframe and that's always the issue that you sometimes get with presenting.

33:41Joseph Berry: High fidelity wireframes is that then the client then fixates on how that's kind of been presented and I want to avoid that and I also want to make sure that I've got the most creative freedom when I get into design. So I know why a lot of designers do that is because the content is really going to dictate how the design can be executed with that content. That's why the content in my eyes is king and it's important. It's always important to get the content. Because that's how it's going to work,

34:09Janne Parri: Totally. How do you do the content? Do you, do you like take responsibility of it yourself? Do you work with content providers? Do you leave the responsibility to the clients or all of these things?

34:24Joseph Berry: Yeah, I mean, majority of the time I work with the client so that I can prepare the content. I think obviously depending on what the project type is, lot of people that come to you, they're gonna have a better understanding for their business and potentially how they want it to be worded and what they wanna say. So you work with them to kind of refine that copy and help them. Presenting in the best possible way that kind of really reflects the people that they're trying to speak to. Yes, in some cases you would get a kind of a more kind of formal process on refining that copy with a content writer, but I know we're in the days of AI now and ChatGPT and things like that is it's now enabling a clients to use that and you know write good content and I'm not just

35:10Joseph Berry: Credit in content copywriters, obviously there is a difference. Again, copywriters that are using AI, they know how to talk to the AI to really make sure that it feels human and it conveys like human rather than AI. Think there's a bit of a missing gap between there having copywriters is super important. And if you link that then with SEO, again there's another really beautiful connection and synergy why you would use these types of people in certain types of projects. But most of the time clients will kind of manage that themselves and then we'll work with them to kind of refine that down and guide them again as best as possible so that they don't give you pages and pages of content and the content's concise to the point, streamlined, has a tonne of voice.

35:58Joseph Berry: Fits what we're trying to convey and communicate.

36:02Janne Parri: I'm wondering, do you have a hard rule about the content that it has to be ready at some point? You flexible with that? Because I know that many times clients take their time with the content and so on. Or how do you manage that kind of risk of content?

36:22Joseph Berry: Yeah, well, that topic is always the same really. Yeah, it's trying to be as hard and firm as you can to get the content. Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's not. It's a tough one really. It all depends, it just all depends really. Sometimes clients are pretty good with it, sometimes clients are really bad with it. I'm on a project now that's probably two years because I'm waiting for content still.

36:48Janne Parri: That's a lot. You obviously do this on a high level. And we talked about all those steps you go through in design. So I'm curious, how long does it take for you to do the design? What is like the default amount of time? You schedule for design side of the project.

37:07Joseph Berry: So I'd say that initial kind of discovery point, I would say is anywhere between like two and four weeks. Maybe a bit longer if it is a bigger project, maybe a bit longer depending on feedback and content that may be slotted into that. But in a general kind of consensus is probably around two to four weeks as a set point. But again, that can... Of change really depending on a number of them factors.

37:36Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. And how do you communicate that? Do you give like estimates or do you say that we will see that when we get started on which kind of pace we are going with?

37:48Joseph Berry: Yeah, I mean personally I try to keep things a little bit more flexible rather than being very rigid on it. Again, it would be dependent on the client, depends what their time frame is. Again, for me, it's more about allowing me to work across multiple projects rather than if I am on a really strict timeline, it kind of forces me to be very limited. So being open and honest about them timelines is something that I'm kind of very transparent with. Always give an estimate, always explain, you know, this is TBC because of X, Y and Z. And most clients are normally happy with, of course, if there is one with, you know, sharper timelines, then I jiggle things around to accommodate for that.

38:35Janne Parri: Nice yeah I'm actually struggling with a couple of ongoing projects I kind of have too many projects going on so this might be a bit selfish question but you mentioned that you like to do is it like two projects at the time and I'm like wondering should I aim for a state where I'm doing just one that I could focus on just one project. But how do you see that and why do you like to do two or more

39:06Janne Parri: At the same time?

39:06Joseph Berry: I this might sound crazy, but ⁓ I've been at points where I've been juggling like six or eight projects. ⁓

39:14Janne Parri: Okay, that's a lot of context switching.

39:19Joseph Berry: And yes, sometimes it seems like a good idea, but most of the time it's really not. And it's getting to that point where it's deciding, you know, when to say no. And then also thinking about how you like to work. For me, for my own creative stimulus and the way that I keep myself energized on things is at least having some variety. I've just gone through a few recent projects which I love doing but I was like solid on them. It and it was like timelines are a lot quicker than what I would normally do for such a complex project. So it does add a lot more pressure and it's a lot more stressful and it's definitely

40:02Joseph Berry: Something that I'm pivoting on how I manage that better. And for me, at the moment, again, the size of the projects I've got a lot bigger, which is not enabling me like I was before to have a lot more smaller medium. That's why I could probably pick up a lot more projects, because they weren't all very chunky and meaty. But then as I mentioned before, was like being very open about timeframes and making sure that I allowed myself time to breathe rather than

40:35Joseph Berry: Taking more on and then keeping the timeframes compressed. So again, maybe some of the flexibility that I was allowed to is like say, well, I can't do it in four weeks, I need eight weeks. And they're like, well, you know, we want to work with you, we're cool with that. So yeah, that's kind of now where I'm at and now I'm working on bigger projects. I still want to have that space to take other things in. But again, what I'm doing now is building out JB studio now where I do have more of a team around me, which is allowing me to kind of still oversee and then get other people to help with me. So obviously Melissa Mendez, which you know, in Canada.

41:16Joseph Berry: I've been working with development and also Gabriel who has been working with development and then there's other people that I work with. My 3D animator Alessandro. So I've got a kind of really nice little team that helps me with that support. So that's now something that's allowing me to maybe pick up having the bigger project but then also, you know, still being able not to say... Know to other things that are really cool, right? Because I still want to do some cool things. And yeah.

41:43Janne Parri: Yeah, that is beautiful. We can go towards, well, the team, it sounded to me like the team is more like technical or development oriented. So is that so, do you find yourself like outsourcing more of the development side? And how do you, how do you like handle that part of the process?

42:06Joseph Berry: Yeah, it's typically more development. Melissa helps me again with the creative and art direction. She's, yeah, key part in how that helps and she can help take things over and work with me. And we work quite, we work very closely when it comes to design. So we do spread that along, spread that across us. But yeah, the majority of stuff that's going out is more on the development, more technical stuff. And then also depending, there may be some like full build stuff by. Again, try and manage and do as much of that as I can. But now I'm obviously starting to, yeah, see that change a little bit, right? I'm having to think about if I want to grow. I'm not like adamant on like growing and scaling. I'm very much the kind of person, you know, my whole kind of career is kind of just.

42:55Joseph Berry: Going with the flow, going with the journey and like just, I'll get where I get to because that's where my journey's taking me to and if it means scaling, I'll scale but then I'm also okay with working with really cool brands and the product's just getting bigger and maybe I'll have slightly less variation in what I'm working on. Who knows, who knows, let's put it that way.

43:18Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, but that's a good thing to like ponder about because when things change is your responsibilities change and you might end up in a role, for example, some sort of manager or CEO who never touches Figma or Webflow and you started loving those and then you hate your job or something like that. So it's good to ponder. Do you see that as a risk? For yourself.

43:41Joseph Berry: I mean, I've always said to myself, I always want to be on the tools. So I always want to be working on the stuff. I think that's pretty much the essence of the brand that I've built for myself. So I feel like there always has to be some involvement, whatever. I don't know. Again, really don't know where that would go. In my heart, I'm like, no, I don't want to just be like. Pointing fingers and doing that kind of thing. I would rather be involved with the craft and building out things and working in a more exclusive, creative situation with a number of people where we kind of, again, bring the team that is necessary for the right job and really making sure that what's being done is to the best of what we can do.

44:26Janne Parri: Yeah. Yeah. And well, this might be just in my head, but when you're talking about scaling or building an agency, is all about like the numbers and the amount of people you can employ. But there's also the kind of like quality thing that what if instead of building a huge team, you build a dream team, like just. The best people you know, your friends, and you get to do cool stuff with those that is totally different like ball game.

44:59Janne Parri: Wouldn't you think?

45:00Joseph Berry: Yeah, think it's thinking about, you unless you still can do a really good business and still create great quality. Again, it probably would start out as actually the option where I'm going, right? Working with really good people that do really good work. And then you've got that foundation and then you could start to employ people after that again. Strategically didn't think about it in that way, but that's for me how you kind of keep hold of that quality and then you can branch out to start employing people. My thing is I've always said like more people, more problems, you know,

45:41Joseph Berry: In the nicest possible way, more people, more problems, you know, you've got to pay people, you know, a little bit more stress, making sure that you've got the right work coming in. So that's why I always say, again, it's a gradual thing. It's like, where does this go? You can't really be hiring people if you've not got that right type of work. It needs to be paid at a decently high level. And if you're gonna employ people on that level, then the work needs to be paying at that level. So again, it's not as simple as just going over that.

46:17Janne Parri: That is so true.

46:17Joseph Berry: So I think that's, yeah, I mean, and again, like. Think about it this way, what I would say is if you're, if you're like, don't force it, like don't feel like you need to force it. There's no, there's no, I say this to a lot, but there's no like set rule, right? Whatever's working for you right now and you're happy, just be happy. Like don't force yourself to do shit that you don't need to do, right? Don't over, like again, it goes back to my kind of approach, like don't over complicate shit, don't. Don't do more than you need to do. Just do the minimum, but really fucking good. The results will come. And then as things start to build, then you can start to think about, should I do this, or should I expand this? But if your main goal at the beginning is to try and do that, I feel like it's, you've got to go through a certain set of barriers and levels to get to get to.

47:09Joseph Berry: And again, I'm not like, this is not the gospel. It doesn't work like this all the time, but in my head, logically, that's kind of how it works. You get yourself at a certain point, you start to put out good work, you get better work. As the work starts to get bigger and better in terms of the finances that are involved, the type of the work, the exposure of the work, the way that works is gonna help you generate more work. Then that's where you've got, you can start to see path of where that can actually go, I feel like it's a lot harder if you're thinking, right, that's where I want to go and you've got your life and you're kind of, yeah, you're just like, you're really, you're really putting yourself up against it. Where if you just focus on like this,

47:51Joseph Berry: This part of my phase is I'm going to be a really good freelancer. Then I'm going to create a little studio and I'm going to, you know, maybe bring some other people in to help me or I'm just going to keep building. My work and I'm gonna keep working with different people and I'm gonna start getting in different work and you know again you'll see that work change or you know there's a bit of a process in how that goes and I don't know that's how I feel. When I started off freelancing I was like right I'm gonna be a freelancer I'm gonna just do my shit you know I'm gonna I'm gonna try and establish myself and then as things start to grow I then I'm starting you know.

48:28Joseph Berry: It's not Joseph Berry anymore, it's JB studio. And now that the things are evolving a little bit more, maybe I'm thinking, oh, well, maybe it could be a bit more. But then I'm also a little bit, I'm always hesitant. And I'm like, no, I don't know if I wanna, do I need to push myself that much? Because sometimes I'm already pushing myself well too much. I mean, this is like my fifth year now. Or four, years, maybe four years, five years. Like, I have not really stopped in them four years. And I tell you, the work-life balance is so important because I've burned myself out a number of times now where I'm just like, I'll start to lose a little bit of the joy for it. I start to like,

49:11Joseph Berry: Get frustrated and it's becoming a chore. I still love it but when it's constant and you just don't get time to stop, you're not letting yourself stop. Again, these are things that I've been, now I'm in it a bit more. I'm now saying to myself, I don't wanna be working that much and just that intense or finding out I don't necessarily wanna have... Too much on top of me and it just, you're like, I can't breathe. Shit, like one thing after the next, this, that, then you're just like, me alone. And you just, you kind of, then you start to like, it just brings you down on many levels that you don't see initially, because you're just thinking money, this, that, now I'm like, yeah, I just need to like chill out a little bit.

50:00Janne Parri: Totally, like...

50:00Joseph Berry: I mean, I'm just rambling here, but these are just thoughts that have come from that question, you know.

50:04Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, but the rambling is the main thing for the for the board, and I can totally feel that burden just Last week. I thought I had a thought that okay this thing that I'm right now working on this would be So awesome like a dream job but because I have three other projects going on, that gives me the pressure to do all the things very fastly. And it kind of robs the joy out of all of them. But at the same time, I kind of know that I have been in that same place before, and I now created the same situation and I didn't learn from the previous instances. So.

50:45Joseph Berry: 17 times. I know, I keep making the

50:47Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. So...

50:52Joseph Berry: Same errors.

50:53Janne Parri: But could we, if you do not have the silver bullet, could we like brainstorm some sort of thing, how we could learn from this and maybe come to the other side with some sort of answer or something.

51:06Joseph Berry: I'll give you my answer on the reason why you do that. I think as freelancers, business owners, studio, creative, whatever, right? You always think in your head that there could be a moment where things might drop, know? Like projects might not come in as much. And it happens to everyone. There's always like, you know, Highs and lows, highs and lows. Fortunately, in my case, things have been pretty steady. And just at that point where I was at my max, luckily I've got a point where I just had a couple of months where there was nothing really big new coming in, which just gave me a moment to like, I literally did a lot of fuck all for a good

51:50Joseph Berry: Couple of months, just because I was so, so like. I was just exhausted. Was really like... And that's why I've been so quiet on socials. Just not really been doing anything because I've just been like hibernating basically. Just trying to recharge as best as possible. I'm feeling a lot better about myself, thank god.

52:12Janne Parri: Great, Yeah. That is definitely like risk that yeah, you know, that there might be some slower times, but there could also be this positive problem that your work gets better, your name gets out there. And then you got all these awesome opportunities and you cannot say no, no to those. Like for me, I got to quite cool, projects. And I knew that it's a bit much, but I just couldn't say no. That's one thing. Hopefully

52:45Janne Parri: I'm better at saying no in the future. But if I remember correctly, you mentioned saying no before. So is that a hot thing for you or have you gotten better at that?

52:57Joseph Berry: What's that saying? No.

52:58Janne Parri: Saying no to or well.

52:59Joseph Berry: No, I haven't got any better at that. I mean... There's a number of factors that go into that, right? I think the project, who it is, it's good for the portfolio, do some good things with it. I get it. Again, I know we should learn to say no more. I think you're saying no to the wrong clients. That's the more important thing, making sure that you're not working with people that are probably going to drive you insane or not value you or they're not paying you for what you need and then it gets into that situation where you're like, why did I do this? I've really put myself in a position or doing that little bit of validation, how they approach you, what are they looking for and just seeing how they are.

53:47Joseph Berry: And you kind of know, you kind of know, like you can have calls with people and you're just like, yeah, not weird. I'm not like the product is cool, but I'm not, I'm not feeling it, you know, using that is the best time.

53:57Janne Parri: Yeah, the cut feeling.

53:59Joseph Berry: Yeah. When to say no.

54:01Janne Parri: But if we drill down on that a bit, I would imagine that you have some natural filters, like just pricing and you are not totally available online and so on. There's some filtering. Then if people like get on calls with you, do you still have like the situation that there is... Bunch of projects and you have to say no to something that would be an interesting project for you.

54:29Joseph Berry: I've not really got into that situation where I've had to turn something down. The only times that I will turn things down is on them reasons above like how do I feel like the relationship between me and the client would be? Is their expectation weighing up to the... The value and what's being put on the table. Is the timing right? Like, they want it too quick? Like, sometimes I'll get requests that come in and they want it in two weeks.

55:03Joseph Berry: I'm just like, that's just not, it's not possible. So for me, they're the times that I'm really looking at where I'm gonna be saying no, rather than it being like when I've got too much. Subconsciously I'm kind of in a always like a state where I can sort things in and then also being able to bring other people into the to the team has again enabled me to be like well I don't necessarily need to say no to that I can bring it on and then I can start to like say can you help me with this part can you help me with this part and then we work as a team so that's been

55:41Joseph Berry: My main bridge for not saying no, my no's are really more just down on the actual principle itself, right.

55:47Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, that's good. That's good. Okay. I kind of wanna, go back to the process thing and the development stuff, like on the nerdy things. We can totally come back to the software topics later, but, what does it look like when you get the design somewhat ready? What is ready enough? And how do you hand it over to development or do you always start the Webflow project by yourself? Or what does that part of the process look like?

56:19Joseph Berry: Yeah, I think again this reflects a lot from what we've been speaking about, keeping that process pretty simple. Most of the time I'm going in and starting the project, building out a style guide, getting all the necessary code that I need in any external code, libraries, and generally just getting the project set up and in that place and then building out a formalised base of a style guide. Looking at combo classes and then obviously I would start to like go in and build the project out itself. So really that's as simple as it is. Like again, I don't over complicate that world. And then depending on if there's any more specific technical requirements or advanced things, then I would bring in certain people to help me with that.

57:09Joseph Berry: And if there is other bits that I actually need the team to pick up then I would bring other people in to help with building out what I've originally set as a foundation. Don't use any like code systems like Osmo's or not Osmo's, Lumos, Finsweet, know, mine's based off these. Pretty much the kind of semantics and structure of combo classes and global classes and stuff like that. And again, it's just because of the repetition of the way that I've built things out. So the principle in the way that it's kind of built is in that same light, but it's just kind of my own standard.

57:44Janne Parri: Quick side notes here. So I have already booked a bunch of guests for the show. So if you are liking what you're hearing and seeing, please consider subscribing. I am also doing live streams on YouTube. So check the schedule from my channel and come and say hi while I'm live. That's all on with the show. Circling back a bit to the design stuff like how do you manage to get on that level? Is it just like going through the iterations or just the experience every foundational thing that you have gone through your career or

58:20Janne Parri: Do you have any tips for getting on that level?

58:24Joseph Berry: Yeah, I mean, I don't think there's no magic potion to it really. Or a spell, for me it's just been consistency, like a repetition, practicing. I've said this sound before, what does practice make?

58:36Janne Parri: Perfect.

58:37Joseph Berry: No, practice doesn't make perfect. Practice makes improvement. It's something that I heard from someone which I absolutely love. I can't remember their name who quoted that, but practice makes improvement and that's the way that you've got to see it. If you want to be super extra, like critical and think about it, perfection isn't, there isn't really such thing as perfection. Don't like so that's why I always why I agree so heavily with practice makes improvement rather than practice makes perfect. As I said just repetition practice trying things having good taste building that taste trying to understand the reasons why you're doing things and just trying just keep trying keep trying do different things like

59:25Joseph Berry: Just keep pushing yourself, keep wanting to better. Understand that it's not necessarily gonna happen straight away. Focus on them fundamentals, the basics, it's just so, so important. I mean, all of these things I've said so many times on so many different number of occasions when I've spoke to people, when I've spoke in public. You know, I always like drill down about these things, like just... Just keep doing shit. Yeah, you're gonna beat yourself up, don't be too hard, but just keep going. It will happen. There does need to be a little bit of talent and skill inside of there. So it's sometimes slower, sometimes it's faster. It's, again, it's...

1:00:14Joseph Berry: I think if you just use them, the kind of key things that I mentioned, practicing repetition, looking at the basics, being obsessive, getting good taste and just consuming yourself in that world, little by little you will see improvements. It's like another little analogy that I love. It's like if you go to the gym first week, what do you see? Nothing. Two weeks, nothing. Three weeks, nothing. One month, nothing. Two months, six months, you see something very small. A year, you start to see a bit more progress. Two years, three years, four years, you then really start to see the progress. I, you know, in this, don't want to, it's not Instagram generation, but you know, like, you know, Instagram and TikTok conveys this way of life that everyone's a millionaire and we're all driving Ferraris and everything's

1:01:00Joseph Berry: Perfect. You know, it's created an illusion that everything is instant. When the majority of time it's not instant. It's not instant.

1:01:11Janne Parri: Totally. On that topic, obviously it takes time to get good. But what about a single project? How long do you fine tune the details, like all the animations and stuff? Because that part kind of looks instant too if you just see the end result.

1:01:28Joseph Berry: Yeah. So obviously with the process that we spoke about with the design, it enables us to do refinements as we go through. You know the saying, right? If you get stuck, go for a walk, step away from the screen. And this is why that way of doing the process is very helpful because it allows you to have that moment to step away. If you've got a design, three pages, four pages, five pages, all in one here and you've got to do it all in one session, yeah, you can bang it out, but I feel like you're still gonna need that time to step away from it, to really critique it, like come back to it and I'm like, yeah, I don't like that. Nah, that was, I feel like can do something better there or you're giving yourself time to actually breathe into making better decisions rather than being forced, I've got to get it all done, it needs to be done now, it needs to be perfect, no, no, no, no, no.

1:02:18Joseph Berry: And then you just land up getting into a work cycle where you're just literally, you're not in free flowing moments, you're in like tunnel, right, and get that shit done.

1:02:31Janne Parri: You're like trying to white-knuckle creativity or something like that.

1:02:35Joseph Berry: You don't really get the right results out of it. When you have that time to kind of question and go back to it and leave it for a day or two and then go back to it and then you have that little bit of excitement in you again, you have that little spring in your step where you're like, shit, I want to make that better. You know, when you're just on it all the time, three, four, five, six days in a trot, you don't allow yourself that creative process. That's why it's important to have that incremental. It's the same for me for build really. Again, my main thing is setting up that build. First presentation, first initial point of setting up the system from the structure, the classes, it needs to be really well thought out so that you've got yourself a really good base to work with. And the reason why I go on that first homepage, desktop, tablet, mobile,

1:03:28Joseph Berry: Is that I'm already starting to build the responsive nature of the site. So as I build out other pages, the responsive tasks that I need to take are gonna become less because I'm already starting to pre-structure the HTML and CSS to do these things. And then when you start to reuse components and you're looking at elements, the work becomes less as you start to get through the project rather than just doing desktop. Then you gotta do all mobile. And then you just, you start to

1:03:56Janne Parri: Hell yeah.

1:03:56Joseph Berry: Miss things and things go right. That's why I like to really do it in that way, because it allows me to really kind of go through and feel like, have I done this? Have I done this? Have I done this? Have I done this? If I've done all of the above, then I'll move on to the next step. And then as progressively as you build through the site, you'll find that you're writing less code and you're reusing more of the elements that you know, if you structured it in the right way. You can be creative in making sure that you can reuse things without having to like rebuild whole new elements. And that is how it would go with the animations and interactions. The same thing as I'm really applying that first level for that first presentation, I'm spending lots of time like tweaking, refining, previewing, looking at it, leaving it, leaving it, and then going back to it and looking at it. Nah, that's too much, I don't need that now.

1:04:47Joseph Berry: Again, giving you a little bit of time to do that and that will kind of again continue as I'm moving through the build. I'll tweak little things, maybe I think, well, that's a bit quick now, or a little bit slow, maybe I could do this. An idea will come from, again, giving myself time to like think about things rather than if you just like build, do. Yeah, you can do it and can still set yourself up and have a good plan, but. For me, the real excitement comes out of them creative moments of giving yourself time just to be like, let me try this, let me try that. And then you go away and then you come back and you're like, fuck yes, I could do that. Yes, like that's shit. Why didn't I think of that before?

1:05:31Joseph Berry: That's why, give yourself time. Don't be forced to do everything like... It doesn't all have to be done now. Just give yourself time.

1:05:39Janne Parri: Yeah. And I would say that everybody would opt in for some leeway, some on pressure for their work, whatever type of work they would have. And that would result in a better end result. But one detailed question about the Responsiveness. Because I've seen your work. You do some crazy stuff. And oftentimes people critique the fancy sites that will not work in mobile, but yours do. And I believe that you have won some awards for just like the mobile execution. And I'm curious how much

1:06:18Janne Parri: Are you able to use those same elements or do you build like completely different like elements for mobile sizes?

1:06:27Joseph Berry: Yeah, my approach to mobile is really what is actually necessary for mobile. And then always thinking that mobile is more of a streamlined process. So not everything that is on desktop needs to be on mobile. And sometimes the animations that you create on desktop, while they can work on mobile, they're probably maybe hindering that experience, making it, you know, less. Easy to navigate or move through. So my point is always like you're kind of taking away from mobile. You're not necessarily adding to it. There may be instances where you have to create two kind of versions, one for desktop and one for mobile. But again, my thinking is that you need to be smart with a design and build decisions that you don't necessarily need to like make two of one thing because it's

1:07:14Joseph Berry: Yeah, it's not a no-no. No one's gonna come around and bang on your door because you've done two different things, I'm just making a joke out that, right? But as like kind of semantics, it's really best to try and make sure that you build stuff that cascades and falls into position from desktop to mobile without having to really make. Majorly drastic structural changes. So that's kind of one of the key things that I'm really trying to like think about when I'm design for desktop and design for mobile. The one thing that, the way that I approach the mobile, probably slightly different, is that I actually make most of the mobile decisions in Webflow. I don't actually make them in design. And the reason why I do that is because I can actually see

1:08:01Joseph Berry: Semantic-wise and structure-wise how that could be actually broken down inside of a cascading way rather than doing a design without actually seeing that structure in place. And that's sometimes where that gap becomes between this is how it would need to be built for desktop and this is how it needs to be built for mobile because you're not really thinking about them too. And that's where you might have to like bring in a secondary element, hide and show something and do them little tricks. But really you want to try and keep the main bulk of the content and structure cascade of all as possible.

1:08:38Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah. So do you do you do basically no designs for the mobile sizes? And do clients even ask those?

1:08:49Joseph Berry: Again, varied. Sometimes I ask for mobile, sometimes I don't. I just, again, part of my process as I say that I do the majority of mobile in Webflow because it allows me to make better decisions there than it will in design. And again, I can always talk through like the design in desktop, you know. A lot of things that can cascade down, they're gonna go from two columns to one column. It's good. I feel like clients are quite educated on mobile design now. I feel like they.

1:09:20Joseph Berry: They know it. There definitely may be some other more complex things that need to be like fleshed out a little bit more. And again, that's go back to my point, like picking and choosing what the right things to do for the right project, right? Rather than just chucking the kitchen sink at it because you've chucked the kitchen sink at it all the time. It's working out what's right for the project. And look, it is a standard of doing mobile design and I'm not against it and I, you know, I do it relatively most of the time, but. Sometimes it's just, if you're in my situation where you're designing and building, then for me, the seamless transition is already there because I know the decisions I'm making and I know how to build it, right? If I'm designing and passing it to someone build, of course, yes, then I would provide mobile designs.

1:10:08Janne Parri: And do you ever find yourself in a situation that you have designed something new and something crazy and now you're scared on how you are gonna execute this on a smaller screen size.

1:10:20Joseph Berry: Yep, definitely many occasions where I've designed something and then got into building. I'm like, Oh shit. What am I going do? I would say on that would be again, my kind of approach that is this, let's set the challenge. Let's do it. Like, I'm not, I'm not scared. I'll get it to work. Like I'll find a way. It will happen. And just knowing the, it doesn't, there isn't much that you can't design and build these days in. You just got to know some of the creative ways that you can execute it. Right. And again,

1:10:58Joseph Berry: It goes back to practicing, trying shit, doing different things. That's why it becomes more easier because you can already visualize it. You can already see it. You can already like start to like. Break it down to how it would work without necessarily having to go through the process of doing how it would work. And that's what that time and practice enables you to do. I can just see things and I can go, it can do this, it could do that.

1:11:28Joseph Berry: We can this with it, we can do that with it. And that just comes with that building of that encyclopedia in your head and just practicing stuff.

1:11:37Janne Parri: Totally. And when you overcome similar challenges again and again, it builds up the confidence. Okay. At some point I have to let you go, but I still have one weird section at the end and one kind of mandatory question I have to ask because we live in the age of AI. How do you use AI and what's your thoughts about AI?

1:12:03Joseph Berry: God, AI, I mean, look, I think AI is an extremely helpful tool. I think it's, for us, it's a part of the process that will help us speed up certain aspects of the way that we do things. Creating new assets, like, that's a new game changer for us, whether it's through... AI platforms that specifically focus on generating assets, videos, or using even Photoshop. The AI features in there are really cool and they've enabled us to comp ⁓ images up and do lots of different things super quickly, ⁓ That's been an absolute game changer. As we mentioned before, know, ChatGPT for copy and other things.

1:12:46Joseph Berry: Claude for writing code, that's definitely something that I've been using a lot more and the results are staggeringly good what you can do. Again, you just need to know how to communicate to it, what to say with it. This whole argument of RIP designers and all of this kind of stuff is kind of, yeah, typical, funny, like, it's laughable. I don't think AI is there with that in terms of being able to execute that stuff. Then I think there's some things that I'm potentially working on as an additional point to the master collection is how we can integrate AI that could potentially be a Joseph Berry replica, right? That could be

1:13:28Janne Parri: Mmm, yeah.

1:13:30Joseph Berry: Something that could potentially be done. You know, the AI information that is going to reflect back to me. So yeah, for me, I AI is a part of our problem solving, it's a part of our process now. I don't necessarily think it can overtake full commands of parts of our job. I just don't see it there. Everything that I've seen is kind of... You know when you see this post, R.O.P. Designers or web developer, you

1:14:01Joseph Berry: See this in you're like, it's very cookie cutter, like I've seen this stuff before, like this is, there's nothing, you know, really pushing the boundaries, but then again, it's down to the person that's actually controlling it. And you know, most of these posts and these people, they're, you know, part of this community that likes to put these things out in this way and you know, they don't really, they're not, they're not. They're not really designers or developers, right? They're people that work in that space, they're self-taught, you there's nothing wrong with that. They're probably creating their own businesses, they're probably helping other businesses do these kind of things. You know, there's still space for this type of people to be involved in. But in terms of that craft and that detail and understanding and getting into the project and understanding the clients and building relationships, know, AI is...

1:14:49Joseph Berry: Don't think it's gonna do that right now. Hopefully it doesn't, because I don't think there's any fun in that. It loses that connection point, which I think is very important to what we do.

1:14:58Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, I kind of hate that this is a topic for almost every episode. This was not supposed to be a AI podcast or anything like that. But it is, it is present and everybody is talking about that. And yeah, same feelings like there's a lot of promises, but the end results are not there. And one can take a positive view on that too. If AI is able to whip up a basic section, design or development, that's great. That's basic things that we do day to day. And then we get to focus on more crazy stuff, more cool sections and animations and such. And maybe it can at some point help with those too.

1:15:46Janne Parri: And we can just like focus on the good parts, the exciting parts of the job, hopefully. But yeah, we'll see.

1:15:53Joseph Berry: Yeah, I'd say it's an enhancement.

1:15:56Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, that would be.

1:15:57Joseph Berry: Of fairness in the announcement.

1:15:58Janne Parri: Yeah. Okay, Joseph, there's one weird section at the end. But before that, is there something that we haven't talked about or something that you'd like to say to the listeners, what's those about anything AI, webflow design, whatever.

1:16:13Joseph Berry: I don't think so, I've rambled on for quite a bit now.

1:16:16Janne Parri: Yeah, we have run circles around the process and design and a little bit of business stuff. If people want to check you out, follow you, where should they go?

1:16:26Joseph Berry: Usual places, Instagram, LinkedIn and X should be able to finally most of the time we've put in Joseph Berry across all of them. Yeah, I mean, they're really the main places that I go on and check, but I'm not on socials that much at the moment. I've been pretty, well, one, too busy and two, yeah, just having a break. I'm always keen to get myself back into the community and do things and help things and I think that's why the Master Collection has been a bit of a priority for me now because I feel like this would be a really nice way to give back to the community and help maybe grow something that I can kind of grow with me if that makes sense.

1:17:15Janne Parri: Yeah, yeah, totally. And if people are excited about the Master Collection, what is the first place you are going to post about it?

1:17:22Joseph Berry: On one of them three, it'll probably be on all of them three to be honest. Yeah, I don't know when as well yet, I still don't have anything but once I get close to the point then I will start to tease some things out and open up maybe an early subscription beta, I'll probably do a bit of an offer for the first set number

1:17:41Janne Parri: Beautiful.

1:17:42Joseph Berry: Of people that want to get themselves involved and then yeah, we'll go from there.

1:17:47Janne Parri: Beautiful and I will obviously put all the relevant links down in the description. But towards the last section, do you have any idea what it could be about?

1:17:57Joseph Berry: No I have no idea.

1:17:58Janne Parri: Beautiful. This will come as a surprise.

1:18:00Joseph Berry: Great.

1:18:01Janne Parri: So the last section is a weird Finnish section. So I will give you a Finnish saying a phrase. I will translate that to English. And then your job is to guess what that means. Are you are you ready for your saying? And actually this is handpicked for you. So I know that you have a hockey background. So there's a certain thing called vanhan aikainen, which translates to old fashioned. What does it mean if I did...

1:18:36Janne Parri: The old fashioned on a hockey ring. What kind of move that would be?

1:18:41Joseph Berry: An old fashioned.

1:18:42Janne Parri: Yeah, Vanhan Aikainen in Finnish.

1:18:45Joseph Berry: Do I get to ask questions on what aspect it might be?

1:18:48Janne Parri: Yeah, I can give you a hint. It's a goal. Old-fashioned goal. It always

1:18:52Joseph Berry: An old fashioned goal?

1:18:54Janne Parri: Links... Yeah.

1:18:55Joseph Berry: An old fashioned goal? Like scoring top shelf in the top corner through to goalie's legs?

1:19:02Janne Parri: That's a quite good guess, but it is not that. Actually, top shelf would be like ylämummo, which would be upper who...

1:19:14Joseph Berry: Americans say, you know, wear granny peeps to cookie jar. Yeah.

1:19:18Janne Parri: That probably has something, some relation to that. But old fashioned I believe you have the term wraparound goal in hockey. So you circle behind the goal

1:19:27Joseph Berry: Wrappin' round. Yes,

1:19:32Janne Parri: And put it in like right there.

1:19:35Joseph Berry: A wraparound. Yeah, I've not scored too many of them in my time because they're always very difficult to score. You need to have a lot of pace to be able to do a wraparound and you've got to have a little bit of a distraction for the goalie because it's very easy for the goalie just to like push and slide, pads across and they always get their feet right at the post. Yeah, wraparound goals are typically quite hard to score.

1:20:01Janne Parri: Totally. Do you still get to go to ice rink? Is it ice rink? What it calls? Yeah.

1:20:06Joseph Berry: Yeah, ice rink. No, I haven't been in years. I haven't been in years, probably about four years I haven't played hockey for now.

1:20:14Janne Parri: Yeah, do you still watch hockey?

1:20:16Joseph Berry: I haven't watched the Olympics. I watched

1:20:17Janne Parri: Maybe I'll unpix.

1:20:18Joseph Berry: A bit of the Olympics. But I'm not like... In the UK, they don't really have much hockey on. You need special channels to have hockey. And I've got enough subscriptions as is,

1:20:31Janne Parri: Yeah, that's the modern problem. Okay, Joseph, I'll let you go. Thanks so much for being a guest and for all the listeners and watchers. We'll see you in the next one. Bye.

1:20:42Joseph Berry: Bye bye.