Style Contest Judge: Kathy Scoleri

Since we've wrapped up our interview series with the winners of The Style Contest, we're spending time with each of the contest judges. Today we're speaking with Kathy Scoleri of Moxie Design Studios.

Q: Tell us about your design background. What motivated you to get into design?

I started off as a traditional multimedia artist. I graduated college with a BFA in Studio Art where I studied mostly drawing, painting, printmaking and sculpture. Once I graduated I got my first computer and started messing around with Painter and Illustrator. While in a job as an office manager, I started teaching myself HTML and built my first website. And boy was it ugly! I spent the next year learning as much as I could about Photoshop and web design. I later got a job as a consultant for Arthur Andersen developing big B2B eCommerce websites. During my time at Andersen I gravitated towards the creative end of web development and carved my niche there as the "graphics girl". The motivation to get into design was more just a passion for creating art in a different way. Gone were the days of clay, plaster, and paint. My time was spent learning how to write CSS and optimize graphics.

Q: What was your favorite theme from The Style Contest, and why?

Bulletin Board by Dan Wolfgang gets my applause. I really love it when designers push the envelope and really try to achieve something new and original. It's super busy and a little crazy but, the effort and creativity behind it gets thumbs up from me. As an artist, I always look at design as a set of problems that have answers. And it isn't always whether you get the answer right... what matters is that you tried something new and risked it all to figure it out. I think this is the perfect example of that.

Q: What did you think of the overall winner, The Late Show? Why was it the best design out of all the category winners?

The winning design really was executed well and just looks like a complete, carefully designed and coded layout. The idea and imagery aren't something I would normally look at and go "WOW!" but they way it was treated really makes it stand out of the crowd.

Q: Tell us about your current design work and projects.

Where do I begin? I am currently working on several projects. One is a redesign for an author who is branching out into podcasting. I am also doing a huge redesign for a client I have had for many years, a property management company, and it's time for an update and an upgrade. I am also building a site for a funeral home, and just launched a site for a group of lawyers who are breaking into the job posting market. There is more but I don't think you want to hear my entire to-do list!

Q: Where do you find design inspiration?

Everywhere! I find it on product packaging, greeting cards, TV commercials, photos, dreams (especially on nights when I eat turkey... Thanksgiving is a very inspirational day!), from other designers, from artists, museums, the mall... it's hard to escape! What has really been inspiring me lately is my new camera, a Nikon D80 that has awakened a creative demon in me. Photography has always been inspirational to me. I have no clue how to use it but I plan on learning!

Don't forget to check out all of the great Style Contest designs for Movable Type, TypePad, and LiveJournal which are now archived at The Style Archive.