Glenn Hitchcock

In this interview, we have Glenn Hitchcock, a talented UI designer who regards Fireworks as the best screen design tool. Let's hear his insights and experience with Fireworks!

To begin with, who are you and where are you from?
I'm a designer and I'm from Lichfield - a nice cathedral city in the heart of England.

What do you work as in your day job?

I work for Fueled; a mobile design and development company based in NYC. I work on branding, icons, apps and websites, all the way through wireframes to design.

What type of projects do you work in Fireworks and are there any challenges you faced that Fireworks have helped you?

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I use Fireworks for all my web and app designs, and in some cases use it for web-only branding. I think one of the greatest obstacles it's helped me overcome is rapid projects which have a tight deadline. Features like Symbols and linked Styles help me update site-wide assets with just one modification, rather than having to waste minutes going through every instance of an element and update it with a copy and paste.

How long have you been using Fireworks?
I dabbled with Fireworks back when Macromedia owned it, as as young lad making avatars and funny pictures for gaming/news forums. The ease of use is what got me into it, and when I chose a design career in 2009 it seemed like the best tool out there for the web.

Tell us why Fireworks is your preferred choice for doing UI design?

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It's almost the perfect mix between the vector tools of Illustrator and the design power of Photoshop. Its existence is built around exporting straight to web - and because of that it saves me time and effort, allowing me to focus on getting designs pixel perfect.

For your workflow, what are the biggest benefits of a vector-based workflow in Fireworks over Illustrator?

I have to say I actually use Illustrator for major vector illustrations, and then bring them into Fireworks for colouring and sizing. This is mainly because Fireworks struggles with some complex Union/Punch operations. Once they're in Fireworks you've got tools like Snap to Pixel and the Path adjustment settings that help you get that crispness that's hard to achieve in Illustrator - nudging a path even 1/4 a pixel across can be worth it.

Fireworks excels as a rapid prototyping tool. How does Fireworks helps you in your daily design workflow?
Not having to micromanage layers like you do in Photoshop and Illustrator helps a lot. You've can apply States, Symbols, Styles and Pages and have them all interlinked. One slight change a client wants is never a hassle if you've got your document set up correctly, thus it helps the client get what they want and you're not bogged down by little changes that mount up.

Can share with us your experience in designing for mobile screens in Fireworks?
I've only done a few mobile screens in Fireworks but it was a pleasant experience. I did them in both retina and normal resolutions - and being able to scale buttons correctly without losing their sharpness was great. For reference, if you scale an object in Fireworks and it has 5px stroke or shadow, it'll correctly scale them down as you adjust the object size.

If you can only list 5 favorite best features in Fireworks, what will they be?
1. Properties Panel - Glad to be able to manipulate pixel sizing and positioning numerically.
2. Symbols - Create your own common library of site assets.
3. Edit Points - Refine those 16px icons so they're crisp and clear.
4. History - Navigate your recent actions to see where you went wrong or what's better.
5. Export settings - The different gif profiles and PNG8 inclusions are a nice touch.

Many people compare Photoshop with Fireworks. What is your viewpoint in this?
I think Photoshop has been around for so long that you've got a lot of skilled people using it, and it's gained a reputation as the best design tool out there. Overall, I'd say it is. However, if you're doing something specialised like a user interface design, or something that will be used for the web, Fireworks provides a much smoother and easier process from start to finish. Unfortunately I think it's still got stigma from its early Macromedia days, when it used to be fairly simplistic and not powerful enough.

Fireworks work even better with fireworks extensions. What are your favorite extensions from other developers and how do you use it in your work?

I've found the Export as Favicon extension by John Dunning to be rather useful, but I haven't got many installed. I've heard good words about Orange Commands though - I'm interested to see how well the CSS Sprite export works.

Do you develop your own Fireworks commands?
The only commands I've done are keyboard shortcuts for object rotation/flipping, and vector union/intersect/punch. Essentially I'll shortcut anything I use regularly.

Do you have a Fireworks tip for the Fireworks community?
Master the Pointer and Subselection tool. They're both pointers but they do wildly different things, and interact with objects like Paths and Groups differently.

Are you involved with any communities on the web?

I'll post my works and comments on Dribbble, but other than Twitter I'm not hugely involved with any discussions; I'm more of a spectator.

Do you have a blog? Where can we find you?

Aye, i have a blog. From time to time I'll post useful tips and freebies that I've developed. I've actually got one in the pipeline regarding how useful Fireworks is in getting multiple vectors from Illustrator to Photoshop.

Thanks for the opportunity to talk you, Glenn. Last question, any advice to the designers out there exploring Fireworks?
It's been great talking to you!

If you're just starting out with Fireworks, search out some of the well known users on Twitter and don't be afraid to ask questions - they'll be happy enough someone is joining the wave :)

27 September 2011
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Glenn Hitchcock

Connecting the World with Fireworks