Get to Know Your Web Designer - Gabe Rowald

In every newsletter we interview a member of our team at Alliance so you can get to know them better. This time, it’s Gabe Rowald, our Lead Web Developer, who’s been at Alliance for ten years.

How long have you been a web designer? How did you get started?
I’ve been a web designer/developer for about twelve years now. I got started when a college friend of mine asked me to do web development for a startup company his dad had created. I had no real experience in web development, but at that time very few people did.

Why do you enjoy web design?
Web development allows me to be both creative and analytical. It allows me to flex both sides of my brain on a regular basis. It’s always new, it’s always changing, and in that way web development always remains challenging. The fast-moving nature of web development can be a drawback, too. You have to keep learning – almost constantly – or risk falling behind.

How has the way websites are constructed changed since you first started designing them? Where do you see it going in the future?
When I first started, Microsoft FrontPage was the way to go. It was that or a text editor. Page layouts were created using a complicated set of nested HTML tables and spacer GIF images that fit on a monitor with a resolution of 640 x 480 pixels and 216 available colors. IE6 was the gold standard in browsers. Everybody had dial-up access to the Internet. It makes me shudder when I think about it.

Today there’s still room for improvement, but things are so much better: CSS layouts, more consistent cross-browser rendering, higher resolutions, millions of colors, and widespread broadband access all make my life easier.

The future? In a fast-changing field like web development, the future might be tomorrow. I definitely see increased demand for mobile browsing. It’s kind of like going back in time, though - small screens, less computing power, and a wide variety of browsers with varying capabilities. It just might get worse before it gets better! It also seems websites are becoming congregations of a number of distributed resources as opposed to self-contained entities. A website will just be a wrapper around a collection of content from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, LinkedIn, and Google.

What do you do for fun?
In my free time, I like to play guitar and sand volleyball, but never at the same time.

Tell me something interesting about yourself.
This year will be my 5th year participating in the 48 Hour Film Project.

Thanks, Gabe!