Meet Timothy, our web designer and collaborator, student and (yes) teacher.
Meet Timothy: our savvy website designer, Creative Lead at Iron Bound Designs, and participant in Essay Intensive Summer 2013 Workshop. Freshly accepted into RIT, his first choice school, Timothy can also be found levitating (with his laptop). Today, Tim is our featured student (on the blog screen)–not only the awesome invisible force who makes our online presence possible, presentable, professional and…teen-tastic. We love Tim.
E.I: What’s your favorite word?
Tim: Schadenfreude [He spells it out.]
E.I.: When did you learn the word—and how to spell it correctly?
Tim: My music teacher—formerly an airline steward! One of his things was vocab in music class. How that makes sense is unknown.
E.I.: Why do you love the word? What does it mean?
Tim: It sounds nice. Unbastardized German: Taking pleasure in someone else’s pain.
E.I: What gets you up in the morning?
Tim: The desire to make something.
E.I.: What is the name of your business? [E.I. feigns ignorance to promote our creative web designer’s awesome company]
Tim: Iron Bound Designs. We’re a web design and development agency.
E.I.: You love words. How did you pick that?
Tim: Availability. It communicates strength and a core to build upon.
E.I.: How many of you are there?
Tim: Two. Then we work with others: Two dogs, two cats and a panda.
E.I.: Do you see eye-to-eye?
Tim: Not always and that is what makes us good.
E.I.: How would you describe your business in a sentence?
Tim: We create, we imagine, we invent, we inspire. [E.I. forgives Timothy the practical comma-splicing].
E.I.: What does that mean?
Tim: We stand for creating larger products that are really able to help someone.
E.I. When did you create your business?
Tim: Unofficially, about five years ago from doing websites for mentors [E.I. does quick math: when he was in 8th grade, people!]. I was the digital man that they knew. Eventually, it became a much larger part of my life.
E.I.: How do you make time?
Tim: Dedication. There’s a quote I love: “Children’s endurance stems from their ignorance of alternatives.” That’s how it is for me—there is no other way to do this, so plow on.
E.I.: What’s your greatest hope for your business?
Tim: To make something that a lot of people use that changes the way they do things.
E.I.: What’s your favorite time of day or night?
Tim: Right after you’re tired but then you get un-tired again. That second burst of energy after exhaustion. [E.I. forgives Timothy the fact that this is not a specific time.]
E.I: If you could design a college essay prompt, what would it say?
Tim: Controversial. “Would you kill Hitler’s mother—before he was born?”
E.I.: How many words would it be?
Tim: The famous “six-word story.” [Tim thinks again.] 500 words.
E.I.: What’s the most challenging part of the writing process for you?
Tim: Going back and editing. Once you’ve “finished”, you want to never look at it again.
E.I.: What’s the hardest thing for you to write about?
Tim: Communicating what I know a lot about in a succinct manner.
E.I.: What is a key quality for a successful person for your generation?
Tim: To borrow your phrase—truth-telling or truth-speaking. The rawness of being able to communicate the truth from your perspective in a society clouded by not-the-truth.
E.I.: What are some people or companies you admire in your field?
Tim: Automattic, the people behind WordPress, the software I primarily develop on. An amazing company which does great things with people building what they love across the world.
E.I.: If you thought there would be no negative consequences, what would you do after graduation?
Tim: Go to the moon. Being able to see the Earth as a marble fascinates me. There is that bit of the unknown that is impossible to imagine. The feeling of looking in on something you know so well from outside, from a place you know nothing about.
E.I.: How would you describe your relationship to God?
Tim: Words are always difficult. A revolving door.
E.I.: Tell me about experience developing and taking Essay Intesive?
Tim: Fun. A cradle-to-teenager kind of process. We got to see how it morphed and grew up. After I took it, I knew firsthand that it was really, really good—an awesome experience I helped shape. [We did not pay Timothy to say this. In fact, we paid him NOT to say it!]
E.I.: How did you negotiate the teacher-client relationship? [Asked his teacher-client.]
Tim: Truth-telling.
E.I.: What is the hardest thing for you to tell the truth about?
Tim: Commitment.
E.I.: Elaborate?
Tim: To say about an idea or project I’ve been devoted to for a long time that maybe this isn’t the right way to go.
E.I.: What word or phrase would you like to exile from the English language? Why?
Tim: “Bored.” There are so many different opportunities around you. Being bored is so close-minded.
E.I. Can you describe a moment in your life you would really like to go back to?
Tim: My first performance in the opera Tosca. I worked at the MET Opera from 3rd grade to 8th grade as a child-supernumerator (people who don’t talk but solely act) and a child-chorester. [At this point in interview, E.I. becomes deathly jealous!]
Being onstage was the most amazing part of my life.
E.I. What is your relationship to language?
Tim: It is the tool. More than art or music is language. It is the thing that divides us and brings us together.
Thanks, Tim. Keep rocking the opera of life and helping people. Without Tim, this blog would not be half as sexy-functional—to say nothing of findable.