Episode 139 – Chris Ford

Introducing Chris Ford

Chris spent the first 20 years of her career working as an agency and freelance designer. Five years ago, she took a hard left into project management. Today she’s a hybrid project manager and designer at Reaktiv, a WordPress VIP partner.

Show Notes

Twitter | @ci_chrisford

Work | reaktivstudios.com

Mentioned in the show | brenebrown.com and designisonefilm.com

Preferred Pronouns | She/Her

Episode Transcript

Tara: This is Hallway Chats, where we meet people who use WordPress.

Liam: We ask questions and our guests share their stories, ideas, and perspectives.

Tara: And now the conversation begins. This is Episode 139.

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. And I’m Tara Claeys. Today we are joined by Chris Ford. Chris spent the first 20 years of her career working as an agency and freelance designer. 5 years ago, she took a hard left into project management. Today she’s a hybrid project manager and designer at Reaktiv, a WordPress VIP partner. Hello – welcome!

Liam: Welcome to Hallway Chats. I’m Liam Dempsey.

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today we’re joined by Chris Ford. Chris spent the first 20 years of her career working as an agency and freelance designer. Five years ago, she took a hard left into project management. Today, she’s a hybrid project manager and designer at Reaktiv, a WordPress VIP partner. Hi, Chris. I’m so glad you’re here. Welcome.

Chris: Thanks for having me. I’m really glad to be here, too. I have missed interactions with the WordPress community.

Liam: I think that’s fair to say that we all have. Chris, what a pleasure to meet you. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself?

Chris: My name is Chris Ford. I started working on the web in 1996 when I graduated from design school. I was supposed to be a T-shirt designer at a skateboard company and then their web guy quit and suddenly I was the new web person on staff. Fortunately, there were like five tags, so there wasn’t a whole lot to learn at the moment. We’re very excited when animated GIFs and background images came out for a little bit of context.

I did that at agencies in every industry from like skateboarding to scrapbooking, at agencies, and as a freelancer. Then five years ago, like I said, I took a really hard left into project management because I was interested in more of the business end of things. Like how do you run a profitable project, how do you managed timelines, how do you manage budgets, which is something I’ve always struggled with as a freelancer.

Now I have just recently, within the last couple of months, started dipping my toe back into the design pond, relearning everything because it’s been five years, which means nothing is the same and everything has changed. I started in WordPress. I don’t even know how long ago but it was before StudioPress was StudioPress. I had been working as a professional scrapbooker, which yes, is an actual job.

The craft industry is like the tech industry. There are bubbles in different crafts, and then those bubbles burst. So when the scrapbooking bubble burst, I knew a bunch of people with photography skills who needed websites. So I got me a copy of the Kubrick theme and added flash headers with navigation to them and started my WordPress journey.

Tara: Wow. I have so many things I want to ask you about.

Liam: I do too. I totally do. Can you start on scrapbooking, please?

Tara: I know. Okay.

Liam: Please. Please.

Tara: Yes. I did a little scrapbooking, but not professionally.