Episode 103: Eric Karkovack

Introducing Eric Karkovack

Eric Karkovack has been a web designer since 1996, back when static HTML and Netscape ruled the web. In 1999, he became a home-based freelancer and has been there ever since.

Show Notes

Twitter | @karks88

Website | Karks.com

Specky Boy | Eric Karkovack

1st Web Designer | Eric Karkovack

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 103.

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

Tara: And I’m Tara Claeys. Today we’re joined by Eric Karkovak. Eric has been a web designer since 1996, back when static HTML and Netscape ruled the web. In 1999, he became a home-based freelancer and has been there ever since. He’s also a writer for publications such as Speckyboy, 1stWebDesigner, and ACF. Welcome, Eric.

Eric: Hi, there. Thanks for having me on.

Liam: You’re very welcome, Eric, thanks for joining us out here in the virtual hallway. Can you tell us a little bit more about yourself, please?

Eric: Well, I’m basically a self-taught web designer. I started off in high school way back in the 90s. Right out of high school, I got a job at my local newspaper, The Carlisle Sentinel. I was their first full time web designer. Back in those days it was interesting. Everything was static. There was no such thing as WordPress. There were no content management systems at all that I knew of. I learned a lot there.

Worked a couple corporate places after that, and really didn’t find that I was moving forward like I wanted to. So in 1999, I started off on my own. It’s been quite a 20-year journey here, and I’m just thrilled to still be around, still learn something every day. And I’m crazy about WordPress.

Tara: Tell us a little bit about this. So 20 years you’ve been doing freelancing. When you started, that was before the craze of WordPress and all of that, how did you learn how to work for yourself and get clients and develop your skills to keep serving them as time has gone on?

Eric: Well, it wasn’t so easy. I thought it was going to be easy when I started. I thought okay, “I’ll just sit at home.” I have a better computer at home than I ever had in the offices I worked at. So I figured I could find clients and just make lots of money and drive a Porsche or something, but it definitely wasn’t that easy. I was very fortunate right away to get a steady agency client who fed me regular amounts of work. He also let me experiment a lot with what I was doing just to be able to learn new things.

As time went on, clients started asking for more and more complicated websites. It wasn’t just a five-page static brochure site anymore. And really, that’s how I came to find WordPress. It was through basically a need to do more with the web. I had to have a way for folks to use a shopping cart or even something as simple as a forum or a photo gallery. Everything was done manually before.

I was hand typing HTML, working in Photoshop and slicing up images a million different ways, and every kind of hack I could find to make things work. So really, it was just an evolution over time. And as clients needed more, that’s what forced me to, to up my game a little bit.

Liam: There’s a lot to unpack there. I want to go back to the fact that you started freelancing in 1999.