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Chatting on warp speed with Janko Javonovic

Janko Javonovic is an (digital) artist, UI designer, husband, father and founder of Janko At Warp Speed. The tagline of JAWS (Helps you build good looking and functional web sites) is exactly what the site is about. I found his website last year through StumbleUpon, when Janko had "just" 600 RSS subscribers. From that point on, his blog kept on growing and growing and many people like Jankos creative thoughts and ideas that he's sharing.

Last week, I was "chatting on warp speed" with Janko, sharing thoughts about webdesign, UI design, webdevelopment and his personal life. You can read this conversation right here.

Warpspeed chatting with Janko Javonovic

I'll be placing an tutorial online later this week on how you can create these cute "text-balloons" yourself with CSS. Now, lets sit down and warpspeed chat with this creative man behind the scenes of Janko at Warp Speed.

Chatting on warp speed with Janko Javonovic

Hello Janko! First of all, thank you for taking the time to "warpspeed" chat with me. Could you please introduce yourself and tell us who you are, where you live, what you do and what your favorite food is?


Hi Marco, it's really a pleasure! I am Janko Jovanovic, a developer, web designer, solutions architect and artist from Belgrade, Serbia. To make it simpler, in every project I'm involved in software architecture, development and UI design. Besides this, I run JankoAtWarpSpeed, a blog about web development and web design. I also like to lecture about web development on local events. As a passionate artist, I made over 200 paintings, drawings and digital paintings. I'm married and have two kids.

Interesting question about food :) Since I like to cook, my favorite food is spaghetti bolognese which I prepare myself and a glass of red wine.

Janko has sent you the following item:

My Son - Digital Painting

It sounds like as if you're a really busy man. Spaghetti bolognese isn't such a bad choice - I like it too.

Your blog (JAWS or JWS?) is obviously the reason why we're chatting today. When (and especially: why) did you start the blog? What I also want to know, how did you come up with the (awesome) name?


I started the whole warp speed story in April 2008 with the idea to provide web development, web design and usability related content. I am passionate about sharing ideas and I realized that blog is another good way to do it.

And the name.. I was thinking a lot about it before I registered the domain and I came up with the "warp speed" motif. Like you said, I'm a busy man :) and beside my job and blogging and everything I'm taking care of my two kids, together with my wife, and that's not an easy job to do. So, warp speed is more a metaphor for my way of life and work. I live in a warp speed, whether I like it or not. :)

Janko has sent you the following item:

Janko at Warp Speed

So you were already living on warp speed and you still decided to start a blog? Sounds a little bit crazy, doesn't it? I'm still happy that you did it.

Funny fact about JAWS is that it is build using ASP.NET . Are you a fanatic C# programmer or simply against PHP? Most blogs out there are running on a (popular) PHP CMS (like Wordpress, Joomla! and Drupal). Why .NET?


Crazy, it is! But I'm also glad I did it.

The reason why Warp Speed is built on ASP.NET is because I work with ASP.NET since 2003 and use MS technologies since 1999. I just love to work on enterprise solutions, especially to work on user interfaces. I'm not that fanatical about C#, but let's say that ASP.NET, C# and I are good fellows. That might be strange in web design world.

When I decided to start the blog I searched for a CMS that will suit my needs. When I found BlogEngine.NET my search was over since it was really easy for me to customize it and style it. In fact, I like creating BE.NET themes. So I'm not against PHP neither any other technology.

Ah yes - I see.

Talking about techniques; What do you think is the most underestimated webdevelopment technique out there?

In addition to that question; What is (according to you) the most overrated webdevelopment technique used these days? Isn't jQuery just a big balloon that's going to pop?


It's hard to say, people think differently and use different techniques. But if I have to choose one that would be UI patterns usage. People implement all kind of stuff regularly but they don't know those are actually UI patterns or even don't know there are any patterns. If you ask someone why did they use breadcrumbs, for example, the answer would look like this: "Everyone uses it, why wouldn't we?" or "It looks nice in our design". I know this can't be applied to the entire community, and I know there are people who know about ui-patterns.com but I often talk to people who just don't care and that really annoys me.

And the answer to second part of the question could be as simple as: jQuery. I don't know what will happen with jQuery in the future, but if we look at what is happening at the present, then I believe it will stay here for a long time. Or, at least, I would like it to stay :)

Pretty interesting thought. Programmers already use several patterns (where the "Model-View-Controller" is the most well-known one), so why not for (web)designers? Patterns are created to create recurring solutions to solve common problems, which also occur in webdevelopment.

Anyway, enough about that, let's go back to your blog. What article is "the best" article you've written so far? And I don't mean in terms of traffic or anything: Just the article that you consider to be "the best". Why do you think it's especially that one?


That is tough question :) I would say it's "CSS Message boxes". There are many reasons for this. The first one is the fact that it was one of my first articles, so I'm kinda proud of it. And it turned out that many developers actually don't think about it at all, so I'm glad I wrote something that might help.

Pretty cool to hear that answer from you. That specific article was the one that got me noticed JAWS in the first place (through StumbleUpon).

One of your more recent articles that I personally really liked, were your Handycons. What motivated you to create these icons? Any plans on making more icon sets this way, but that are not related to social media sites?


Janko has sent you the following item:

Handycons - Part 2

I'm glad you stumbled it! Handycons became somewhat popular probably thanks to this hand-drawn trend. But my intention was just to draw. Anything. I paint and draw a lot and since my wife bought me Wacom tablet for the anniversary I just couldn't resist to try making these icons. In near future I plan to release Handycons 3 that won't be related to social media at all. And I have other thoughts on hand-drawn topic, but I need more brainstorming for that.

It's pretty nice that you can combine your "painting skills" with providing people with high quality stuff. I own a Wacom too; sadly, I don't use it that much.

Does your painting background help you during your job, especially when looking at UI or logo design? Or is it just a form of expression to get away from the computer?


Janko has sent you the following item:

Belgrade Painting

Too bad we're all to busy to use Wacom more.

I believe that painting and basically interest in art helps me a lot and even more than that - in some ways it's related to design. You can use basic concepts and ideas from classic art. Anything, from mixing colors to form in art.

But it is also a passion. I started to paint when I was twelve and since then I work permanently. So far I have more than 200 paintings and drawings. And of course, painting makes me just fly away. From the computer and from the reality. Even with Wacom and ArtRage.

Where do you get your inspiration from, looking at UI design (online and offline)?


For UI I visit several CSS galleries, like bestwebgallery.com and regularly check roundups on various blogs. Then from magazines, commercials, different prints, billboards and that kind of man-made things. But unavoidably inspiration comes from nature and cities. I like just to sit and watch nature and enjoy in a beautiful mixture of colors and shapes. Architecture also inspires me. The thing I like the most is to roam free through the streets of Belgrade or any other city that I visit.

If you could choose one process of webdesign/-development that you just could get rid of (because it takes too long, is too boring is simply sucks), which one would it be?


Janko has sent you the following item:

Moses of Egypt

Interesting question. Hm, I love what I do but from time to time I just become tired of everything. So, maybe it is handling insane client's requests. It's not always a problem; sometimes is even challenging, but often it's very stressful. However, I am afraid it ain't gonna change. Ever.

I was secretly expecting the "fixing those damn IE6 bugs" answer, since you wrote an article about it just recently. On the other side, this is such a common downside, people just "live with it".

The obvious question now ofcourse is, what do you like the most about the whole process? Designing the UI, thinking about new/innovative stuff, programming etc.?


Oh, I didn't count that because I dropped the support for it, seriously :)

I like anything that is creative in this development process. Of course, we can say that the whole process is creative, but the things that I like the most are solutions design and UI design. By solutions design I mean the entire process from gathering information and decomposition of requirements to creating technical specifications. A challenge for me in UI creation is to meet client's requirements and create as usable and functional applications as they can be. A compromise is unavoidable in application design, especially when we are talking about enterprise solutions.

Apparently the thing that is the most stressful for me (talking with clients) is a part of the most interesting processes for me. Contradiction, yes.

What are your "secrets behind the success" of JAWS? The site is now almost one year old and you're already close to 3000 RSS readers. Do you have any future plans regarding the blog?


Janko has sent you the following item:

ICodeFactory Logo

I am asking myself the same question :) Seriously, success is a relative term. For me, success is if you provide quality content that people need and like to read. Subscribers, followers or pageviews will come along the way.

I think that tutorials and fresh ideas are what people like to see and to read. At least that's what comments and stats say. I set the goal to post at least one large tutorial per month, and up to two posts per week. Currently I can't spend more time on this. But I believe it's a good enough plan. That's another key point - just keep working, writing, answering the comments, offering fresh and original ideas. Not unique, it's almost impossible, but fresh and original, that would be enough.

If JAWS is a successful blog, than those points might be a key to success.

Well Janko, I want to thank you for this eye-opening conversation. You've told me some things where I could really learn from, and I hope the same counts for my readers.

If we want to find you on the net, on what places are you active and should we start looking? And do you have any last words that you want to share?


I want to thank you for this chatting and showing some of my work, it was a pleasure.

Besides JankoAtWarpSpeed.com people can find me on Twitter, Skype (dzovanu_se_zuri) or drop me an email on this [at] jankoatwarpspeed [dot] com.

Keep up the good work, Marco!


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