The Here is Hawai'i site and coloring books look great; how long have you been working in the field of illustration and design?

I’ve been a designer and illustrator full time for about four years. Prior to working in the design industry, I was a software developer but have had a passion for drawing my entire life.

How did Here is Hawai'i get started? It appears to be a joint effort with a family member; what prompted you to collaborate on such a unique product?

Yes, this was a joint effort with my wife, who used to teach Polynesian dance (and has been into Hawaiiana from way back when). She asked me to illustrate a Hawaiian language story/coloring book for a Hawaiian language class project -- and one doesn't say no to your wife! We then followed up with related Hawaiian children's material and I put together a website as a prototype marketing & sales tool. My wife then approached a large publishing firm in Honolulu and asked if they might be interested; they couldn't use our material but suggested alternate projects, namely, Hawaiian picture and activity books. My wife is now my primary Hawaiian language and culture resource.

What is the goal of Here is Hawai'i and the website? Are illustration projects like this your primary business or just a hobby?

The philosophy of Here is Hawai'i was to expose children to Hawaiian language, history, and culture in a fun and creative way. It's morphed into an advertising/sales tool for the work I do with a large Hawaiian publishing company, namely Hawaiian picture and activity books. These can be found in any bookstore in the Islands or with major online book merchants (as well as our humble website). I would say illustration is only a small part of my primary business which is building Flash applications and web sites.

What tools (software or otherwise) did you use to make your website? Can you give us any insight into the process that you use when designing such a dynamic and colorful website?

I used to do a little cartooning as a hobby -- working with traditional pen and ink -- but since I got serious about illustration, I switched to all-digital tools. I do most of my illustration now in Flash and Painter using a Wacom graphic tablet (an indispensible tool for digital drawing). I do most of the coloring with Painter and compositing in Photoshop. I sometimes use Illustrator for linework, but prefer Flash whenever possible because it's more organic which allows me to be spontaneous. The look and feel of the Here Is Hawai'i website came about after many sessions with pencil and paper and a bit of imagination. We had to come up with a logo first then a theme -- once the idea of going "under the sea" came to mind, the rest fell into place. Just add some Hawaiian reef fish and there you have it. I also looked at a lot of other websites for layout inspiration and incorporated some ideas, with a little modification, into our own site. It also helps that I have a decent basic knowledge of HTML and JavaScript. These days, even a designer had better have development skills like those as a minimum in order to remain competitive.

Do you have any advice for a new webmaster coming from a more traditional design or illustration background?

If you are a designer moving into the digital world, it will also take some basic development skills to get noticed. And, like it or not, the technology is constantly on the move -- so you also have to stay current.

Thanks, Mike, for taking the time to talk to us!