Interview: Shawn Hilgart of We Cant Stop Thinking – Designers for Fall Out Boy, Boys Like Girls, & Q101

Between his time as a possible contender for single man of the year, and posing for various Chicago magazines, Shawn Hilgart is doing what a lot of our visitors to Assault.it are doing–listening to music, designing websites for bands and clothing lines, and laying down code for Chicago idea house, We Cant Stop Thinking.

In the past, he’s done work for Friends Or Enemies, Fall Out Boy, Clandestine Industries, Empires, The Academy Is…, Q101, Plain White T’s, Boys Like Girls, Warner Brothers, and Patagonia. We Cant Stop Thinking recently launched The Music Trust, a collective of high profile DJs and artists.

Assault.it: How’d you get started in actionscript and php?

Shawn Hilgart: I got started with actionscript after being a designer at a small shop in the suburbs of Chicago, and being required to use it for projects. I got into php when I got thrown into a fire learning it when I started developing the friendsorenemies.com online community.

What are your major responsibilities at We Cant Stop Thinking?

There are so many – where do I even start? I guess day to day I am programming about 5-6 hours of the day, and the rest of the day is managing clients, making sure everyone gets paid on time, trying to improve our process, project managing. You name the job, I’m probably doing it.

Is WCST ahead of the times a bit when it comes to interactive design? (My last job used to basically just plop PSDs of designs in front of us and say build it with absolutely no specs or functionality documents of any kind – have you ever had that happen?)

I would like to think we have a pretty good process here. I think the scope of the projects you do really affects the process. When we first started it was trial by fire – my partner Nick would design something, I would slice and code it up. Now we have different phases. We research the competition, do information architecture, wireframes, and then design. Once you get a psd, you also get nice IA docs to back up that design. Having IA really helps. It allows you to see all the paths a user can take spelled out in a clear form. Another benefit of this process is the whole team gets all this time to think about how to make the project better for the user through each phase. Of course we’re not perfect, and some projects just need to get done. Then I get a PSD just put into my drop box and the real fun begins.

When it comes to breaking down something you’ve seen to try and recreate it yourself in actionscript, what’s the process?  (I know this is old, but this site is one I always use as a benchmark for design and you replicated it: http://www.iamalwayshungry.com/VERS7/)

First off, that site is amazing, I remember first seeing it and being taken back by how smooth it ran. Over the last 2 years I’ve developed a collection of home grown classes that I have been using to put together my flash sites. So when it comes to breaking down a site I first think about what chunks of code I have laying around that are similar. So in this case I think of different navigations I have done, and if I have any drag-and-drop or image tiling libraries. If I don’t have something around,I will start to craft a specific library for that task. I try and code everything in reusable classes if possible. Once I have all the parts I just start to combine them into a way that works. I think replicating a site is much easier than creating a new one – you can have the perfect block of code, but when clients start to make changes it can get really scrambled. All of a sudden your vision for that code is destroyed. On another note I have never been much one for swf decompilers, just copy and pasting code. That won’t really teach you the lessons of going through the process in your head.

I saw you’ve done some work with Empires, one of my favorite local bands. Can you describe what other kind of work you’ve done as it relates to the music business?

I really started out developing when E-cards were huge – every band wanted an E-card, and every label wanted to pay for one. So that’s kinda where I started getting some flash skills animating and pulling all these external content feeds. My partner Nick played in bands when he was younger,and we both have friends in bands so it just came naturally to be in that industry. We don’t do so much music stuff anymore. Just here and there, normally to help out a friend.

What’s been the most challenging piece of actionscript/php you’ve put together in terms of complexity?

I built this touchscreen wall out of a projector, IR leds, and some cameras, so this was electrical wiring nad coding. It was fun. I haven’t taken it out in a while but it was complex in terms of logic and execution. The code was all in as3 and it could turn any surface into a touch surface which was pretty rad.

What piece of your work are you most proud of that people may not even know you worked on?

I worked on this piece for Patagonia called “the footprint.” It was this complicated flash piece that mapped out all the places your clothing travelled before it got to your door. It got tons of press and won a couple awards. It was a great team to work with and I ended up laying down close to 95% of the code for the original.

There was a time when I thought flash was the glue between the web and television becoming a completely interactive experience when it came to UI and architecture of websites and mobile devices in general. It seems, though, that since JQuery became so popular, this may never happen. Do you see interactive and motion graphics ultimately overtaking the static html/js/jquery-based world anytime in the future?

I will be careful with my words here as to not start a flash vs. html5 fanboy riot. I don’t think html5 will inch out the demand for flash. I think html5 is coming to do the same tasks that flash pioneered 4 years ago when video on the web really started exploding. We could always play video without flash in html – you may recall the object tag that let you play quicktimes, right? So while the html 5 spec is getting ironed out, the problem I see is, it’s not a browser plugin, but rather part of the browser. So if html 5 can do what flash can do currently, what will flash be up to in 5-10 years before we see html 6? I think Adobe’s ability to push a new plugin version to users lets them move quickly on new tech, and html will once again be stuck catching up.

I’ve heard Steve Jobs called Adobe lazy–is it Adobe or Apple that’s the real culprit behind why we can’t get really any sort of flash on our iPhones? Do you think Flash will ever make it’s way onto the iPhone?

I don’t think flash will make it on to the iPhone or iPad. I think that Adobe and Apple each have their own agendas right now, and I believe that will hurt designer/developer loyalties to Apple. Adobe certainly has its work cut out for them but with cs5 being able to compile to iPhone apps, I think the concern over flash being on the actual device doesn’t concern me as much.

I’ve always said that Macromedia Flash was like Skynet–as soon as someone finds a way to exploit it, we’re all fucked because it seems to be installed on everything. Is there any validity to that?

I am sure there is some validity to those claims, but slightly exaggerated. There are so many variables that go into making a piece of software and one that runs in multiple browsers across multiple operating systems with very little system requirements. Also your plugin can only be as secure as the OS it runs on.

Vampires or zombies?

Zombies. Giving blood doesn’t sound as bad as having my brains eaten.

What’s one place you go for inspiration besides the internet?

I listen to music all the time and walk everywhere. It gives me tons of time to think and come up with ideas.

Are there any websites you visit on a regular basis within the design/development community?

I keep up with my flash news on theflashblog.com. I also read this blog called yewknee.com, it’s great for Friday videos and design/html/ajax stuff. Also a whole mess of gadget and tech blogs.

Are you working on anything major right now that you’d like to share?

I can tell you I have been working on the same project for months now, so it’s big one. It will be one of the most complex builds I have got the chance to lead and is using just about every scripting language out there. But that’s all I can really say!

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About the Author

Tim is the co-owner of Assault, and tends to think he can party twice as hard as anyone. Follow him on twitter @assault

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