3.09.2010

People Are Interesting: Dustin Wood





Today's "Interesting Person" is the talented, wonderful, creative Dustin Wood!  He's the creator of Hanger3.com Thanks for a terrific interview, Dustin!


1.  Where do you feel most comfortable?
At home. Although I spend too much of my time at home. Its sorta my
bad habit. Instead of going out and seeing the world, meeting new
people, experiencing new things, I'd rather stay at home and watch a
movie, or piddle on the Internet. For the past few years, its been a
challenge of mine to get out of my comfort zone and do things I
haven't done before. The lastest would be Auto Cross Racing...with my
own car.

2.  Describe your average day in one word.

Average. I rarely do things I haven't done before. I get up, go to
work, come home, go to sleep. That's my average day. But every once in
a while, I will have a not-so-average day. Then I would call those
days eventful.

3.  Who are the people who most inspire you?
I have a few people who inspire me for different things. First is my
Dad. Just last summer he retired from work of 37.5 years. I think. I
don't think I'll ever feel like I'll have worked as hard as he did. He
worked in a factory, worked over-time, left for work before the sun
came up, and still had the energy to coach my baseball teams, and my
sisters softball teams during the summer. 37.5 years, and I never
heard him complain once about his job.

Second is my design inspiration. That would be David Carson.
http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/ The pioneer of grunge design. He
broke all the rules when it came to good looking design. A surfer from
California who was a self learner. Much like myself, minus the surfing
and California part.

And third would be Ryan Reynolds. After seeing him in Amityville
Horror, shirtless, I saw what women see in him, and it completely
changed my health habits. I lost close to 30lbs because of Ryan
Reynolds.

4.  What do you love about your work?
Its something that has no script. Most people have a job to do, and
most likely that job is done one certain way, with one outcome. My
job, I have to create stuff that hasn't been created yet. I have to
think of how the website should look and function. I have to create a
look and feel for printed material. I may be given some direction, but
I'm the one who has ultimate control of how it ends up. Its both fun
and challenging.

5.  What is your most beloved hobby?
I love the Internet. I've been trying to figure it out since 1997.
I've been building websites since then too. Its my profession, and my
hobby. As a P.S. to the above question, I work on websites all day at
work, and then I come home and work on them some more. In my free
time, I have created Hanger3.com. Since '97, I've always wanted to
create that one website that gets me noticed. And in 2006, I created
that site. And its been a fun project to work on since then.
Especially since I know people have taken notice, since its been
published in Real Simple Magazine, shown on the CBS Early Show, in HOW
Design Magazine, and published in a book called 1000 Ideas for
Creative Reuse.

6.  What are you reading?
I don't do a whole lot of reading. I mostly look for inspiration in
design books, which are mostly pictures. But lately I've been reading
some books about screenplay writing. My end-goal in life is to be a
director on feature films. So I've been studying up on the proper
story structure.

7.  What is the best advice you've ever received?
Something that I always keep in the back of my mind is the clichéd
response "Don't let anybody ever tell you what you can't do." By
having that in my head, I was able to create Hanger3.com. And it's
currently in my head while writing my script. Because once you start
to agree with all those people, you will give up on what your trying
to accomplish, and at that point, they are exactly right. There have
been so many success stories from people just like you and I, and the
one thing they all have in common is that they kept pushing, even when
people said they would never make it. And that gives me hope.

8.  What movie or television show do you think everyone should be
required to watch?

As far as current TV shows go, LOST has my vote. Oh, and The Simpsons.
And I have a huge list of movies that I really like. But I think the
movies that everyone should be required to watch, are the Star Wars
movies. That way you don't have to hear "You haven't seen Star Wars?"
anymore.

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