John Fraskos is the co-founder and lead designer at AnalogWP, where he develops high-end tools that help developers and agencies to work better with Elementor and create amazing websites. In this interview, he talks about the need of creating Style Kits for Elementor, his design philosophy, and experience with WordPress.
Cloudways: Hi John, it’s a pleasure to have you with us today for this interview. Tell us a bit about your professional journey and how it all began?
John: It’s a pleasure for me as well, thanks for having me. I have been professionally active in the WordPress ecosystem for the last 9 years, mainly as a theme and product designer. I met my business partner Ram in 2013, and we started Codestag, a WordPress theme shop where we initially released themes on ThemeForest. With Codestag still being an active project and the rise of page builders, we expanded our operations in the Elementor template design as AnalogWP.
We are a fully remote team of 4 now.
Along the way, I have worked on numerous projects as a freelance designer and consultant and I still enjoy an occasional project every now and then.
Cloudways: You co-founded AnalogWP back in 2017. What were some of the challenges you faced while coming up with the idea and then finally launching your product?
John: AnalogWP actually started as an experiment, while getting familiar with Elementor’s design workflow and exploring the potential of the premium template market. Elementor was only a few months old back then and there were very limited tools and features.
The lack of global styling was one of these limitations and organizing a design system in an Elementor-focused workflow has been a struggle. It was just not fulfilling for me to design premium templates and apply inline styles on the elements due to the lack of global, dynamic design control.
In early 2019, we decided to approach this exact problem and the result was Style Kits for Elementor, which introduced a novel approach to global design management in Elementor with a number of template kits with global design control.
The biggest challenge was to define which features we should include in the plugin, in order not to “clash” with future features of Elementor. We knew that Global Theme Styles would come in the Elementor core at some point but we decided to take the risk. It worked! One year later, we released the Pro version of Style Kits and we have been working since then to optimize the product and ensure smooth compatibility with every Elementor update.
Cloudways: As an entrepreneur in the WordPress circle, I am sure our readers could learn a lot from your experience. We would love it if you share some tips for young WordPress entrepreneurs.
John: The trap of making things too complex is what I have personally struggled with. Overthinking and over-polishing just to end up removing almost everything and stick to the basics. Especially if you are launching a WordPress plugin, it is easy to get lost among ideas that will eventually cost you the leanness and flexibility of rapid iterations of your product. My advice is to move quickly and test your idea with a few basic features that work in unison, and gradually optimize the product based on the input of your users.
Also, on a personal level, do not forget to treat yourself and avoid burnout. I’ve had many of them. Especially if you are working from home, it may be challenging to set proper boundaries and find a balance between work and life. Stay passionate, but give yourself the time you need to regenerate and find inspiration away from the screen. It always pays off.
Cloudways: John, you have been associated with the UI community for a long time. How did you end up choosing UI as your career?
John: Well, I have zero development skills, so I had to do something with my life. All jokes aside, I have actually studied graphic design and have always been a fan of functionally beautiful things. I really love designing things for the web, and definitely enjoy the challenges of product design. I’d say I am inspired “by default” to create a beautiful interface that makes sense to the user.
Cloudways: As a lead designer at AnalogWP, what are some design rules that you follow when designing a page or a theme? What are some unignorable design details?
John: When you design a template kit or theme, you need to approach it in a completely different way than a normal design for a client. You need to allow your work to be scalable, and easy to customize. It has to have a certain kind of “neutrality” in it, but still maintain a character in style. This is much harder than it sounds.
Overall, I try to avoid WOW factors like animations and over-complicated design. For me, the real WOW factor is consistency, flow, and meaningful contrast. You need to blend these together and provide a solid design framework for the end-user, which should be easy to customize and scale, according to his needs.
So, I am focusing on the basics to be honest: Good typography and typographic scale, layout spacing, a good color palette, and sections that make sense and are relevant to the niche of course.
Cloudways: Unfortunately, the world is currently facing a pandemic, and a lot of businesses are facing difficulties to cope with the situation. How are you and your company adjusting to the “new normal”?
John: Indeed, the situation is crazy worldwide. But to be honest, we did not experience any huge difference business-wise or as a team. As I mentioned earlier we were already 100% remote, so we just had to continue what we had already been doing. I really hope things get better soon for the whole planet because this “new normal” is not normal at all.
Cloudways: Since you have been associated with WordPress and hosting is a huge part of it. What are your thoughts on managed hosting providers? Does a managed cloud hosting provider have benefits over traditional hosting providers in your opinion?
John: Definitely. It’s all about workflow efficiency I believe. As a WordPress developer, it is critical to have easy-to-use tools on the server-side, and a hosting environment that is tailored to WordPress. Automated processes, scalability, backups, staging environments, all these have a huge impact on our workflows, and in many cases define the whole project experience both for the developer and the client.
Cloudways: Being an entrepreneur must be hectic. What are your activities when you are not in your work mode? We would love to know about your hobbies as well.
John: When I am not in front of the screen, I enjoy spending time with my wife and 5-year old daughter. We are privileged to have our home next to a forest, so, long walks in nature really help me stay grounded and connected.
Apart from that, I love jamming with my synthesizers. I have always had a deep connection with music, and working with sound really gets me into a creative flow that is very fulfilling. I try to jam at least one hour per day. It’s a kind of active meditation for me.
Cloudways: WordPress has seen a lot of competition lately from different CMSs. Do you think the popularity of WordPress is facing a threat from these competitions? Or are we going to see WordPress dominate the CMS world in the future as well?
John: I believe WordPress is still the most flexible platform right now, and the fact that it is backed up by such an awesome and huge worldwide community really makes a difference in the long-term. I feel we will see great things in WordPress over the next years, and hopefully planetary domination. 🙂
Cloudways: Lastly, I would request you send over a picture of your workstation for our readers.
John: Sure thing. Here is a photo of my home office, and I am not hiding my music toys as you see. 🙂 Thanks for the interview, it has been a pleasure!
Mansoor Ahmed Khan
Been in content marketing since 2014, and I still get a kick out of creating stories that resonate with the target audience and drive results. At Cloudways by DigitalOcean (a leading cloud hosting company, btw!), I lead a dream team of content creators. Together, we brainstorm, write, and churn out awesome content across all the channels: blogs, social media, emails, you name it! You can reach out to me at [email protected].
