As part of our 20th birthday celebrations, we’re inviting a few members of the team to tell us about their Webreality story, and a few other deep thoughts and dark secrets. First up is Chip.
Tom Declat is known as 'Chip' at Webreality because we already had a Tom when he joined us. The origin of 'Chip' is something to do with sausages.
Chip is a passionate designer of digital interfaces, office prankster par excellence, and exhausted dad of two young daughters.
What's your job title?
Senior Designer.
How many years with Webreality?
Coming up on 6 years.
What were you doing before joining Webreality?
Working as a graphic designer in Brisbane.
What’s changed since you joined?
Fundamentally the entire way we design for digital! When I first joined we designed single pages in Photoshop (I know!). Today we create full design systems. By creating responsive components we can accommodate pretty much any client need and our sites should work well on any device.
What did you do last week?
No doubt changed a dirty nappy and didn’t get much sleep...
The Webreality project you’re most proud of, and why.
Probably the Webreality at 20 project. It was a great team effort with almost all the team playing a role in the design/content/marketing. We used some pretty fun tech and things we’ve not used before like light/dark mode. Was fun!
What's the best thing about working at Webreality?
Taking our work seriously, but not taking ourselves seriously. It’s always more fun than work is supposed to be. Also, getting new recruits to guess Dave’s age.
Which colleague most embodies Webreality, and why?
Greg probably. He just says what he thinks. It works for Webreality.
The best Webreality Christmas party you’ve attended was...
Brighton in 2016. The drinking. The 90s-themed club. Geoff being propositioned every time he went out for a smoke. It was chaotic. Mind you, Brighton 2017 was also fun. Geoff getting put in a headlock by a burly drag queen singer in a gay bar was quite a sight.
What’s your Friday team breakfast order?
Healthy. Yoghurt pot and a Cortado. Breakfast of champions.
Favourite film or book of all time, and why?
Goodfellas. Absolute classic, that’s why. The ending of Whiplash is amazing too. Tough question!
Three fantasy dinner party guests, and why?
Jeez, tough one. I like the kind of Space Science that makes your head hurt so probably Professor Brian Cox, Stephen Fry annnnnd Elon Musk. I figure that’d be some pretty interesting conversation.
If you could live anywhere in the world, where and why?
Probably Sweden. Those Scandis do it properly. Lovely country and great food and people!
Tell us a secret...
I actually quite like vegetarian food.