Dennis Krawec is a junior at the Rhode Island School of Design, interested in experimental photo and videography, art direction, editorial design, apparel and wearable tech. He is a designer who pushes the boundaries of mass media and culture, re-appropriating 21st-century material engagement and is in the process of trying to break out into the Chinese music industry. He’s been studying the language for about 1½ years.
PBN: From 100,000 entries, you were named one of three winners of Wix.com’s first ever Stunning Awards competition for your website design. What does this recognition mean to you?
KRAWEC: The magnitude of winning the competition certainly did not register immediately. I actually hadn’t even realized what I had won to be honest. I mean if we are really being honest, I actually forgot the competition was even happening because I had applied a while back and the application process took no longer than a minute to submit. Fast-forward two months, I was pretty confused when Wix was reaching out to me for an interview with the finalists for the competition. Now that I have had some time to realize the impact, I can’t express how honored I am to be chosen from 100,000 submissions – to win with those kinds of statistics is absolutely astronomical! I feel so blessed that my work can reach such a large audience!
PBN: As a RISD student, what are your studies and how do they translate onto your Wix.com website?
KRAWEC: At RISD I study industrial design, however, I don’t feel I really fit into my major. It’s very product-design-oriented and focuses mainly on the product-to-consumer process of design (which can be valuable to learn if that’s where you want to be). That being said, I feel somewhat of an outsider pursuing art direction and photography because most of those skills haven’t come from my department. At the same time, I certainly have to credit my department and RISD for teaching me craftsmanship, the importance of iteration, color, type, layout and streamlining your design so it can be communicated in a quick and simple manner.
PBN: How long have you been working on a Wix.com website and what are your favorite features of your current design?
KRAWEC: I started using Wix about a year ago when I stumbled upon a designer’s website that I really enjoyed. I ended up sending them an email through the website asking what platform they used and once I heard back, I decided to check Wix out. Since then I’ve redesigned the website several times before ending up on the current layout/color palette. My favorite feature of my website is that every page is also readable in Mandarin Chinese. I began studying the language a year and a half ago and thought it would be a good exercise to translate all of the pages. It certainly was a challenge to link all of the pages and have them all operate how I wanted, but I am very pleased each can flip between the two languages.
PBN: How often do you tweak your website and how many hours per week do you put into maintenance?
KRAWEC: The website usually only sees changes when I have new work or a big project I want to add. The process is often adding a new page to the drop-down menu and perhaps adding some photos from the series to the home page. But then this usually requires me to make the page twice so I can translate one of them into Chinese and link it to the English one. An update to the website is usually two to four hours but doesn’t happen too frequently. However, I would say that I worked on it for a day straight the day before Wix sent out the website to its users. I wanted to make sure it was perfect.
PBN: How has your Wix.com website helped you launch your post-college career, let alone your internship prospects?
KRAWEC: The website has definitely helped me curate the work and style that I want to create in the future. I think beforehand I was still very much in the “What am I doing with my life?” mindset. I think I will always be in that mindset, but at least now I have more of a clear understanding of the path I want to pursue post-graduation.
Emily Gowdey-Backus is a PBN staff writer.
