WordPress is about a lot of things, Code is Poetry, an artistic form. Design, code, photography play a huge roll in the success of WordPress. Travis Ballard is a seasoned PHP programmer, WordPress Dev, Photobug, Design guy, and more. I had the opportunity to sit down with Travis recently and here’s what came from our discussions:

Travis Ballard

Dre Armeda – How long have you been programming with PHP and developing on WordPress?

Travis Ballard - Do we have to go back that far? I’m starting to feel old. i started back with PHP 3 back around 1998 and ended up taking a couple years off before getting back into it and doing it full time. I have over 10 years under my belt but I’ve only been freelancing full-time for the past 3 years. The last 2 years, my involvement has been primarily around WordPress Themes, Plugins, and providing custom functionality to the award winning platform.

So you’ve been working on WordPress for a few years now, what do you feel the most significant advancement has been in that time frame?

I think the biggest enhancement I’ve seen so far was the overhaul on version 2.5 but now with 2.9 around the corner, I really like the addition of the image editing tools. I’ve always been a design guy and a lot of what got me started involved creating ways to present portfolio items and gallery images. So with that being said, anything that makes my job a little bit easier and saves me a few minutes in post-production is good with me. I’ve created ways to do this on my own in the past and now that it’s built in, and there are APIs available, that’s a huge advantage.

You’re regularly helping folks out in the WordPress IRC channel. There are various mechanisms in place to help WordPress users like the Codex, forums and IRC, what’s your take on how effective these tools are?

Well I’d like to start off by saying that without IRC, I wouldn’t be where I am today. The people I’ve met over the years have all inspired me to step it up a notch and I learn something new every day because of them. With that being said, I love to give back when I’m in a situation where I think I can help. The codex is awesome, incomplete, but there are people adding new references and definitions daily. I use it every day and it’s an essential tool in my arsenal. Same goes for the PHP cross references that are available for WordPress.

So you’re a PHP programmer, Photo bug, and Design guy. You must stay busy, what do you find yourself involved with most these days?

Well I would have to say PHP these days pretty much pays the bills as I haven’t actually done much design in months, and I really enjoy it too. I did get to shoot some pregnancy photos and a couple weddings over the last month; those were a lot of fun.

Diversity it great, and you dabble in various areas, what is your passion?

To be honest I would have to say I’m more passionate about design than I am PHP. I say design because I haven’t done it in a while, if I’d been designing for the past 6 months, I would probably be more passionate about PHP right now. Each one has its perks and its draw-backs but I love them both. I enjoy creating something new and the challenges that are brought forth while trying to make my visions come to life. I might step into the Stock Photography industry one day but I haven’t found something to set me apart just yet, we’ll see.

I had the opportunity to take a lot of photos when I lived in Italy, what are a couple of places you like to shoot? Do you do portrait work as well?

This is a tough one, I recently had the opportunity to see the west coast and i absolutely love the beaches out there, they’re gorgeous. I’d love to do a model shoot there on location or something one day. Apart from the west coast, I also really enjoy shooting in Ybor City, Florida, also known as Tampa’s Latin Quarter. There’s so many places that I couldn’t name them all I don’t think. There’s something beautiful no matter where you are, sometimes it’s just harder to find. As for portrait work, that’s where I strive to do my best. I really enjoy artificial lighting and the challenges that it brings to the table so-to-speak.

Your online handle is ansi/ansimation, can you give me a background on that? I find it quite clever.

Yeah definitely, it all started back when I first got into graphic design, I was really into ANSI art back then, I guess because it was different, not many people did it any more. It was an old school art form that is almost forgotten. I created some member applications for underground groups and my ANSI graphics were used as the splash pages, I wasn’t half bad with 8 colors and a limited char set. Ansimation is the animation of those ANSI graphics mostly done by scrolling line by line through a console to create the animation effect. Somewhere along the line I wanted something not so cheesy for my online handle, so because of my background, that’s what was chosen. At the time my handle was KaRt0oN based off of a character in the movie ‘187′.

Thanks to Travis for taking time out to vibe with us.

It’s always great to hear from talented designers and developers like Travis and we hope you enjoyed his interview. Reach out to Travis via @ansimation on Twitter, or visit him at TravisBallard.com.

If you are interested in an interview or would like to contribute a great interview to WPVibe, make sure to contact us.