A Horror World Conversation with Deena Warner
By Steven E. Wedel

If you’ve surfed the Web looking at horror author home pages, chances are very good you’ve seen Deena Warner’s work. One could say she is the Webmistress of the dark stars. From William D. Gagliani’s Web site in 2003 to Thunderstorm Books’ site launched this year, Deena’s been pumping out quality online homes for a long time.

Of course, not everything she does is for those of us on the dark side. She’s designed sites for the Waynesboro Symphony Orchestra and Devra Lee Davis Charitable Foundation, among others.

But she’s not a one-trick pony. Deena’s also an excellent illustrator. She’s done book covers for various publishers, does her own holiday cards, and even drew the logo for my own Werewolf Saga.

We talked her into closing Photoshop for a little while to answer some questions about her artistic talents and career aspirations.

Horror World: Deena, frankly, you disgust me. I’ve always wanted to be able to draw and design, but have absolutely no talent that way. I’m very envious of people who can do it. When did you begin creating art, and how did you get started?

Deena Warner: I disgust you? Cool!

I guess I’ve always done art. I used to write my own stories and illustrate them when I was in elementary school. In high school, I’d do painstakingly accurate copies of album covers I liked. I painted all my own clothing when I was a teenager. When you can’t afford concert t-shirts, make your own, right? But it wasn’t until I was about 25 that I decided I wanted to Do Art and, like, try to get it published.

HW: Do you have any formal training in art and design?

DW: Yes. I got a bachelor of fine arts in illustration from UNC Charlotte (go Niners!). I also took two years of architecture school. And I still make an effort to take ongoing courses, whether they are in computer programming or figure drawing. You can never stop learning.

HW: When and how did you get started in Web site design?

DW: Ah, it was a fateful day back in 1995. My mom and I took a one-day library course in HTML. I gravitated to it like a fly to honey. It was the perfect way to blend logic and creativity. I took a couple additional courses on web design as electives in college. But it wasn’t until I worked at a graphic design agency in Atlanta that I started really building sites. Clients were asking for websites, and I volunteered. I’ve been doing them ever since.

HW: What’s your favorite medium? Charcoal, pencil, oils, etc? Why?

DW: My favorite is chalk pastel or charcoal. I love the feel of my hands on the paper. Pastels are infinitely blendable, unlike paints which dry as you work on them. It’s the most natural medium for me. But I’m really starting to see the value of acrylic paint. It gets very fine detail that I’m unable to get with softer media.

HW: What software do you use for the Web site design?

DW: I use Adobe Photoshop and Dreamweaver. For animations, I use Flash. For animated gifs, I use Fireworks.

HW: OK, Author X comes to you and says, “Deena, you’re fantastic. I want to hire you to build a new Web site for me.” Where do you begin?

DW: We always start with the most painful part, which is negotiating a contract and a rate. I want to make sure everyone’s on the same page as far as that stuff goes. Once we’ve all agreed, then I ask a handful of questions about what the person wants. What colors do you like? What don’t you like? What is your fiction like? What pages do you want? What are some other sites you like? Then I use that feedback to develop a couple of JPGs showing what the site could look like. We go back and forth tweaking the design until it’s just what Author X wants.

HW: You incorporate a lot of photographs in your Web designs. Do you take those yourself? Does the client provide them? If it’s the client, who decides what the picture should look like and how it’ll be used?

DW: I use a combination of stock photography, pictures I’ve taken, and pictures the client has provided. If the client has specific ideas about where a picture should go, then I do what they ask. But usually I have free reign. I’m lucky; people trust me to do what I think is best. And I don’t have any problem with them saying, “Eh, that’s not working. Let’s try something else.”

HW: Do you actively seek clients, or do people come to you?

DW: For the last couple of years, people have been coming to me. But it hasn’t always been that way. I’ll always be grateful to Bill Gagliani and Gary Braunbeck for being the first couple of people who took a chance on me.

HW: If you had to pick one of your Web site designs to say is your best, which one would it be, and why?

DW: Oh, geez. That’s a difficult question. I can’t pick just one. I think for sheer beauty, the Domestic Affairs website (www.domesticaffairsbook.com) is definitely up there. You may be interested to hear that I’ve never seen a physical copy of that book. I took a photograph of another book within some satin cloth, then I added the correct cover art and spine. I like the way that turned out.

The most fun site is probably the Trucktown Books site (www.trucktownbooks.com). That is light and cheery, and the games make me laugh every time I play them.

The one that makes me feel the most accomplished is the National Jazz Museum in Harlem (www.jmih.org). I took that site over in 2004 and have been growing it ever since. We redesign it every couple years as the museum grows. They don’t have physical museum space yet, so the website has become the public face of the organization. Matt also recently integrated a ton of back-end PHP scripting to run the events database. So the site is getting better and better every day.

HW: How about one piece of art? What’s your favorite?

DW: At any given time, I’m usually most pleased with the one I just finished. So I’m really excited about the cover for Brett McBean’s Tales of Sin and Madness. I enjoyed blending pastel, spray paint, and acrylic on that piece.

HW: Are you working full time at your art and design these days? Tell us about some of the jobs you’ve had working for The Man?

DW: Yep, I work full time doing art and design. I’ve been doing that for just over three years. Before that, I worked as a proofreader for a court reporting agency. I worked for five years at a full-service graphic design firm. I think my title was “if it ends with ‘design,’ I’ll do it.” I worked for a couple years doing photo retouching and layout for a photography company. I was the arts and entertainment editor of a newspaper before that. I’ve also worked for an interior decorator, a photo finishing facility, and as a secretary for my dad’s insurance adjusting company.

HW: Probably everyone reading this knows that you’re hitched up to horror author Matt Warner. Were you interested in horror before Matt came along, or did he drag you into the darkness?

DW: Actually, darkness is what dragged me to Matt. I have been interested in horror all my life. Matt and I can talk about our love of horror fiction and movies and not have to hold anything back. If I say I want to visit an abandoned train tunnel, he asks when we’re leaving. If he asks advice on the proper way to kill a baby in a story, I don’t bat an eye. It’s nice to be with someone who shares a love for the macabre.

HW: Tell us about a day in the life of Deena Warner Design LLC. Do you work in pajamas and slippers, drinking lattes and listening to Slayer while you work?

DW: Close! How about sweatpants and socks, drinking green tea, and listening to Alkaline Trio? Slayer is so last century.

Matt and I each have offices in the basement of our house. Matt often takes his laptop outside to the patio if it’s a warm day. He either works in silence or listens to opera, classical, or rock. I love to have music on. I like indie rock, movie soundtracks and 40s/50s music. Our coworkers are cats named Scotch, Moody, and Percy. Our other two team members, Nanci and Lori, live in New Jersey and Georgia, respectively. They are available by phone and email and work independently.

We have a pretty structured day, actually. Both Matt and I value a hard day’s work, so we don’t slack off (much). We’re usually working by 8:00 am and work until 5:00 or 5:30, as if we were in an office. Matt spends about half the day on design work and about half the day on writing work. I spend all day on design/website work. If I have an art project on the schedule, I tend to do that after hours. We have a lot of corporate clients, so it’s good to be available all day on a regular schedule.

HW: What are your plans and goals for the future?

DW: Our company is still in its infancy, so I’d like to learn how to best manage the work flow. I want to strike a good balance between having enough work to pay the bills and having enough free time to enjoy life. I tend to err toward being a workaholic, so it’ll be good to scale things back to a manageable amount.

HW: How does a person go about getting on your Halloween card list?

DW: He just has to subscribe on my site: www.deenawarner.net/halloween.htm

This will be the 8 th year for the Halloween cards. I send them out every year to whoever wants them. They feature a new piece of artwork by me created especially for the card. For the last couple of years, I’ve coerced authors into writing stories to accompany the cards.

I have my author all lined up, and I’m working on this year’s image now. Hey, and if you’ve been a subscriber in the past, please send in your address again so I’m sure I have the correct one on file.

HW: All right, Deena, I’m about out of questions. I probably forgot something, though. What would you like to add that I didn’t ask?

DW: How about a sales pitch? You can purchase prints of my art on my website (http://www.deenawarner.net/print_order.html). I only have a few copies of “Black Widow” and “Southern Nights” left, so get ’em while you still can.

HW: Thanks for your time, Deena. We wish you the best and look forward to seeing a lot more of your work online and in print.

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