Web designer Mike Cina wants us all to kick back a little. Put ten toes up on our desks, slosh a mug of coffee across our shirts, and settle in for five minutes of his little world.

"I guess that's what makes me different," he says. "I do Flash movies that take forever to unfold."

"Forever" is obviously a relative term, but Cina animations do take their time. For his personal site at Trueistrue, he once built a black-and-white movie that lasted half an hour. Made up of a series of circles, it probably could have taxed the patience of a cat in a sunbeam, let alone that of a person with a job.

Like his animations, Cina's world moves at half speed, and he works hard to keep it that way. At 29, he lives in Eagan, Minnesota, a suburb outside Minneapolis, where Web connections crawl along at 56 K, and the residents can have a legitimate argument over whether or not they have a downtown. Somehow, Cina keeps busy there. He freelances for a handful of companies, and tries to avoid getting a full-time job.

"I've never worked for an agency because I don't want to sell plane tickets," he says.

Cina hasn't always been so successful or so laid back. A former house music deejay, he spent seven years bouncing around the rave party scene. "I loved the music," he says, "but the scene was 24/7, and it got to me."

Eventually, Cina burned out. By then, it was 1995, and he needed a job. His only career possibility was the graphic arts, which he had studied at the University of North Texas several years earlier. Accordingly, he dusted off his student portfolio and started looking for a job.

"I must have interviewed at a hundred and fifty places around Minneapolis," he said, "but nobody would take me."

To pass the time, Cina hooked up with radical font designer Chank. Back then, making digital typefaces was all the rage, and people like Chank acquired a rock star status and a worldwide following. Soon, Cina followed in their footsteps, even though the teenage fans that pirated his typefaces and flocked to his Web site did little for his chances of employment.

Finally, he landed a position at K-Tel Records, a company best known for selling musical gruel on late-night television. It turned out to be the first in a series of many odd jobs for Cina. His next came at the hands of the Rev. Billy Graham, a television evangelist, who needed someone who could reach a young audience with a very old message. A Christian himself, Cina fit right in and stayed for three years.

During that time, he also kept his underground streak alive. With Joe Kral and Matt Desmond, he formed the natty type house Test Pilot Collective and released fonts by the handful. In this way, Cina built a decent following in the vast design underworld. From New York to New Delhi, designers bought into his unfrenetic vision, architecturally inspired projects, and easygoing nature.

Earlier this year, Cina left both Test Pilot and Billy Graham, but he's continued his tradition of strange clients. Most recently, he did a few comps for a group claiming to be the Republic of Serbia, and he's just finished up some designs for an online greeting card company.

As a stylist, he relies heavily on the grid-based system of Swiss designer Josef Müller-Brockmann. Cina begins every project by opening Adobe Illustrator, turning on the grid, and activating the Snap to Grid setting. From there, he normally builds animations layer by layer, always making sure to stick within the clear, mathematical outlines he'd set up in the beginning.

So grab a cup of coffee, throw up those legs and dig in. As Cina knows well, in the Internet economy, time is the one thing you can't afford. And that's why it's so much fun to waste.