Yamo Design
www.yamodesign.com


Tell us a little bit about your background?
I'm 25 and there's nothing special to tell about my life in general... I've always been in the infographic thing, since I started playing videogames and often beeing more interested in watching all those amazing graphics than in playing the game itself... So at the age of 12-13 I decided to "make videogames graphics" and did studies for that. I had the chance to know what I wanted to do with my life very soon, even if I deviated a bit during the trip : Now I'm a freelance graphic designer doing websites, flash toons and games, CD-Roms, illustrations, logos, CD covers, and stuff like that.

Where are you from?
I live in Paris, France since I was born.

Design education:
I made very general artistic studies, I learned the basics of the History of Arts at university like so many other people, but I've never taken any specifically "design" courses. In fact my studies in this very open-minded and international university were just a way for me to be in a sort of "creating vibe", meeting people and discovering things, and most of all to use my free time to practice 3D graphics at home night and day. I wanted to make 3D games... Later I entered a 3D animation/programmation class, but I leaved during the first year to start working. I suddently had the feeling that I had nothing more to learn at school and that the next step was working for real. Moreover, it was at this time that I started to move away from 3D graphics and videogames because I realised that it at became a huge industry implicating big studios with dozens of animators working on an assembly line, and that wasn't the way I wanted to work. I like to have my independance and work on all the parts of a project. 3D graphics are too heavy, there's too much time between the moment you have an idea, a scenario, a storyboard, and the moment it's realised, and during this time you have 10 new ideas... It's very frustrating for me... I started looking after a more free and "light" way of creating graphics.

So, following some opportunities, I moved to design and webdesign, wich were professions more compatible with my way of working.

How did you start out as an artist and designer?
I found a job as the graphic designer of a web agency specialised in elearning applications for big corporations like General Electrics, Alstom, Oracle etc... I developped what I had started to learn by myself, creating Flash CDroms, Flash and/or HTML websites, little games, cartoons, ... I learned a lot of things, like managing big projects and big clients, how the business works, all that stuff... It was very useful 18 months later, when I decided to leave and to become a freelance designer. I was just tired of corporate projects and wanted to work on some entertainment stuff, that's why my website looks like that. It has been designed to seduce entertainment-specialised agencies, musical labels,... and for the moment it works pretty good. The entertainment industry represents about 50% of my customers for now, and I'm aiming to reach 100%.

What are your thoughts on the recent Macromedia Studio MX?
Ouch... you're talking about Flash MX 2004, let's say to be very honest that I didn't tried it very long, just long enough to choose to wait until the next version and keep working on MX. I just can't help feeling the impression that Macromedia guys are slowly forgotting totally that designers use Flash too, not only developpers. But in another hand, as much of my developper friends told me, MX 2004 isn't a very good surprise for them too...

What would you like to see in the future of flash?
There are a lot of new features that I'd like to see in Flash (blurring, free-transform on symbols, a faster player, etc..) but Flash already offers very large possibilities and instead of dreaming about new functions, I prefer trying to use the ones that exist at their full potential, and I'm still really far of it.
Moreover, for me, technical limits are not only problems, they are exciting challenges too, and they can lead you to create in a very different way. I love this way of working, always thinking, trying to FIND A WAY to make Flash do what you want... It's very exciting.

How do you find working with clients as opposed to personal work?
Hum... You'll think I'm a a very strange designer, but I've almost NO personal work... I almost never work for myself since I'm a freelance designer. It's a matter of time and motivation. The facts are that my motivation in this job is to make USEFUL things. Websites, CD-roms, CD covers that correspond to a need, a message, and a target. I'm not an artist, just, maybe, a craftsman, and the purpose of something I'm producing is very important. I need to have a practical objective when I'm working on something. It's what I've said sooner : I like working with limits, and the need to respect the utility of a work is a limit. I want to make something beautiful, pleasant, well designed, but also effective, that does what it has been made for. It's a very narrow-minded conception of art, but precisely I'm not doing art, I'm doing design. I can't do something beautiful just like that, it must have a MEANING, a purpose.

Nevertheless I sometimes find enough motivation, or challenge, to work on a personnal project. Like I did with my mate Franck Sinitra (yes, it's a nickname !) with whom I made the game HUB.lo 2 years ago (url : www.hublo.com/english ), a platform flash-game who worked very well. We won a lot of awards and things like that with this little game, and during a moment we had 5000 people per day coming to play it. We did it all in 3 month during our free-time, we created the gameplay, the concepts, he coded and level-designed it and I did all the 2D and 3D graphics, interfaces, recorded all the sounds and composed all the music. It was a very exciting challenge, and it had a purpose (to present it in a fest here in France and try to win it), that's why I did it.

What types of software do you currently use?
As I said, I prefer using one software at his full potential than using a little bit of many softwares. So I limit the number of my tools and use them in all the possible ways. When I'm working, I mainly use 3 softs : Flash for all the vector graphics, animation and coding, Photoshop fot the bitmaps, and Dreamweaver for website-making and integration. That's all most of the time. Of course sometimes I use other things like little utilities, sound creation softwares and stuff like that, but 90% of my production time is spent on these 3 main softs.

What types of software do you currently use?
As I said, I prefer using one software at his full potential than using a little bit of many softwares. So I limit the number of my tools and use them in all the possible ways. When I'm working, I mainly use 3 softs : Flash for all the vector graphics, animation and coding, Photoshop fot the bitmaps, and Dreamweaver for website-making and integration. That's all most of the time. Of course sometimes I use other things like little utilities, sound creation softwares and stuff like that, but 90% of my production time is spent on these 3 main softs.

Your work is very creative and unique, what inspires you to create?
My work isn't unique, I'm not so innovative. If you look to different works I've done you can surely find a recognizable touch, let's say it's my style, but it's just my own mix of influences, and anyway I don't try to create things absolutely never seen before when I'm working, I just make effective and quality work. The point for me is to create websites, interfaces, games, that kinda stand out the common production not with their innovative aspect, but with their quality. Speaking of influences, I try not to be inspired to much by people doing the same job as me. In fact my idea is that it's much more efficient to search inspiration everywhere else than in your profession. People designing spacecrafts in Sci-Fi movies and needing to create new shapes will take them from insects or things like that and I'm doing the same. When I'm designing a website, I try not to think about other websites I've seen, but remember totally differents things like magazine covers, well-designed objetcs, a movie picture, a funny packaging, a old computer game,... Working on some websites I often found ideas of shapes or colors schemes in sport shoes and streetwear :)

How did you first learn of the Internet?
My first real contact with this world happened when I was studying 3D graphics. I saw in my school an annoucement by a company saying they would give 3000 FF for the best title-banner for their up-coming website. It was during this big "startup" thing and everybody was mad about the "new" economy and throwing money everywere. I tought "Wow, 3000 F for a ridiculous 590x30-pixels-sized-gif... Let's give it a try !" So I tried to make one and I won. Afterwards those guys of the company told me that the banner pleased them so much that they wanted me to design the whole website, was I able to do this ? I said "of course I know how to design websites" and it was a total lying. So I bought a book or two and quickly learned HTML, tables, how to optimise pictures... the basics of web-designing - which luckyly for me, at that time, where still very simple, way much simple that 3D graphics (I was thinking "damn ! Is that all ? Is that whole thing about creating websites just as simple ? Great !"). It was my first experience in webdesign, it was really cool to do that website and I really started thinking to move away from 3D graphics from this moment. One year later I discovered Flash ( I remember beeing totally blown away by www.nrg.be like so many other people at this time), and decided that I wanted to make cool things like that.

What do you like/dislike about the net?
That's a very broad question. Internet is like every mass-media. It's the best and the worst. But I really like the new possibilties of communication and information he offers. Finding pictures, documentation, infos, when you're working on something is really quick and easy on the web. If you know how to cummunicate, to search and use info on the net, without getting lost and being abused, it can make your life much more easy on some aspects. In fact, there's nothing I really hate about the net, except spam of course, and the upcoming possibility it offers to some corporations (let's say no name) to spy our systems and decide if we can or not use a software or read a document. But that's another subject...

Do you think that Flash is cool or overused?
Flash is cool when it's used well, as everything else. I don't know if it's overused, certainly yes sometimes, but I don't care. I prefer focusing on good flash websites and games than waste my time surfing on all those crappy sites using Flash to do the same thing they could do in HTML (except of course those ugly Shwish-like text effects they all seem to be fond of...).

In my work I do Flash sites, HTML sites, and Flash/HTML sites as well. For me the 3 ways are good, and respond to a certain need. I'll never do a Flash site that brings nothing just because it's "cool" to make Flash, where I could make a good HTML one. I try to do my job well, as a lot of other quality designers, I don't care if ill-qualified people around there are making shit, it's not my business.

Do you prefer technologically advanced sites or sites with simple but good design?
It's the same thing as the previous question, it depends if it's well made or not. Of course like everybody else I'm kinda tired of all those 2advanced-like websites with flashy effects everywhere but sometimes I see websites like that which really please me, cause they're doing it specially well, with total control, and with a purpose.

On the contrary simple design can be great when it's mastered, but really boring when it's not...You know, I don't prefer that kind of websites or anoter or another, I just prefer good ones, whatever may be their style. In all styles of design their is really good sites and really bad sites.

Do you have any cool design tips?
Not really tips... Just methods, and an interview is a little bit short to explain them...

What are your bad personal and design habits?
I'm a little bit lazy, and I must kick my own butt sometimes to make a website that does'nt looks like the previous one I've made too much. You know, when you have your own touch or a style that pleases you, it's really easy to stay in it, like on a railtrack, and do it again and again. It's great to have a style, a common factor in all your works, but I don't want to make clone websites, so I'm careful about that, and always try to find new ideas.

Any advice for up and coming designers?
Only one secret : PRACTICE. Schools, teachers, webdesign internet boards are cool, but to learn this job, you must above all work and practice by yourself, night and day. Buy some good books if you want, and learn this job by working on CONCRETE projects (a personal website, a flash game you'll made with a fellow or two, a little cartoon, the website for a band you are friend with,...). You'll learn much more quicker like that, and if you do mistakes at the beginning, you will remember them, you will UNDERSTAND them, and you won't do them 2 times. Help is often useful, but don't wait too much from others or you'll never make it. Your passion, motivation and tenacity are all you need to become a good professional.

Would you like to be remembered?
I won't be remembered. I'm not an artist. I just do my job and as my job is designing ephemeral things, nobody will remember them, nor me. Webdesigners who think they will be remembered are fools. Webdesigners who think them as artists, as messiahs, are fools. People will remember painters, writers, illustrators, architects, movie directors, but not webdesigners as we know them right now.

Although, I know myself and that I won't be making websites all my life, I'll be bored in a few years. So maybe I'll start working in photography or music videos or movie pictures, music, painting, and (wo knows !), maybe someday I'll become famous with that. But fame isn't what I'm looking for so I don't care.

Do you have any new projects coming up that you can tell us about?
I've got a lot of work, of clients, some are interresting and I hope will lead to very good things, and some are not. When I've got time, I'll certainly start working again on a "personnal" work, with my mates. A new game, something using Flash and the communautary possibilities of the net. Something big. If I start working on something personnal, it must be big. I won't have a challenge, I won't be motivated if it isn't.

Favorite quote:
"Everything is relative"

Final comments:
Half past one, I'm HUNGRY !

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