Jose' Manuel Segura Álvarez
www.kinokostudio.com


I've been designing websites since 1997, but not too much seriously till 2000-2001, at several advertising agencies in Spain. I always liked visual-media since I'm a child, as I used to draw colored letters with shadows, etc (my family thought there was something wrong about me ;) ). I studied "Audiovisual communication" at the University, and 2 years of photography (some samples can be checked at my site). Apart from all that, I'm a geek of computers since I got my first Amstrad CPC and played with my friend's MSX...

Design education:
Most of it is self-education, watching other's designers. I have some friends who are really good designers and it helped me to improve as well (thanks :) ). Basically, watching other designer's pages again and again helps me to give shape to my ideas as well, while I try to do something different.

How did you start out as an artist and designer?
Making the very first website I got paid for, back in the 2000 year, freelancing. I always had interest on photography, video, and hi-tech used to achieve my ideas.

What inspires you?
Other designers, definitely. What I see around in my life, especially when I'm traveling. Everything around can be inspiring... a building... a traffic signal, a point of view of the street when I'm tanning at summer time... to have my own point of view and to share it with the whole World using the net.

Describe your style of design:
This is a hard one :) Let's see... I try to be simple, yet effective. I like fast but smooth animation, little details, and contrast... don't know if I achieve it after all, as I'm never satisfied with my designs...

What are your thoughts on Macromedia Flash?
It's a great idea, but poorly developed. There are lots of ways to hang-up the authoring software... its too much buggy. However it's impressive the way it grows up, and what can people do with it, despite it's got lots of issues to be solved yet. I'm always being kickass-ed watching other's jobs...

What would you like to add to your workstation to increase productivity?
Time... so a faster CPU, and, as for video edition, loads of free gbs in the hard drive(s)...

What do you do besides design?
Work developing i-mode for mobile contents.

In two years where do you see yourself in the Design Industry?
Got no clue... I guess trying to improve my own site... maybe I might get tired of it, who knows? I don't even know what will I do this year anyway (in design terms).

What is more important for a designer, artistic qualities or design education? Choose one:
If for artistic qualities you mean "talent", I'd say talent is very important, but, it's an aptitude that can be learnt if you've got a good attitude, so I'd definitely go for design education. With design education, I mean to keep an eye on everything around you, anywhere, anytime. As we all know, the beauty is in the eye of the beholder. So it's important to pay attention and learn, from other designers, from your surroundings.

Thanks Jose' have a great New Year.

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