Exclusive interview with Patricia Carvalho

Patricia-Carvalho.com

Known for her remarkable work as a web designer, Patricia de Sousa Carvalho kicked off her creative career by winning a contest sponsored by Linotype. Her font, Cethubala, remains one of the more playful and unusual fonts in the world of type. Still, she prefers electronic print to books and considers the Web the ultimate medium because it is, according to her, light and immediate. Her current project, Misspato, is fast becoming one of the hottest platforms for showcasing the world’s top web designs.

Patricia Carvalho: I have a degree in Communication Design, so since school I've been working in the field. However, I only started Web Design in 1997, when I began to work on my own. From my first experience in this field, I was fascinated. Its dynamic and always changing technology is one of the reasons I love it. It has its own life. Unlike a finished work – for example, a poster or a book – a web design must be born, and should grow, through interaction with its audience. I also enjoy its speed and economy, as web designs, unlike books, are quite environmentally friendly. And I enjoy the lightness of the files :-).
Another great thing about Web Design is that regardless to language and culture, it is available to almost all people, as it is an immediate, open and global media.

Star!

Djem

Patricia Carvalho: There are many things that inspire me. The ones related to this area are the wonderful examples that we can enjoy freely just by surfing the Web: state of the art websites, websites with a more irreverent approach, and others that are just beautifully structured. I enjoy watching and using websites.
Just to mention some names of exceptional designers and websites/online communities that have inspired my work:

- Zuzana Licko, from Emigre (http://www.emigre.com/)
- Amy Franceschini from Future Farmers (http://www.futurefarmers.com/)
- House Industries (http://www.houseind.com/)
- 37signals (http://www.37signals.com/)
- Computerlove (http://computerlove.net/)
- Design is Kinky (http://designiskinky.com/)
- Australia inFront (http://www.australianinfront.com.au/)
- K10K (http://www.k10k.net/)
- Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/) for been one of the best web projects to the date
- Authors like Steve Krug (http://www.sensible.com/),
Jeffrey Veen (http://www.veen.com/jeff/) and Louis Rosenfeld
(http://www.louisrosenfeld.com/) also inspired my work and approach to Web Design.

Patricia's ArtWork

Patricia's ArtWork

Patricia Carvalho: Since 2003, I've been working as a freelancer, and I really prefer it to my previous condition as a partner and worker in a Web design company. I love the liberty it gives me – I have full control of my work . So mainly, I do Web Design. And Web Design goes from the making of the website structure, to the mock-up and prototype creation, to finally its production in HTML/CSS and sometimes PHP (as I started learning recently). I also work in other areas such as graphic design, type design and illustration, but not as the core of my profession. I have several projects going on at the moment. Some of them are for major Portuguese online companies; others, for foreign (English and Spanish mainly) companies. I also have personal projects such as Misspato.com. I would enjoy expanding my work to include other countries, especially in collaboration with other design firms.

Patricia Carvalho: I would love to make it grow faster :-). But, as Misspato is a one-person-project, I would like to extend it to other collaborators and make it a bigger web community project with more resources while always maintaining its organization by styles.

MetPage

Grupo

Patricia Carvalho: Well, first he has to know what purpose the site should have and for whom it is made. Second, he has to know its contents and its structure well so that he can make it usable. Then he must know the constraints of the work, whether they are financial or technical. When doing the job, he must be open-minded and listen to what people say, including which doubts are raised. And last but not least, he should do it with quality and, if possible, with style (but always having functionality in mind).

Patricia Carvalho: This is not an easy question to answer. Web Design depends much on technology, so we cannot have a precise idea of what will be in 10 years. We can only hope that we'll have more compatible platforms and a broader range of uses. I expect it to be a very specialized profession with many areas of expertise.