As most SmashingShare readers are aware, our website has grown dramatically in 2010. Our audience has grown to over 2,000,000 unique monthly visitors, social media following has tripled and our overall network exposure has doubled.

The staff at Suite48 wanted to end the year off on an awesome note, so as a gratitude of our success in 2010, SmashingShare has teamed up with several reputable online companies to present a number of great giveaways in the month of December.

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This interview is part of the Interview Week, running from November 8 to 12.

Ricardo Gimenes is an allround designer from Brazil. Apart from his numerous graphic and web design engagements, he is best known for his comic-styled illustrations on Behind The Websites. For some months and still ongoing, he has been collaborating with the renowed web design blog Smashing Magazine, where he is featured in the column “Smashing Cartoons”.

Could you please introduce yourself?

I’m a graphic/web/motion designer from São Paulo, Brazil, married, and of course I love playing soccer.

You’ve lived in Brazil, Germany, Japan, Italy and UK. Where did you like it best?

Definitely Japan, Tokyo is the best place for a designer, the most colourful city in the world. You can find good references anywhere.

What distincts the countries from each other?

Basically culture, but of course also habits, style and colours.

What is the goal of your project “Behind the Websites”

I started “Behind” three days before my birthday. Behind The Websites was a gift to myself. For a long time I thought about starting a blog with illustrations; as a personal project. The purpose was to become rich, very rich. But my plan didn’t work out and I decided to illustrate just for fun. More than anything, Behind The Websites is my hobby.

Do you mainly do comic design today?

No. My current jobs include illustrations, app designs for the iPhone, art direction for blogs/sites, animations etc.

How did the cooperation with Smashing Magazine affect your career? Were there also negative aspects like harsh critiques?

It has been a very good cooperation. I have fun doing comics there and I receive many emails with comments, compliments, quotation and also some critiques, but this one is not frequent because Smashing Magazine has a good and well defined public target which are up to date, so they get the meaning of the comics very quickly.

Image Source: Smashing Magazine

How would you describe your style; generally and particulary in comic design?

Funny

What inspires you?

Books and daily feeds. I can easily spend a whole day inside a book shop just with a coffee or surfing on internet.

Thank you for the interview!

We believe that gaining new insights is crucial for every new and experienced designer. The easiest way to achieve this is reading many interviews. So, we decided to provide you a very “intensive” way of publishing interviews.

Starting November 8, one interview will be published on Smashing Share every day until Friday, November 12, 2010.

We tried to make the interviews as diversified as possible. Hence, we chose interviewees from nearly all parts of design.

Monday, 8th: Ricardo Gimenes

Ricardo Gimenes is an illustrator and web designer from Brasil. After he worked as a designing generalist in many countries, Gimenes rose to fame in the design community because of his project “Behind The Websites” and his collaboration with famous Smashing Magazine.

Tuesday, 9th: Mārtiņš Legzdiņš

Better known under his pseudonym “kic”, Legzdiņš from Latvia creates high-end graphic and web designs. Despite the quality of his work, he as well as the Latvian design scene is relatively unknown, so it will be exciting to read his answers.

Wednesday, 10th: Aaron Vail

With just 14 years, Texan Aaron Vail already is an experienced web designer. Now, he also started developing Android apps. We talked with him about low age, open systems and much more.

Thursday, 11th: Ben Welch-Bolen

Ben Welch-Bolen is the CEO and one of the owners of the renowed hosting company site5. Since 1999, site5 is one of the major hosting companies when it comes to hosting design-related sites. Ben answered our questions concerning big competition, focus on web designers etc.

Friday, 12th: Syed Ashfaqueuddin Priom

Syed Priom is a young photographer from Bangladesh. Relentlessly, he doesn’t just show beautiful landscapes but also the often sad reality of his hometown Dhaka. How does he think of his country? What does he want to achieve with his photographs? Find it out on Saturday!

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