1. Hi , who are you and what do you do?
I’m a portuguese visual communication designer that moved to Oslo, Norway mid 2005 to join Bleed Design Studio (www.bleed.com) and a couple years later i moved to Scandinavian Design Group (www.sdg.no) where i am currently the Digital Creative Director. I’ve been a design professional since 2000 and worked with a broad diversity of projects and media: corporate identity, branding, digital branding, editorial design, packaging, event communication, web design, experimental video & sound. Basically i easily engage in any exciting design project ( by exiting i mean the opposite to my answer on question 4) both at the office and i also use great deal of my spare time doing side projects that ranges from self initiated ones to curating programs and a small deal of client work.

2. Describe a typical day at work?
trying to leave on time to have dinner at home :) well, i’m at the office at 9am and start by checking the mails, usually we plan hours for projects on going one week in advance and that helps my days to be more on focus. Brief, plan, design, plan, design, deliver. Going for ice cream/ coffee in the middle of the day, when it’s possible, to breathe fresh air.

Some projects developed at Bleed:

3. What do you enjoy most about your work?
The challenge of coming up with a solution to a problem; working with people i admire both clients and colleagues;

4. What do you like least about your job?
When a client has a preconceived idea of what he wants, not what he needs, and without understanding is asking to execute his vision.

Some freelancer projects:

5. What is your worst enemy of creativity?
A condition where the speed is too low to allow effective operation of the controls. I believe creativity doesn’t come by accident and requires hard work, patience, a critical mindset and a high degree of experimentation. I need to get my hands dirty before achieve results, it’s a skill not a gift.

6. What do you do when you start a new project and you have NO ideas?
hum… i fight back with the problem and i try to put all information i have in prespective, usually gives me a direction to follow and if i’m not happy half way i restart the process.

7. What inspires you the most?
It’s hard to say, i’m very reactive and there are a lots of things that triggers me coming from all angles. From a status line on ichat from someone in my contact list to a structure of a song/movie that i might listen see works well for me, of course any piece of good design, despite the medium, always get me thinking if i would do that project what would and would not do.

Project developed at JimmyRoyal (www.jimmyroyal.no)

8. Do you listen to music while working? And if “yes” what music do you listen to?
yesss. here’s my last.fm profile for music i scrobble when i’m working : http://www.last.fm/user/dvplus ( at home i mostly use my stero)

9. How do you deal with criticism?
I think quite well. I am quite pragmatic and always receptive to criticism, in fact i’m always asking for criticism whilst when it comes to a matter of taste discussions i fight to prevail mine

10. What does your workspace look like?

11. Do you remember the very first web-project in which you were involved?
yes, it’s still live at www.kryptonproduction.com I had just started a practice with a colleague from university and despite we were both working in a design studio already, the comertial pressure of the studio lead us to seek more challenging projects outside the studio ( i guess this feeling is like a shadow to except in one ocasion while i was working at Bleed Design Studio (www.bleed.no)) anyway, we got a tip from a friend that a video production company wanted to make a website and so we booked a meeting with the managing director and said that we were designers and were interested im making their web site. ( ehehe so naif looking back now ) And so it happened he gave us his trust and we presented a proposal sketch that he really liked and we made it in the following nights after work. Another funny note I remember, was that since we had no business set up and were 21 the client asked for a guarantee in case that we would “disappear” for someone to keep doing the site updates and newsletters, so we asked to the studio we were working for if they could guarantee which they did :)

12. Is there any advice you would give our readers?
might sound like a cliché but i’d say “just do it” don’t hide behind excuses and be critical to yourself as you are for others.

Project developed at Scandinavian Design Group:

13. What has been the most fun project to work on so far?
It´s hard to name 1 project. I guess the way i work i always try to have a great deal of fun doing it, sometimes with the work, sometimes with the process, sometimes by the surreal amount of ambition invested in a low budget project, … i could go on and on naming moments that really drives me.

14. Imagine yourself in 15 years… what do you see yourself doing?
I hope i can focus more on less projects and have had so much fun doing great projects :)

15. Please tell us 3 people who we should do this Interview with (Why them?).
I will name 6 to break the rule and challenge them, Anders Hoofgard from NODE BERLIN; Artur & Lizá from R2 Design Studio; Eirik Seu Stokkmo a.k.a Teipu; Jürg Lehni from lineto; Andreas Philström a.k.a Suprb and long adimrer of his community ventures Folkert Gorter

links:
http://www.nodeberlin.com/
http://www.r2design.pt/r2design/
http://www.teipu.net/
http://www.scratchdisk.com/
http://cargocollective.com/suprb
http://cargo.superfamous.com/

Diogo…thank you very much for answering our questions :-)

So if you want to visit Diogo you should do that now: Visit http://blog.thedronespeech.org/ or leave him a comment here!