As a part of the MacStories Apps Tree event (where you’ll find a huge giveaway worth $10.000 of 540 Mac and iPhone apps licenses) I had the chance to interview Everaldo Coelho, a graphic and icon designer from Brazil.

This is 9th of many interviews and guest posts I’ll publish on MacStories during this week.

Enjoy!

Hi there! Can you please introduce yourself to MacStories readers?

I was born in Brazil and nowadays I study English, a little bit later, i know, for this reason I’m living in London and Curitiba, in the southern region of Brazil. One curiosity, for a native Portuguese speaker, there are two words to refer to the verb to be – one for things that you are, in a permanent way(ser), and one for things that you are doing(estar), in a temporary way. I believe it’s amazing because it reflects how people can be easily confused about who you are and what you are doing for a life.

In fact, one thing points to the understanding of another. But, what you do may not show truly who you are.

Well, answering your question, I am Everaldo and “I’m doing as a designer does.”

How did you interest in design – especially icon design – get started?

I used to illustrate children books, basically hand painting. In early 1998 I was introduced to Adobe Photoshop 4 and to Windows 95. It was a completely new world for me and and it seemed to be very interesting. But since my first contact, I tried to change the yellow icon on my desktop , which was used to represent a folder directory. After a few time, I got to know the Mac – in that time, not so different from a beige PC – and there was a big difference on the folder icons, they were blue and I needed it. After going over the frustration of discovering that I could not install that OS on my PC, I tried to know other ways. I was introduced to Linux, I easily felt in love, after some time I left my job at a publishing house and started working at Conectiva – today known as Mandriva – one of the biggest Linux distros at that time. At Conectiva I created the Crystal icon theme, lately it became the default theme for KDE, one of the most popular Linux GUI. After that I worked for SuSE and Linspire, other important Linux distros.

When the freelancer design area increased in work, I considered it was necessary to hire one or more assistants. Then the Yellowicon Studio was born – it is an amazing experience so forth.

Semiotics, Psychology, seems like you have a lot of interests besides design itself. Or are they actually part of your design process?

I had a low self-esteem problem when I was a teenager. Very resentful, for being so thin, so bad dressed and for not being that good. But, there’s some amazing thing on that, all this energy spent motivated me to learn more and understand more.

When I first discovered myself as a human being, I got a very high interest for psychology, especially psychoanalysis. I didn’t have enough money for buying books but at the age of 17 I read all Freud legacy at a public library in my town. Years after, I started a psychoanalysis course in the Psychoanalytic Association of Curitiba. Semiotics and Psychoanalysis, in the way I see, are the same science but applied in different contexts. I believe that Jaques Lacan’s work harmonically combine better the acknowledge of Freud, Pierce and Saussure. At the end, it’s all about language. And design, especially design of interaction is nothing but applied language.

Humanism and human sciences are the basis of my work. At the end of the day, I do not design for products, I design for people.

What would be a typical process for you when starting out a new design project?

It’s a complicated question. In a iconography project, briefing is always the beginning and it must be the richest as possible. Including sociological details of target public – like age, formation, ethnic, geography, etc. This is very important. One icon that could work very well for a teenager student in UK could not work for a middle age Physician in Japan. Cultures are very distinct to each other and even the colours may have different reactions at the retina in different ages.

After briefing, it’s time to brainstorm. At Yellowicon, we use to get together in circle and collect ideas. Almost everything will be discared but we keep a note of all of them. Some of them are chosen and designed in wireframes – really simple mockups – and then sent to client.

I usually don’t send more than one proposal at a time time to our client, I think that if the designer sends 3 proposals, he doesn’t believe in any of them.

After the ideas are approved, we render the final project.

Where do you find inspiration?

I like people and – sometimes – to work where they are. So it’s common for me to work at Coffees and Shopping Malls. My work gives me the freedom to work anywhere i want. But when I’m in Brazil, I like to work at my table at Yellowicon Studio and there I have a portrait of my daughter on the side of my monitor – I enjoy looking at her and thinking She is the reason of my work.

About other designers, I don’t have a hero(or I have plenty). In fact, I read a lot about others work and I try to be up-to-date with what is being done.

Has Mac OS changed the way you design / work?

Mac OS is amazing and as I said before in the Blue Folder Icon episode, it was there since the beginning and it was the propellant strength of everything. Besides that, it’s an amazing tool for my work. Everything just works.

Which apps do you use most to create your works?

Photoshop is my main tool, followed by Illustrator. Recently I’m having good experiences with Pixelmator.

Do you have a favorite icon among the ones you’ve designed?

I think not, honestly, in a general way, I don’t use my icons. It’s weird but after I finish creating I’d rather not looking at them all the time. Maybe it’s something that drives me to create new things, I try to keep my desktop with the default scheme.

Can you please describe us your workstation?

Currently I’m using a 17-inch MacBook Pro and a 24-inch LED Cinema Display, a Wacom bamboo multitouch with no additional keyboard or mouse.

What would you like to receive for Christmas this year?

I think more about giving than receiving. This is really a hard question, I think that I would like to truthfully say to my daughter that the world is a good place to live – and cross my heart.

A black Magic Mouse would be a good second option then. =D

Can you tell something about your future releases?

I’m not really good in predicting future, but I believe that soon you will be able to ask Google where you forgot your car keys and “he” will have the answer.

About me, my personal priority is improving my English, all my future plans depend to it. I believe that happiness isn’t something that comes to you, it’s something that you invent and I have some ideas in that direction, but I will keep it for future interviews. =D.

Besides that, I’m working on some cool projects, which include my own app for iPhone and a interesting partnership with a famous Mac developer. Yellowicon is working on a new website, where it will be possible to download quality icons for free. And of course I’m very excited about some projects of our clients, but unfortunately I’m not able to talk about this at this moment.

Thanks for chatting with us!

My pleasure, and please be welcome to follow me on my twitter: @_everaldo – and help me improving my English. =D