Designer Interview – Eduardo Mainero

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In an effort to provide ongoing useful content, we are publishing a series of interviews with design and print experts over the next few weeks. The first interview is with Eduardo Mainero of Eyenod.com.

Eduardo is a friend of mine and happens to be the designer who created this very website. The interview is below, M is Michael and E is Eduardo:

M: How did you get started in design, and did you ever think it would become such a passion?

E: My design career started when I was very young. I remember I always had a natural interest for art and I would spend my spare time drawing or painting and it wasnt until Jr. High when I took my artistic skill to a corporate branding level.

It all started with a school project where you had to create your own company and I thought Design would be the best way to fuse art and business. Eyenod Studios was born that day and after that assignment I started doing design work for my father and some of his clients. The idea to see my work giving companies a true identity and brand was intoxicating and I fell in love with it.

M: I know you do all sorts of different design projects (websites, printed media, etc), but what is your favorite sort of project to work on?

E: My favorite design line will always be package design and restaurant corporate branding. There's something about restaurant logos that just intrigues me because the intention of the product is to portray ideas of flavor into flats. Close second is Mascot design. I love illustration and have always loved how a not overly serious brand can take its identity to the next level with a simple illustrative work. Plus Mascot design is a good bridge where illustration and design meet.

M: I've seen several of the online "mascots" you've done for websites – how did you come up with this idea? Do you ever base the mascots on real people? What are the benefits of a mascot for an online business?

E: Mascot design is an evolution of illustration. Is basically a link between both and not every illustrator is a designer or a designer an illustrator. Some select few have the skills to be able to cross borders and thats where mascots come in.

Mascots are used to ramp up a brand and give it more personality. I've done lots of mascots based on real people and I usually ask for reference photographs for the process. I tend to prefer animal anthropomorphism where a lion or a zebra is drawn as a human being and clothed accordingly. I find that animals or non human mascots have a lot more personality and energy.

So basically if your brand is well established but needs a bit more oomph and "fun" a mascot is the best marketing tool to promote your product and to give people a new memorable image to relate to your brand. Mascots can even become a stronger icon than the brand they represent commonly falling in the "nicknaming" of a brand. It often happens where a product is reffered to as "the bee cereal" or "the duck cleaner" the name of the brand is forgotten but the mascot is so strong it prevails. When used properly a mascot can be your best friend and fresh air for your company.

M: When you start a new design project, do you prefer to have a set of guidelines from the client, or do you like to do your own thing and let your creativity take over? Does it ever become frustrating if a client gives you too much or too little direction?

E: A proper design brief is always welcome and it does help heaps in the development process. But there are times where the client is so lost that he needs to give the designer full creative freedom.

Extremes are always bad because too many limits make the designer's work a robotic process without creative input and too little makes the design a high risk design because the designer will be pretty much playing a mind reading game and if he didnt hit the bull's eye then he'll have to start again from scratch.

I usually prefer a simple description of the client's needs, a clean sketch or reference of layout when it comes to print or web, and a small list of visual references to better understand the client's prefered taste. As a designer the best process to follow once you have the brief is research. Study the client's competitors, look for the latest trends in the client's market, and pretty much absorb the most information you can before hitting the drawing board.

M: When you do printed media design, do you have a favorite online print shop that you recommend to your clients?

E: I love printing illustrations and printing shirts for fun. I've tried several online services and I've had positive results with Zazzle.com. I can manage all my print products at once and it gives me cross product compatibility. Business cards and shirt designs are just a few clicks away.

M: Six months after designing this website (www.BusinessCards.org), what do you think? Anything you'd change now that you've sat on it for a while and I've added some more content?

E: I really enjoyed the development done for BC.org The design is objective, clean and up to date. I think the design is still fresh and with the content flow its getting it's building up more online presence every day. One section I really enjoy is the business card faceoff. I think that portion of the site gives the viewers the perfect comparison of the reviewed services and it stays true to the site's brand.

M: Thanks. Knowing you for a while now, I know that you have a pretty extensive history in the online gambling design business. How did you get started in that industry, and how are things going post-"Black Friday"?

E: The way I started gambling related design is quite interesting. I was in a point of my life where workflow as a freelancer was real low. I was doing design contest for a community that back at the day was called SitePoint.com (now 99Designs.com). One of the contests involved a mascot design for SlotsGeek.com. The contest went great and I was awarded the prize.

Not much longer after that the same client asked for more design work and suggested I tried to tackle the online gambling industry for design work as the community could really use someone with my talents. Word of mouth started spreading and in no time work boomed to a degree I never imagined. 75% of my design business was gambling related and the exciting thing about it was that each and every design was different.

There are so many different niches and one day you would be doing stuff for poker and the next for craps or blackjack. Then the storm hits and Black-Friday comes with a sweep of not only the US Gambling market but with a lot of my design jobs too. Affiliates are dropping like flies but not quite abandoning their ships.

What happened was really interesting cause clients that were loyal to only gambling broke free and went outside the box. Lots of different job requests started popping up. Gold, Silver, Spread Betting, Horse racing, you name it. Affiliates decided to use their marketing knowledge and stay in the industry and with that growth and fight for recovery, the design market picked up again for me. April was the toughest month but things are balanced once again.

M: Good to hear. Where can we see more of your work?

E: My work is showcased in 2 different spots. www.Eyenod.com being the base for Eyenod Studios with a small but powerful portfolio and Eyenod.deviantart.com/gallery/ is where I try and post regularly with a more up to date database of work that keeps increasing every month with a line of products ranging from mascot design to videogame development.

M: Looks good. To wrap this up, will you give us your three best tips for designing a business card?

E: Three tips for the best business card on my opinion would be:

• Less is more
• Keep the fonts over 10pt
• Print a test card before printing the whole batch

M: Thanks so much man, I really appreciate this. How could future clients get in touch if they wanted to talk to you about design work?

E: The easiest way would be to email me at [email protected].