"On the Couch with...", has the honor to present the sixth interview with one of the most successful Designers of our Community, João Oliveira aka ~Biomachina. Let's get the party started.

First of all João, thank you for giving us this opportunity. You are probably very busy, so I will try to be quick. Tell us a little about how your life was before you decided to study design? And now, what has changed?

Thank you for the interview, it's a pleasure!

My life was pretty much the same besides not having any kind of solid plans for my professional future, I always had education on sciences until the very last moments of high-school and my objective was to study engineering or biology, the decision to study and follow a design career only came up like a couple of months before finishing high-school... and here I am!

How was your first experience on Deviant Art? What made you stay in the Community?

My first experience with Deviant Art was around 2004, year which I've registered my first account, at that time I wasn't really active and only used Deviant Art to comment deviations and share some stuff.

Only got really involved in Deviantart around 2006, started exploring Photoshop and sharing the outcomes with the community, getting feedback and evolving through it, that was the main reason for me to stay.

Did you feel, in a certain way, that being an assiduous member of the Community you evolved at a practical level?

Absolutely, the feedback from the community was an important push at the times I was taking my first steps, it helped me to know how I could evolve and in which directions I should go.

Design encompasses several categories. Which category are you most comfortable with? Any reasons for those choices?

Probably editorial design, I love to work with typography and text, mixing different kinds of fonts and see how they communicate with each other, also love to experiment with printing and finishing processes, using different kinds of paper and ink.

This passion to typography also influences my illustrations, a lot of them are built around some typographic composition.

Tell us a little about your creative processes. What are your influences?

Music really influences my creative process, most of the time I'm working I'm doing it with the company of music, makes everything more enjoyable. Aside from music, I love retro imagery, from music and movie posters to book covers, movies and illustrations, they all inspire me and my works.

Which artists can you refer to your main influences? Someone from the community?

Classic artists that like Kandinsky really influence some of my works, especially his usage of bold 2D colorful shapes and abstract imagery. From the community, it's hard to list since I can't really nominate an artist that, as a whole, influenced me, they all have something that inspire me, little bits and details, colors, etc.

From all your work, have you had some that are special to you? Tell us a little about it/them.

I really enjoyed doing my latest series of experiments -- 8008, 0240 and Night Vision -- since they flowed so well and didn't require a lot of time to accomplish the result I wanted. They're simply remixes of old images of mine, forming whole new and different pieces, what made them so enjoyable to design was how easy and fast their production was.

We know that you won the HP and MTV’s contest "Take Action, Make Art". Tell us your first reaction about the 1st place? And since then, what changed?

My first reaction was surreal, I was at university in the middle of a class when I got the first email telling me I was in the group of finalists, I reacted normally, thinking the group of finalists would be like a few dozens of persons but everything evolved very, very fast, in a couple of hours I was getting a phone call, from the MTV organization, that started explaining me I could be one of the winners, we talked for some minutes and then, suddenly, I got told that I was actually the winner, followed by the description of all the prizes, couldn't believe it was happening, it was one of those moments you find yourself speechless.

Since then, it obviously helped me to jump a bit higher and get a lot of exposure, I gave a lot of interviews, from magazines to radio and even TV but I don't see it as something that gave me a huge leap forward, giving me lots of clients and jobs because that didn't happen, I see it as a milestone, it was one of the best things that happened to me since I got the opportunity to travel all around the world, going to the cities I most wanted to travel and live a lot of great experiences but, professionally, nothing much have changed, I continued to work hard, finding new opportunities and expanding my skills exactly the same way as I did before winning the contest.

All deviants who follow your work here, are aware that you have lots of invitations and participations on Art groups and other projects. How do you lead with so many projects on the same time? And, of all this projects, which one gave you more pleasure to collaborate?

Yeah, indeed I have been part of a lot of projects at the same time but everything started changing some time ago, been getting more and more busy with a lot of stuff but I guess I lead very well with so many projects because, when that happens, I'm really loving what I'm doing. Passion is definitely what motivates me.

Everyone knows the hard relation between designer/client. Tell us how do you lead with this relationship?

Fortunately I've been lucky enough to never catch one of those difficult clients! The relationship I have with them is very informal from the moment they first contact me to the final of a project.

Have you ever regretted following the uncertain life of a designer? What was the worst moment you had as a designer?

Never regretted following this career and doubt I'll ever will, sure, there's low and high moments but I'm an optimistic person. Worst moments? None! Probably because I'm still enjoying my student life, without any kind of big worries or monetary problems.

Were you ever a target of theft? If yes, how did you lead the situation?

Yeah, from time to time I see my work being displayed on a random portfolio without any credits or information, on those cases a simple message usually solves the problem. Aside from that I've never had any major problem, there's a lot of persons who like my work and use my images on their own images but, as long as they are used exclusively for personal uses, a link to me will do fine on those cases.

Well João, I know you are busy, so for our last question, can you give us some advice for those who are now starting this profession?

It will sound like a cliche but I'll have to be repetitive with this kind of advices, the most important aspect on this profession is having passion and doing a lot of hard work, practicing a lot and researching new ways of doing new and unique stuff that is commercially appealing. After this everything will flow nicely, create a profile on the most popular social networks, invest some time a couple of times a year promoting your work and you'll be rocking.

Thanks João for your kindness and availability and being on the couch with us.

“On the Couch with…” had the honor to present you the sixth interview with João Oliveira. We hope this project continues and does not end here. We are open to new suggestions and proposals to give continuity to the project.

Thanks for everyone who read it and a very special thanks to ~Biomachina