week #18 – @kyanos / Renato

Who are you and where do you come from?
I’m Renato Pequito, a Portuguese designer / illustrator / photographer / dad hailing from the rainy shores of Cardiff, Wales. Currently working as the lead designer at a local company, where I’m in charge of both print & web work, this gives me the added benefit of not being bored quickly as everything is always changing.
Having worked in design for the past 4 years in different places whilst freelancing and illustrating I have recently made my mission to carve my own way and to approach the creative industry differently.
This will all be more real in a month but now everything is looking pretty exciting.
Would love to show you what I do but have taken my portfolio site and am currently remodelling it as a blog, so feel free to visit it at: www.renatopequito.com for some fresh rants on everything that’s design and that comes this way. Will be paying special attention to how a business is formed since inception and through the eyes of a designer that is nothing other than a designer.
Other ways to check what I’ve been working on are:
– www.behance.net/kyanos/
– www.dribbble.com/kyanos/

Share your twitter account with us and tell us what you are twittering about:
I tweet under the name of @kyanos and you will most likely either see me talking about city cycling, daily life with an one year old, moaning about governments, sharing resources and mainly being me. I think that a twitter acts as your personality online, much more than any website or  other resource. Quick and snappy way of what you’re thinking and that’s what I do. although I do moan I’m not that big of a moaner in real life.

Tell us about your creative side:
I still don’t know how that came to be to be honest, I think it all started on year 12 in high school when I took up Graffiti, never was that good at it as I was too slow but it did open my mind up to art and to other possibilities, did it so much that left me wander away from an engineering university course in favour of a design one. This mainly happened when I moved to Cardiff, after graduating started working for a design company there, doing something I wasn’t enjoying much (the dreaded Flash syndrome). Which propelled me to create a 365 design challenge – http://graphiary.tumblr.com – as a means of creative escape. Led me to a new job and new aspirations. Now I am on the road of starting my own business in this creative world of ours.

Time travel: Where would you go to?
Wouldn’t go anywhere to be exact but back to warn myself to not follow what everyone wants, or thinks is good for you. Do what you want, when you can & want it. Got almost there but sacrificed a few years for that.

Name your favorite present book:
I’d probably say that there are two of them, I’m currently reading ‚Design is a Job‘ by Mike Monteiro, it is making me rethink my whole approach to how an artist, mainly a designer should assume in their line of work and where one can evolve from it. ‚How to be a designer without losing your soul‘ by Adrian Shaughnessy is another great one, a bit of a guide to what you should expect and how you should overcome those hurdles that are naturally placed in your way at the start of your career. A great one to revisit too.

Which tweeter would you recommend for @createandrotate and why?
This would have to go, hands down and I know he was already recommended before but that’s because he rocks to @BenIllustrator. Main reason has been mentioned, the others are mainly to do with him being really active on social media, always tweeting good work from other people and offering his help. Top bloke.