Fabio Couto was born in Brazil and now resides in London. He’s a freelance designer & illustrator that has an impressive portfolio, featuring a cover he designed for the Brazil edition of COMPUTER ARTS in December 2007. Fabio kindly agreed to speak to blur Designs and become one of our designer spotlights.

Your work being so varied, do you consider yourself an Illustrator or designer?I’m a designer who likes to illustrate. Both professions have some points in common. I like to think I’m somewhere in between, but looking back at my professional work, it’s mostly composed by design projects… but, yeah, I still think I’m somewhere in between.

What’s the biggest difference working in London compared with Brazil?I have recently started to work at We Are VI, which is better organized and structured than most studios I know in Brazil. The creative and friendly atmosphere is the same, but the projects and clients are much bigger. In Brazil there are tons of amazing designers and studios too. Names such as, Guilherme Marconi, Adhemas Batista and Will Murray are known worldwide. Although usually the best opportunities remain in big cities like Rio, Sao Paulo, Belo Horizonte and Porto Alegre. Brazil is huge, so it’s really hard for designers who live apart from these cities.

I guess I was lucky because I had the chance to work with a few international clients. That’s one of the cool things about technology today, you can work at home or in a small studio and get global clients. Nevertheless, I think clients are pretty much the same everywhere, so you have to face the same challenges like short deadlines, low budgets and lots of competition.

Where does your creativity come from?I guess it comes when you’re not trying to be creative. Sometimes during a walk, at the bus, taking a shower or even in the middle of the night (Sometimes I get up at night and write down ideas so I won’t forget them the next day).

If you were a biscuit, what biscuit would you be?You must have similar products here in the UK, but in Brazil there’s this biscuit that tastes a little bit like an Oreo, but it’s shaped like faces with different expressions. I’d be one of those because it would be a surprise each time.

The one piece of advice you would give to any designer?OK. Just a few thoughts:

- Networking is everything. Good contacts are better than a rock star portfolio.

- Believe in yourself but don’t be arrogant. A five minute Google search will show you tons of brilliant designers.

- Develop a style but be flexible. If you want to have a long professional career you have to do what the client needs, not what you like.

- If you’re a freelancer you have to be more organized and professional than the others. Most people go freelance so they won’t have a routine, but often find that if they don’t adopt a routine. they will probably starve.

- Love print, love digital. If you’re a cross-media designer you’ll have twice the opportunities.

- Invest time on personal projects. They will improve your skills, your portfolio and are the only ones where you’re completely free to be creative.