Kerning from the best — 5 minutes with Pantufla Cuántica
Kerning From the Best is an article series where I’m having quick chats with remote and freelance designers from around the world to learn more about what makes them tick.
This month’s edition features Pantufla Cuántica, a freelance product designer based in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
What does a typical morning look like for you?
I’d love to say that I wake up early and I start working taking my first coffee, but no. I never was a morning person. Actually, I’m a night owl. I wake up not too early, I take breakfast, meditate, I read articles, see some design stuff and I do those tiny and annoying tasks I have for that day. All are personal. Like sending invoices, pay my rent, etc. Then, I go to the park with my dog Hugo and we walk around 3km. Other days I go to pilates classes. Usually, I take my mornings for myself, to wake up without a hurry.
What has been your design journey?
When I was very young my parents bought a computer. We still didn’t have the Internet, but I had the whole set of Microsoft Office applications installed. In addition, I attended English classes and in my class, there was a computer with internet.
At that time I was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys and Leonardo Di Caprio, it was 1998 and Titanic had just been released in Argentina. Then I started going to class with a box of floppy disks to store all the photos I found of them on the Internet. When I was at home, I downloaded all the photos on my computer and I didn’t know what else to do.
Until one day I was super bored and started researching all the programs my computer had. So I found Microsoft Framework and began to understand some basic concepts of the web. I did, of course, a lot of Backstreet Boys fan pages offline that showed my friends when they visited me. That was the beginning.
Later, in high school, I was one of the first to have a digital camera and I remember spending all day taking pictures of different groups in my classroom. When I arrived home, I was asked for those photos via MSN. Everyday. One day I was very tired of sending the same .zip file several times a day, so I made my class’s website with Framework, Fireworks and Geocities. My classmates really loved the idea. In a few months, it grew very fast, we had a photo of the day and the zip file of the day to download. An archive divided by months to search and a zip of the best photos of the month, and also a humor section with many internal jokes. The site was alive for two years.
The next year, I started my studies of Audiovisual Designer at University. There I had a mix of graphic, interactive and cinema design. It was so fun! I fell in love with the career from the first class. In the same time I started to work as a freelancer for friends, colleges and professors.
My first job as an employee was in a Marketing Agency doing flash banners and landing pages. And there it start the combination of interaction design and animations. During the day I worked and at night I use to do a lot of tutorials of animations and 3D. I had a double life! And I had it for 5 years approximately, where my interaction part grew as a product designer on startups or agencies and my motion designer continued his exploration at nights or weekends.
This continued until the day Material Design published their first public release. The entire work was amazing but I remember when I saw the chapter of “Motion” and I started to think how this double life could be a new one. So in an agency I use to work at that time I proposed to my boss to start that discipline at our workflow and the train started to work. I felt that I was doing my dream job! I still feel it.
When I’m doing motion interaction I feel that I’m doing “my thing”. But of course, you can only sell that part of the project by itself and pay your bills and I continued paying attention to my UX skills and I made it grow. So now I consider myself as a Product Designer with a great taste on motion interactions.
What do you find yourself having to repeatedly convince others of?
Question all the things, always.
It’s good for your mind health. Maybe you are living a life that is not designed for you. And if you are doing things for the payment and that it isn’t doing you happy, it’s ok too. Not all people have the privilege of choosing only those deals that make us happier. Because obviously, we have to pay our bills, rents, taxes and other things.
But always question yourself why are you doing that? How makes you feel if you picture yourself doing that?. Do you want to have the same life as the others? Why do you want that life? Do you like the same things as others?.
Do you have a mantra?
No :)
Where do you want to go?
I want to grow up as a Visual Designer. Because I’m a huge fan of Graphic Design!
Also, I want to start being better in 3D design and grow up more in my career as a freelancer.
Who do you look up to?
Ray and Charles Eames, Frank Lloyd Wright, Richard Neutra, David Lynch, Terry Gilliam. And from the Digital Design world, Ben Mingo, Eric Atwell, Verena Michelitsch, Best Served Bold, Glev Kuztenov, and Zhenya Rynzhuk.
From the Argentinian Design world, I’m huge fan of IVCOTI, Cecilia Alvarez and Mechi Bazan.
What’s your remote setup?
I rent a studio with a group of creative freelancers in Palermo, the heart of Buenos Aires.
I have there my Macbook 15’, a Dell 24 for when I design UI or Motion, Apple keyboard and mouse.
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