What is the most expensive thing you've bought in the last week?

I bought land... which our new office will be built on, hopefully completes by early next year.

Please give us a brief bio of yourself.

My name is Roy Ryo Tsukiji and I'm 32 years old. I'm a principal, Creative Director, Art Director, Designer & Flasher at BIRDMAN.

I'm a graduate of the University of N.S.W College of Fine Art (Australia) Bachelor of Design 1997.

I was working as a graphic Designer at Ad Agency from 1995 to 1998 in Sydney Australia. I came

to Japan in 1998 and worked as a graphic designer at a design agency doing advertising mainly, until 2002.

I started flash as a hobby and made a portfolio site for myself during working there. That's when I got my interest in web, because I didn't have any interest on designing HTML based web sites.

I left the design agency and started Spiced Graphix in 2003. Now, we have 7 staff, all of them (including me) are designers. 70% of works are web, 10% are corporate identities/ logo marks , and 15% are print based works such as ads, posters, catalogs, and last 5% are GUI designs for softwares.

What do you do for inspiration?

I browse through "the FWA" Of course : ) .

Also when I can't come up with any good idea, I try to gather staff and have a meeting to talk about it for 15 to 30 minutes. In most cases it solves the problem, which means it is better off to use as many brains as possible.

However, if that doesn't work, I go out to buy some coffee and go to a bookstore to have some break and don't think about the problem for while.

Please list 3 of your favourite sites.

1.The FWI visit theFWA once a day at least.

2. MyFonts, Especially "What the Font" section, where you can search the font by uploading the scanned images and the system finds the closest matches in there database.

3. Diesel Heaven, I really love the design of this site!

What do you regard as being your biggest achievement?

That I was able to meet the great staff members.

What software couldn't you live without?

Illustrator, Flash and Mac OS X. Can't do any work without mac...

What projects do you have in the pipeline?

Few new cool stuffs coming, including site for an architectural studio(they now designing our new building for an exchange), and our own site.

Who do you rate as being the top 3 design companies?

North Kingdom

Hi-ReS!

group94

What effect on traffic do your new designs have?

It depends on the site but, in Aeon's case, roughly about 5,000 views in the first week receiving FWA.

Who is your target audience?

This totally depends on the project that you work on.

What area of web design lacks the most?

Good quality promotion site that design and information are appropriate for its target audience.

There are so many sites with great designs in Japan, but most of them are self-satisfaction of a designer.

Designer must not forget the purpose (goal) of the site and its target audience.

What did your very first site look like? Is it still online?

My own portfolio site, made in Flash5. Yes, it's still on line as my portfolio. You can see it here.

Have you written any books, if not do you plan to?

I've written a few pages for the magazine called MdN few years ago, but not a book. And I don't have any plan to do so in the future.

What was the toughest thing you ever did with Flash? How long did you spend on it? Is it still online?

I have two. One is the Motor show site for Toyota in 2005. We had only 6 weeks to launch the site.

On the week before launch a producer from the ad agency came by, and slept over in our office for a week...which was a nightmare...

The other is a site for client called J-stream. We have spent 9 weeks developing this site including ideas and planning. We had only 3 weeks for flash coding.

In this site, users are able to create a message using text and varieties of pantomime video, and send it to someone you like.

Developing and coding the interface for creating the message was tough since it must be very easy to use so anyone can use it without getting lost.

Do you think Flash is here to stay?

Of course it will. I hope joining with adobe makes flash more powerful tool, especially in typography.

What are your views on design/graphic school. Do you think someone can get into the field without educational experience in a school environment?

I think they can. However, if you have a chance to get an education, you should. I think getting educated and learn about design lets you think more deeper about designs.

But the most important thing is a motivation to learn and study.

When your company was just getting started, what did you find was most effective for getting new clients?

Having a good portfolio site for our selves and always exceed client's expectation.

How have you learned so many Flash/design skills and techniques and can you offer any advice for newbies?

I've learned by reading books about flash. Read and read and read.... And then try it on your project.

If that doesn't solve the problem, find the web site that you can find someone to talk to. Trying it on your project is the best way to learn, I think.

What is the most expensive thing you've bought in the last week?

I bought land... which our new office will be built on, hopefully completes by early next year.

What type of overcoat do you wear when Flashing, basically are you a labels man?

I'm not into labels. I wear jeans most of the time. I used to work wearing my pajamas when my mac was next to my bed...

Any parting shots or pearls of wisdom?

I am anxious about the Earth these days. There are lots of easy ways to take care of our Earth.

So please be gentle with our Earth and please think about ecology to some extent.

It's been a privilege, thanks very much.

My pleasure! Thank you for the opportunity.