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  Yuki Yamaguchi

  
  

  

  In this interview, we have Yuki Yamaguchi, a web designer who is very passionate about Fireworks to share with us her insights and experiences.

   

  To begin with, who are you and where are you from?
  Hello, my name is Yuki Yamaguchi. I am a web designer living in a town called Fukuoka in Western Japan.

   

  What do you work as in your day job?
  Every day I work in several different areas related to web development - creating designs, writing markup, and programming. But out of those tasks I usually spend most of my time designing. I
  almost always use Fireworks when I am designing.

   

  Can you tell us more about your Fireworks blog and what inspires you to write so many Fireworks tutorials?

  

  I created a tutorial website for Fireworks called Fireworks Mania. The
  URL is http://fw.v-colors.com/

  I find inspiration from things and people I encounter in everyday life. I take those pieces of inspiration and ask myself how I can express those concepts using Fireworks. It is how a lot of my new designs and ideas are born.

   

  Earlier this year, there was an event "Photoshopper meets Fireworks" in Japan.  Can you tell us more about the event?

  

  http://lp14.cssnite.jp/

  Recently I participated in what I think is the first event specifically about Fireworks in Japan. We had 240 people attend and there were 15 presenters who gave passionate presentations about how they use Fireworks and what aspects of Fireworks they enjoy using.

   

  Can share with us what you have presented on Fireworks at the "Photoshopper meets Fireworks" event?

  

  You can see my presentation materials at the following URL. There are slides and also voiceovers.

  http://cssnite.jp/archives/post_2156.html
  (I'm sorry but it is all in Japanese.)

   

  Can you share with us on the upcoming Fireworks book you have written?

  

  I had the opportunity to write a book about Fireworks based on the tutorial site I created called Fireworks Mania. It will be released on the 7th of December.

  It covers basic Fireworks functionality and has tutorials that show users how to create sites using the pages functionality. I wanted to create a book based on real world use cases.

  In Japan there still isn't much of a community based around Fireworks so I will continue to improve my tutorial site and writing more books. By doing this I should be able to increase the popularity of Fireworks and help people become more productive! 

   

  What type of projects do you work in Fireworks and are there any challenges you faced that Fireworks have helped you?

  

  From creating wireframes to designing parts of a website I use Fireworks for all aspects of website design.

   

  How long have you been using Fireworks?
  I first used Fireworks about 10 years ago but it wasn't until 6-7 years ago that I really started using it everyday. As a Web Designer it is the one application I can't live without.

   

  Tell us why Fireworks is your preferred choice for doing user interface design / web design?

  

  I really like how easy it is to modify the screen settings. With the property inspector panel I can do everything I want in a minimal amount of time.

  Thanks to Fireworks I've been able to work efficiently and make the most of my time when working.

   

  Fireworks excels as a rapid prototyping tool. How does Fireworks helps you in your daily design?
  I find all aspects of Fireworks to be useful for my work. Like most users I use it for making detailed designs but I also use it for creating wireframes and export those as PDFs in order to allow clients to focus on the text and copy portions of the design.

  I really believe that making websites requires a process of continual improvement and I believe that Fireworks is the best tool for the process. It saves me so much time at work everyday.

   

  What is your favorite workflow in Fireworks and why?
  I find Fireworks to be most enjoyable when I am able to use it to turn the designs in my head into reality. The moment when it turns from an idea into a real design makes me happy. I have a lot of styles that I have registered as favorites and I can quickly use those to create my designs.

   

  If you can only list 5 favorite best features in Fireworks, what will they be?

  

  The features I like most are:
  

  1. Style
  2. Patterns/Textures
  3. Pages
  4. Twist and Fade
  5. Autoshop Star Tool

  With Twist and Fade I can make designs like this quite easily:
  http://fw.v-colors.com/band-site-design-fireworks.html

   

  

  With the Star Tool I can make many patterns and it is incredibly useful. You can see my process here:
  http://fw.v-colors.com/fireworks-star-tool-tips.html

   

  Many people compare Photoshop with Fireworks. What is your viewpoint in this?
  I think both Fireworks and Photoshop are great applications but in many ways they are based on different concepts.

  Photoshop is great for editing photos and I think it is great for that purpose, but for creating pages and slicing them in order to turn them into HTML I think Fireworks is a much better tool. I don't really think it is that important for me to compare the two applications in great detail and I use both of them based on their strengths.

   

  Fireworks work even better with fireworks extensions.  What are your favorite extensions from other developers and how do you use it in your work?
  I enjoy the extensions for Autoshaping. One of my favorites is Sunburst. 
  When I want a design to impart some impact this extension is really convenient.

   

  Do you develop your own Fireworks commands?
  I haven't created any extensions yet but I'm thinking of creating a useful Auto shape extension in the near future.

   

  Are you involved with any communities on the web?

  

  I participate in a Fireworks user community in Japan called Fireworks Lover J.

  I also participate in a lot of other communities. I'm a big fan of
  WordPress and I have given presentations at many WordCamps.

  We just had a big event called Myojo Waraku here in Fukuoka. http://myojowaraku.net/

  We had some guests come from outside of Japan. We will hold this event again next year and we really want people from all over the world to join the event and promote Fukuoka to the world. It's a great city in Japan and one of the most livable cities in the world.

   

  Do you have a Fireworks tip for the Fireworks community?
  On the Fireworks Mania site I have written many tips about how to use Fireworks. Unfortunately the site is only in Japanese but many of the tips are simple and should be easy to understand by looking at the screen captures. http://fw.v-colors.com/

   

  Do you have a blog? Where can we find you?

  

  My portfolio site and blog can be seen at the following urls:

  Portfolio
  http://yuki930.v-colors.com/

  Blog
  http://blog.v-colors.com/

  Twitter
  https://twitter.com/#!/yuki930

  Facebook
  http://www.facebook.com/FireworksMania

  I also have a bunch of other sites that I manage so please take a look at them if you have time. I designed all of them with Fireworks(and WordPress ;-)).

  http://photo.v-colors.com/
  http://pick.v-colors.com/
  http://labo.v-colors.com/
  http://www.v-colors.com/
  http://wallpaper.v-colors.com/
  http://machiuke.v-colors.com/
  http://ipad.v-colors.com/

   

  Thanks for the opportunity to talk you, Yuki.  Last question, any advice to the designers out there exploring Fireworks?
  The more I learn about Fireworks the more I feel it is an amazingly useful application. Even though I have been using it thoroughly for 6+ years I am still finding out new and useful ways of using it everyday.

  I hope everyone else can enjoy using Fireworks as much as I do and I hope everyone can learn new ways of using Fireworks and share what they have discovered with the Fireworks community.

  • 3 December 2011
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Connecting the World with Fireworks

Click and drag the "Yellow Guy" icon located above the zoom slider onto the google map. Blue overlay areas allow you to see street map view! Have Fun!