Dave Gámez

AS Heroes Interviews — By Pablo on April 16, 2010 at 18:57

http://www.swfgeek.net

Dave Gámez

- How would you introduce yourself and your job to a non-technical person?

My name is Dave Gamez ( a.k.a. swfgeek) and I am a person in constant search of new experiences and new things to learn, I can say that work on what I like and I like on what work. I am a person easy to deal with and happy to meet more people with the same interests than me.

My job is one thing, make my work goes unnoticed. if at the end of the day a user of a site or application that I have developed takes home a pleasant experience without stopping to think how it was done then I think that my work is well done. In Grupo W, I work as a Senior Flash Developer and my job goes from simple banners to developing rich experience sites. outside of work I’m constantly experimentation on both the development as in my illustration projects. The great thing about my job is that I don’t feel that I’m working is always challenging and fun and there’s not a single day that I don’t learn something new.

- How did you get started with Flash?

The way I started to work in Flash is a somewhat funny. As mentioned I’ve always done design and illustration so it would seem strange how I devote much of my time to the programming. It all started in 1998 in Mexico internet began to make enough noise and there was no customer who did not want a website. My girlfriend and I started doing websites and all customers talked about the terrific Flash 3 and the “great” animated intros, a friend introduced me to Flash as a tool for vector animation.Both my girl and I where designers and illustrators so one way or another I started to put the gotoAndPlay (“intro”) in our work and gradually the side of development was nice enough for me and somehow I found it very similar to the design when I’m programming in front of my computer I feel the same as when I get to draw on paper and that was how I began to develop in Flash.

- Who or what is your inspiration?

I find inspiration in most things, first of all in my family and my children most of the time I learn more from them than they can learn from me. Coming from the field of illustration and design I always spend time looking at things around me, people, nature, city, objects and it is these small details that might go unnoticed where I find the biggest source of ideas and inspiration and this served me well for the development side of my brain too. The Flash community and devotion of the people involved in it inspires me every day, their desire to create and share new ideas is very interesting and inspiring for me.

- What does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day for me is to get up about 6:00 am take my children to school, back to my house to have a coffee while reading my email and some blogs if I can sleep a while longer and then walk to Group W, which is half a block from my house, once there I check the tasks that I have for the day, open Flash and start programming, I go home at 2:00 pm to eat with my family back at 3:00 p.m. and if the project that I am working on no longer demands more time I leave the office at 7:00 p.m. I get home spend time with my kids until they sleep and start working on my illustration projects with my girlfriend and usually end my day and between 1:00 am and 2:00 am. Off course this may change depending on the workload and if I’m not out of the city doing some exhibition or workshop.

- What are your thoughts about the Flash community in general, what do you like or what would you like to see change?

I hardly change something about the Flash community, is one of the most proactive and interesting communities that I know in the field, as mentioned they are always willing to learn or help someone who needs it, they are always aware of what is happening not just around the Flash Platform but of what is happening on other platforms and new media as well. The only thing I feel that must be done or improved is that the growing gap between designer and developer does not get more extensive, as the tool has evolved is more difficult for someone without programming knowledge learn something about Flash development. So I always try to keep those two parts the way they were at first and that if they have not been in this way Flash would not be in the place that is now.

– How do you see the future for yourself and for the Flash Platform?

In my personal future I hope to achieve something I’ve always wanted to do, that it is to integrate in some way my developer side with illustrator side by mixing the two parts to create unique experiences and feelings in the people that get in contact with my work, that would be the best thing that could happen to me.

And in the future of the Flash Platform I see that it will keep evolving in the exponential way that has been doing it in recent years it will leave the desktop computer as it’s main target and expand to new devices not only TV or cell phone but in the objects we use every day, until they don’t lose focus on the objective of constantly make end-users feel good and amazed with the products and experiences created with it. And with that I am not trying to tell that it’s going to overshadow or be overshadowed by any other technology as long as we maintain the idea of making the end user happy no matter which means Flash Platform will be there.

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