Today it’s time to interview our FXStreet’s Designer. We want to present you Marina, who is in charge of generating creative materials responding effectively and timely to the needs of the IT department. Marina has a cheerful attitude and loves music more than anything. Discover how is for her working at FXStreet and how music became Marina’s heartbeat.
Marina at work
How does a day in the life of the Designer at FXStreet look?
When I arrive at the office I turn on the computer and I check the emails. I have breakfast in front of it and I drink a hot tea. Then, I look what tasks I have to do and the priority of them. Sometimes I go to several meetings but not every day. Each day is different because I design a lot of things: for social media, FXStreet campaigns, for our partners, videos, photography, web design, newsletters and so on. So every day is a new day 🙂
What do you like the best about your job?
I like three things: the people who work here, being available to work listening to music and that sometimes I can do a different kind of visual tasks like photography, image edition, landing pages, code, etc. It’s a nice job 🙂
What do you like the least about your job?
I don’t like the days when I’m stressed because suddenly a lot of tasks appear and I have to work on them on the same day. Sometimes people think that designing is quick and easy and it’s not like that!
On the other hand, working under pressure is good but not so often because I could die because of a heart attack! haha
If you were not a Designer, what would you like to do for a living?
I would like to dedicate my life to music. I don’t know if it would be singing but for sure it would be a job related to music. A few years ago, I was the singer of a band called The Propers where we used to played ska & early reggae music.
Here there are two sample videos, one singing alone and the demo that we posted of our first album.
Animated gifs are often used in internal emails among collaborators at FXStreet… share with us a gif that you particularly like!
We almost all put our headphones on when working here at the office. What do you usually listen to?
Mmm…it’s difficult to answer that question because I listen to a lot of different music. It depends on the day and the way how I feel. Lately I’ve been listening from the Ramones to Sam Cooke. By the way, I listen to a lot of Jamaican music.
Your favorite bands of the moment?
It’s a difficult question too because most of the singers that I like are dead haha. But today there is some good music (in my opinion), like The Skints, The Cabrians, Leon Bridges, The Upsttemians,…
My favorite salsa band is El Gran Combo de Puerto Rico. They began a long time ago but they are still making good music.
Any weird habit you have when working?
I don’t know…singing too loud sometimes? haha
What are the software, websites or tools you mostly use at work? What for?
There are three that I use more than the others; Photoshop, Illustrator and Sublime Text. Photoshop is for editing images and to make them looking better. It works with pixels (px).
Illustrator is a vector program, I use it when I need more precision, to create icons or when I have to work with typography. It’s very useful.
I use Sublime Text for coding HTML or CSS. Usually, I design and write in code all the structure of newsletters for example or I add/change styles from our website.
Marina in her personal life
What do you typically do when you get out of the office?
I usually go to the gym a couple of hours or I go dancing with my crew. I don’t have time to do anything else. Over the weekend, I go to concerts and on Sundays I usually have to study for a course of HTML5 and CSS3.
Do you have a specific hobby?
My hobby and a half part of what I am is music. I love music, singing, dancing and djing. I’m a vinyl collector, specialized in Jamaican music (from 50’s to 80’s: calypso, ska, rocksteady, early dancehall…), but interested in black music in general. I love 50’s and 60’s, early rock’n’roll, doo-wop, gospel, soul and blues.
On the other hand, I was born and raised in the Canary Islands, and that’s why I love latin music, from 60’s boogaloo to merengue, salsa, champeta and cumbia.
Do you have a pet? Share a picture of it!
No, I don’t 🙁 But in my head there is my future pet, his name is Coco because it will be dark, grey and white. Say hello to Coco 😛
What are your holiday plans in the upcoming months?
This month I’m going to Chile for two weeks. Even that my dream is going to Jamaica one of these days 😛
What are your favorite websites? Do not say FXStreet 😉
One of my favorite sites is Pordede and not because it’s about design. I like it because I use it almost every day. There are a lot of films or series online for free, a lot of them in VO. This is the website that appeared after Series.ly disappeared. You can find everything you want there!
What is the last movie you’ve watched. Would you recommend it?
God Bless America. I saw it because someone recommended it to me a few months ago and I think that it is a hilarious film because it shows several things we should think about the current society, the way we are educating monsters instead of persons. Sometimes I feel like the lead actor and I dream with killing people that I think that should be dead xD.
A sport you like to practice?
In the first place, I love dancing because when you dance you can become the person you want in that moment, you can feel it and express yourself through the music. Also, I like doing activities like Body Combat or Body Pump in the gym.
Do you support the Barça? If not, dare to say which football team you support… if any
I’m against modern football, so I can’t say too much about that. I see it as a powerful multinational with a lot of money and political power. I don’t understand the sentiment when a half of the team are from other countries. It began because of the need of playing and representing your own place and I think that now a lot of these principles have been forgotten. For me, it is the opium of the people.