Modena, July 13th, 2022

Fabio Carretti is a Creative Technologist at Paper Tiger as well as a freelancer, based in Modena, Italy. In an interview with TIA, he described his career path in the industry and what does a regular day look like in his shoes.

He also highlighted the creative culture of Paper Tiger, a New Jersey based agency, where robust collaboration, fluid communication, and going above and beyond are the norm, and he gave some examples of recent work he was involved in.

To kick things off, in your opinion what’s the best thing about Modena?

I was born and still living here mostly because there’s no place like home; but to be honest, it’s definitely not in the first 5 places I’d recommend to someone visiting Italy for the first time. Tourists come here to see things related to Ferrari, food/wine and I guess to hang out in the old town (which is okay-ish, but basically just like almost every Italian city).

When did you realize you wanted to pursue a career in this industry?

I can clearly remember when, during junior high, the CS teacher gave us a “web development” test (which was a super basic HTML page with some CSS), it was 2006 so you know, things were still in the early days. Long story short I found everything like SUPER easy and I figured out that might be the path to take, just a couple years later I started doing MySpace pages (yeah, I’m that old) for local bands, then international bands started to ask me about that and the rest is history.

What’s a regular day like in Fabio’s shoes?

I wake up pretty late in the morning, like 9 or something, have a walk with my dog in the countryside, do my powerlifting workout or work a couple hours and then, after cooking and eating lunch, I start working. I mostly never take days off – including weekends I mean – because I’ve always found easier to distribute work on 7 days with a chill approach, rather than dying in pain squeezing everything in 5 or less.

Also, when I’m on tour I take advantage of the huge amount of time off you got while travelling – which is like 90% of the whole day – to work or/and study to improve my skills. Web development is not about reaching a goal and be cool about it, it’s more an endless run towards self-improvement.

How would you describe the creative culture of Paper Tiger?

I’d say we try to push it to the limit every chance we got. Needless to say, not every project is suitable for a crazy approach, and level of creativity must go accordingly to the client’s scope. Things go from a nice and clean Saas to the overwhelming insanity Sizzer is, and everything in between.

What does your role as Creative Technologist consist of?

Without being too romantic about that, I’d say it’s pretty much about jumping on a project which is 80% done (like with all the pages and structure already built), and figuring out some wizardry to add creativity and interactions to the whole thing.

Can you walk me through your development process?

I usually start spending some time on client’s assets, trying to find something in the brand identity in general I could use as a benchmark to start developing animations and interactions that stick to that look and feel. If not, I just go with the “I think that’s cool” approach; always worked like a charm!

What steps have you put in place to guarantee innovation on the projects developed?

Every day I check Awwwards/Twitter/SiteInspire/Muzli to see what’s going on, and what people I like around the world are doing with their projects. Being cutting edge is a key to be successful in the field.

Tell us about a recent project you’ve worked on that you’re proud of. Which was the greatest challenge?

Sizzer was definitely what challenged me the most in the last months. We had basically total freedom from the client, a great brief coming from an astonishing work their banding agency did, content was awesome, images were incredible so…you know, I’d call it best case scenario. Greatest challenge here was taking the logo animation the branding agency did, and then making it something doable and well performing on a web page; that process wore me down a bit and it was incredibly hard, but the outcome speaks by itself. Definitely one of the best things I’ve ever done in my whole career.

How does the process of creating your own brand as a freelancer go?

I’ve always felt like I had to be 100% me; I’m a very bold person, I just can’t live with compromises and I don’t care about people to like me. This might sound harsh, and it will piss off 19 people out of 20, but that 1 person will look for you and will want you, because it’s you. Leaders, not followers.

Which types of clients do you find especially interesting?

Music related clients are always my favs, but in terms of which type of design I love to code I’d definitely go with architectural clients.

What’s an interesting trend you’ve observed lately?

If you’ve been in the game for long enough, you’ll just see things come and go in an endless cycle of existence; by the way I’d say that what I like the most usually falls in the Swiss design mood, or something close to that.

How would you describe the digital industry in Modena compared to other major cities or design capitals?

I would describe it as one of the places in the world where things could be the best, but are actually the worst. I tried everything to find space here, but after years of struggling I just left and started working with the US and sometimes people around Europe; I’d love to work with local shops, but the work culture here is just toxic and wrong.

What do you like doing in your free time?

Being alone with my dog, lifting heavy weights in my homegym, blasting vinyls in my studio when it’s dark outside, touring with Hierophant. I guess I’m not a very social person at all.

Thanks Fabio!

> Follow Fabio on social media:

Fabio’s website

Twitter

LinkedIn

Instagram

> Learn more about Paper Tiger here

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