Interview with Pizero from Pizero.net

Hello and welcome to our Interview Series, today is a very special day as we bring you one of the most famous themers in the Symbian community. He does not need a big introduction, he is known throughout the globe, he has had millions of downloads and his name is synonymous with amazing graphics, he has brought life to countless of old symbian devices and taken newer devices to new aesthetic heights. Nokia Mobile Talk is proud to bring you one of the world most renowned themers, without further ado, I present to you Pizero.

NMT welcomes Pizero from Pizero.net

Pizero.net just registered 2,000,000 visitors and 8,000,000 page views, is this amazing or what

Tell us a little about your background and what lead you to start developing Symbian themes?

Many years ago (I think it was in 2003) I developed some very simple themes for my Sony Ericsson phone. I made and uploaded them to a community website I can’t even remember the name. it was funny and they got some hundreds of downloads. It was the very first time I made themes for a mobile phone. In 2006, I bought my first Symbian device, a N70. I used to download hundreds of themes, mainly from P@sco and Babi. After some months, after I got my n73, I tried to make some custom themes at Ownskin.com. The themes were good to me, and I posted them on some forums. People liked them so much, that I decided to start doing more “serious” themes using the Carbide.ui tool from Nokia, but I remember it was very hard to use, and my poor Pc was not able to run it correctly. I started my own website short after, just as P@sco and Babi did, and with the earnings from the first 6 months of Google Adsense I bought a new computer, that I currently use to run Carbide! So, as you can see I’ve not made any studies related to graphics! Every thing I know I’ve learnt it by myself by observing other people’s work, and reading tons of tutorials!

How much time did it take to develop your themes, as far as coding the actual theme and which programming language was used?

Developing a symbian theme takes hours of work, and it’s not easy at all. When I started my blog, I was able to develop a theme in a couple of hours. But month after month I increased the quality of my themes, I began to skin more elements with complex graphics, to build icons, to enhance details, and that means increasing the time needed to release a theme. Today, the time needed to build a theme without icons can vary from one theme to another, but normally it takes to me between 10 and 30 hours to complete a new theme. Building a complete icon pack however, takes much more than that. To develop themes, you don’t need to be a programmer or to know a programming language because Cabide.ui does the coding and. Actually, I’m using Carbide.ui 3.4 from Nokia to build the theme, and the Adobe CS3 suite, plus Inskcape to make the graphics. The main tool used is Adobe Illustrator, that I use to design the svg files that are part of a theme.

Can you share for our readers what developing is on the horizon especially with these new devices coming soon?

It was not easy to switch to the 5th edition of Symbian, as the new version brings many changes in the interface to be skinned, and unfortunately, it increases by a great number the elements to skin. Moreover, each new device released brings additional components, and I must “study” every new addition to keep my themes up to date with the latest technology. Currently I’m working hard on my new Premium Themes that are being released on my website and also in the Ovi Store by Nokia. Of course, I will also keep publishing free themes as usual!

What are your favorite Symbian applications can you list your top 5 and why you like them?

I cannot live without email. So far, I tried the built-in email client from Nokia, the Nokia messaging and Profimail from Lonelycatgames. Even if the Nokia Messaging is performing well, Profimail is in my opinion the greatest app for Symbian. Other applications that I use daily are Joikuspot, to connect my laptop to the internet without cables, Accuweather, a great free weather application, Slick from Lonely Cat Games, another free app, used to connect to yahoo, gtalk and msn. Another great application is Y-browser, a free file manager from DrJukka. Oh, I’m also using Gravity as a mobile twitter client. I think I’ve mentioned more than 5!

What’s your favorite theme from your collection?

Psycho has been my favourite teme for a long time. I’ve been using it on my primary phone for nearly an year; but now, it has been replaced by my new Premium Theme, Pulsar. I’m using it since a couple of months and I’m still enjoying it like the first day. (and believe me, I get bored very fast of nearly every theme!) Other favourite themes from my collection are the New Gold, DarkStar ’09, New Style, Mystic.

Which Themes do you enjoy that are not yours?

Touch by Yan Flahorn, Atmosphere and many others by Babi, Shine by Dhanusaud, Reflex by Rugge, and nearly all the themes by the master of themers, P@sco. These are my favourite thememakers. And, last but not least, Qi from Tekh7, is just amazing.

What Theme do you want to develop that you have not had time to start?

Soooo many

Which Nokia phones have you used in the past?

My very first mobile phone was a Nokia 5110, the one with changeable coloubed cover. A present from ym parents for my birthday. Later, I owned also Nokia 3210, 6210, and after some years I returned to Nokia with the marvellous N70, then the N73 that was the first phone used to make themes. In last year, after my blog was started, I used a wide range of Nokia phones some mine and some borrowed from my friends: N95 8gb, N96, and actually I’m using an E75 and a Nokia 5800 XM

What are your two favorite Nokia smartphone of all time and which Nokia smartphone are looking forward to use?

It’s difficult to tell, phones are evolving so fast! but I think the best phone used in the past is the Nokia 6210, a business series phone that I used since 2001, and that, even today, still works great! In recent times, the best was the N95 8Gb. I just sold it to save for the new N97

What is your favorite color, movie, music band, and sport?

I used to like blue very much. But, after working on design for 2 years now, I learned that the colur itself is not that important, but it’s how it is combined with other colours that count.
My Favourite movie is A Clockwork Orange by Stanley Kubrick. I don’t have a real favourite music band, I like listening to good music whoever is the performer. However, I could say U2 as a band and Michael Jackson as an individual. For what concerns sports, I am a big fan of AC Milan and football in general. Unfortunately I’m not so good at playing football, so I prefer swimming and playing table tennis.

Pizero, thank you so much, it was a lot fun or Grazie Pizero, è stato divertente

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