Interview with JR Fabito
Creator, Paper Critters

Who are you?

My name’s JR Fabito and I’m the creator of Paper Critters. Paper Critters is an online application for creating and sharing paper toys.

Where are you based?

I’m originally from the San Francisco Bay Area but I’m currently living and working in Los Angeles.

What do you do?

If you’re referring to my job, then I work in digital marketing, getting paid to make fun, cool, and creative stuff, doing interactive design and development. But I also do lots of other things as well, like illustration, designing toys, playing video games (adventure and FPS), and reading comics.

What do you love?

I love life, the world, my family and friends.

How and when did the paper critters site evolve?

It came to me when I was reading an art magazine about character design. In it, there was this entire section on creating designer toys from paper, not plastic. And at that moment, I thought it would be cool to create a web site where anyone could create a paper toy. I was trying to come up with an innovative idea for my master’s thesis project in New Media and I thought an online paper toy creator would be unique, fun, and cool.

What tools were use to make the site?

For software I used Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash and Autodesk 3D Studio Max. As for computer languages, I used Actionscript, PHP, MySQL, Javascript, XML, HTML, and CSS. I also used an open-source Flash 3D engine called Papervision 3D.

What has been the trick to maintaining an online presence?

First gaining that presence was the difficult part. My goal to first promote the site was simply to send it to a few niche blogs and aggregators on papercrafting and Flash design and let it just spread from there. I was also very confident and proud of the end result of the web site and I submitted it to a few competitions and I was fortunate enough to win a few (like the SXSW Interactive ‘Student’ award) which gained me more exposure.

In order to maintain an online presence, I plan on improving and updating the site by adding more tools and artwork for creating Paper Critters. And perhaps in a future version of the site, I could add more paper models you can design on.

Top 5 websites:

I have too many, but these are sites I frequent the most:

Google

CNET

del.icio.us

Hulu

Lostpedia

What gets you through the day?

My iPhone, Internet, music, coffee in the morning, and tea throughout the day.

What are your tips for aspiring internet gurus?

LEARN, LEARN, and LEARN. Be a SPONGE! With everything you learn, you’ll have more tools for unique projects on the Internet. This is very general advice but as a designer and a developer, I’m constantly having to do something new and I wouldn’t be able to do that if I always stick to what I currently know.

Final Words?

Thanks again for the opportunity and lovegeek ROCKS \m/ !