Today I had the chance to interview Na Wong, one of the most famous icon and UI designer around.

Na currently lives in Hong Kong and is working for Sourcebits.

You can find his official website here.

Enjoy! ;)

Hi there! Can you please introduce yourself to MacStories readers?

I live in Hong Kong, which is a small crowded city. I’ve been working as a graphic designer since 2000.

How did you interest in design - especially icon design - get started?

I became interested in drawing when I was a kid, but I found I could not draw as well as the girls in the class, then I started to fall in love with designing. I started as a freelancer after I learned some web design techniques myself, and finally found my first job as a designer later.

I got interested in icon design after I owned my first Mac, and discovered MacThemes. I learned a lot from the community, and from trying to make my very first icon there.

What would be a typical process for you when starting out a new design project?

Typically, for design, I start drawing rough ideas on paper, until I find one or two which I feel are the best. Then I start to draw more detailed sketches based on these selected ideas.

The final result of the icons is usually not that much different from the detailed sketch, except for some texture or lighting.

Where do you find inspiration?

I love collecting icons, so I have a big icon collection on my computer and I get inspirited from them. Google Image and Flickr search help me a lot on many projects.

Has Mac OS changed the way you design / work?

The way to design on a Mac is not much different I guess than using Windows. But there are many useful apps that simplify the way you work. For working on a website for example, you can’t live without CSSEdit. For Mac OS X itself, Spaces and Expose helped me a lot to organize the workflow.

Which apps do you use most to create your works?

For almost all design works, I use Photoshop. For icon design, I use Illustrator sometimes.

Do you have a “favourite” icon among the ones you’ve designed?

I don’t have a favourite one, as I love most of them, they are like my babies.

Can you please describe us your workstation?

Currently using iMac 24” (2.8 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo with 2GB Ram) with default keyboard and mighty mouse.

Can you tell something about your future releases?

I don’t have a plan here, maybe the never finished Carton Box Stacks Icon.