This month we bring you James Mathias. Aside from being a very interesting character to follow professionally and personally through his website, he’s one of the most intriguing and inventive designers we’ve seen in a while. The way he weaves good design with illustration and witty writing just keeps us hooked to his work. I think you’ll agree once you check him out at his website leihu.com.

How or where do you find inspiration?
All around me. Nature, magazines, my family’s smiles, the freeway, architecture, music, books, movies, the gym, hospital, the gas station. Literally everywhere I look I see art.

Who is the biggest influence on your work right now?
Me. What I mean to say is that I drive my designs to be as unique and new as I can based on the last thing I did. I’m constantly trying to top myself. It’s a compete against yourself scenario. It’s worked well for the last eight years.

Where are your “design roots”? Print or Web?
Illustration, I’ve been artistic since I was very young. Web design came along and I was fascinated from the opening html tag. I couldn’t imagine filling my days any other way.

How important is it to know the history of design?
To me, not at all important. That’s not to say it doesn’t have value or merit, just for me, it doesn’t hold any weight.

Serif or Sans?
I really love faces set in both families. So please don’t make me choose.

Do you code and design? Are you a “Hybrid”?
Yes, I write my own code, including PHP and MySQL and I create designs from scratch including illustrations, icons and brands.

What’s your favorite part of the creative process?
The production stage.

What makes your creative process different from everybody else?
No idea. I’m not very interested in processes, I tend to have a more free flowing process. It’s basicly: Listen, Create, Build, Gather Smiles.

What do you see as the single biggest shift in the evolution of design over the past 5 years?
HTML including blog specific semantic tags, that is at once an evolution and a really stupid move.

What’s the difference between User Experience and User Interface design?
User Experience is how it works, User Interface is how it looks.

What makes one a web design professional?
A salary, work ethic and skills. Pretty much the same thing that makes anyone a professional anything.

What are designers/developers doing right (or wrong) in the web 2.0 world?
Not taking personal responsibility for their work or projects, lying about their skill-sets and wasting time.

What’s your favorite flavor of design or development programs/languages?
I like PHP/MySQL. I use textmate and Adobe to build these things.

What is your favorite book?
Anything by Chuck Palahnuik.

What is your favorite movie?
I really enjoy Sci Fi and Horror films, but lately I’m been dissapointed by most films in those genres. My current favorite movie is Star Trek.

Who is your favorite musical artist (or What musical artist are you listening to the most right now?)
The Features, Marrow & The Broken Bones, How I Became The Bomb, Amos Lee, The Avett Brothers

James is an artist, writer & outlaw working and playing in Nashville, Tennessee. He has spent the last eight years building websites for clients of all shapes and sizes, makes and models. Currently working as an Art Director at Paramore|Redd Online Marketing in The Gulch area of downtown Nashville. Read more about James at his website.

Be sure to follow James on Twitter @jmathias.