Ricardo Vivian

Graphic design is thought of all day and night, in the mind of Ricardo Calvi Vivian, a 20-year-old student, representing the city of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. He is competing in the WorldSkills Competition which is an important world-wide competition that focuses on professional education. This year, the competition will be held in Leipzig, Germany, on July 2 – 7, 2013. Ricardo has been training for six days a week, from 8:00am to 5:00pm in the unit of the National Service for Industrial Training (SENAI) in São Paulo. On Ricardo's days off, he goes to museums and attends art workshops, in the capital of São Paulo, in search of learning more about the great masters of design and theoretical knowledge.

Ricardo's daily training is to analyze and complete the levels of a project already sent by WorldSkills organization. "On the test, we have four projects total. One of them will be randomly selected for the competition," says Ricardo. The projects selected for the test are unknown to competitors. "The projects are always a surprise".

The world of the tournaments for professional education is new for Ricardo. “I joined SENAI in Porto Alegre three years ago, in the course of pre-printing. I distinguished myself in graphic design, which is part of the course, and after finishing the course I was invited to participate in the state stage of the Knowledge Olympics,” he says. The Olympics is a competition organized by SENAI throughout the country, with a state stage and a national stage. This is to measure the level of education of the schools and select competitors for the WorldSkills competition.

Ricardo won the state stage and shared the gold medal in the National Knowledge Olympics with another student, Paulo. The tiebreaker was in January this year and Ricardo won. Since then, he has been training for the technical level test in May, and for the WorldSkills. "When I was in a tie at the Olympics that is when I became more confident. I saw that I had the ability to win. Now, I'm going for gold in Germany," he says confidently.

The training sessions are led by his Expert Guilherme Vieira who won the silver medal in the WorldSkills London 2011. "The training here in São Paulo is much stronger. I'm having more contact with teachers, with more tests. It is a bit different than what I was used to in Rio Grande do Sul" he says. According to Ricardo, the Italian and the French are his main opponents. "They have a tradition in this area and they are very well prepared. If I can beat them, then the gold medal is going to be close" he says.