Why We Love Our Job: Great Stories From Creatives All Around The Globe Part II

Hello and welcome to the Part II of this month’s Creative Talks!

As I have already mentioned in Part I, appreciation is a healing activity, and spreading your appreciation to others is also thought-provoking. What do I mean? Well, when I hear somebody saying how they love their job, it makes me think about my reasons for enjoying what I do.

That’s actually the idea behind these Creative Talks: spreading heartfelt stories about your incentives and creative journeys. Expressing myself through visuals and having the ability to draw for a living are only some of my reasons. Still, I wonder what motivates other people to work in the creative industry. We’ve asked the following questions to find out more about it:

• How did you realize that design or/and illustration is your passion? 
• What is the best part about being creative?
• Why do you love your job?

If you are new here, Creative Talks is a rubric powered by Approval Studio, where we ask designers, illustrators, and other creative people to talk about their experience and opinions on different subjects. Some of the previous articles include topics about design approval, design collaboration, and the influence of the pandemic. 

Alvaro Polo at Alpoher Studio – Graphic Designer & 3D Artist

Alvaro Polo‘s Behance

I realized design was my passion a few years ago, maybe 6 or 7. I have always been interested in it, but I was too young and uninformed to know what design was all about. 

Being a creative person gives me freedom, an ability to express, and get away from the common daily struggle. Having the chance to create and design for people or just for myself is one of the best feelings. Creating something just from a thought or from something I saw during my commute to work – it is just great.

The main reason I love my job is best described with one sentence I’ve once heard: “You love your work when you do it for 8 hours, get home and spend another 8 doing it for your own self”.

Andrés Higueros – Art Director

Andrés Higueros’ Website and Behance 

I think my first thought about the design was in my first typography class at the University. I remember when I understood the typography anatomy and how they were used on all the brands, my mind exploded. Since that day, I decided to explore more about typography design and also branding. I think the passion becomes stronger with the time that I understand the design better. 

I think every single human is a creative person. In my personal experience, being creative is very cool because you can find your own way to see things. When you are so deep in the creative element, you are more vulnerable to taking inspiration from anything you are passionate about, everything you see. 

I love my job because I love to know the strong power that design has in people. If we talk about business branding, I really love how we can create a big brand identity design with a little idea. I think my favorite part of my job is seeing the final result of each project and seeing how our minds can make it possible.  

Giannis Gougoulias at Beetroot – Graphic Design Studio

Beetroot Studio’s Website and Behance

We are a group of 17 people, so we have quite the collection of completely different stories and experiences varying from those who just knew from a young age that they would study and work on communication design to late creative bloomers. One is for sure, having a design passion is not something you can force on someone.

The best part about being creative is the moments when we fulfill our creative mission, which is to discover, develop and utilize the true essence of an idea, service, or product and then grow and expand it to something bigger that becomes recognized, appreciated, and praised all around the globe. Being productive and able to make something out of nothing is what steers our efforts. There is nothing more satisfying than seeing a realized project of yours.

Penko Gelev – Illustrator & Comics Artist

Penko Gelev’s Website and Behance 

I do not remember the exact moment of realization that illustration is my passion. It seems to me that there was no definite moment of awareness. I’ve always drawn. Some time ago, I found a drawing that I had drawn as a four-year-old, and it was definitely not my first drawing. I mean, I didn’t focus on drawing. I’ve always known that drawing is what I do. Drawing illustrations also came naturally. It may be due to my love for literature. I am one of the people who read a lot.

The best part of being a creative person is Freedom. The freedom to organize your own life. Freedom not to rush anywhere. The freedom not to know what you will do the next day. I do a lot of different things, and I don’t see myself as an illustrator only. I also work as a designer; I write film scripts. Lately, I’ve been doing 3D animation. My job makes me happy. It gives me time. It gives me time to understand people. It gives me opportunities to go through happiness, sorrow, love, and disappointment. It also gives me peace of mind and keeps my curiosity. So I hope to live to a great age, to have a huge, light studio in which I will paint large oil paintings, wearing a dressing-gown all day long.

Nick Zaychenko – Motion Designer & Animator

Nick Zaychenko’s Behance

I realized that I was doing what I loved when I noticed that I was not waiting for the end of the working week. The best thing about being creative is that you always have a huge selection of methods and solutions, and they depend only on your current skills and goals.

I love my work for a variety of projects. Today you make an explainer video, then a music video, stickers for the Telegram, help a colleague with a unique personal project. 

I also love it for being part of a creative process that involves people working for the same purpose as you. It’s a special treat when the animations you make are voiced. And finally, I love it for the opportunity to show your work to many people around the world.

Design approval process takes so much time that there is nothing left for creative work? Approval Studio is here to help you! 4 comparison modes, on-image annotations, live chat, and many more features will assure that there will be less of going back-and-forth with your client and more of doing what you actually like.

Stavros Kypraios at Faze – Brand Design & Illustration Studio

Faze’s Website and Behance 

I’ve been drawing characters since forever. As I was growing up, I’d find myself designing CD covers inspired by the music of each CD. We didn’t have the internet back then to google the band’s cover and print it to cover my empty verbatim CD cases. I loved creating little illustrated books and hand binding them but didn’t know that there was a job that does what I loved doing. It wasn’t until my first year in college that I was so lucky to bump across a 2-year course on graphic design taught at a college in my hometown. That was when I fell in love with design and illustration and never looked back.

The best part of the creative industry is that we need to connect deeply with people and find the best creative solution for their product’s needs. Getting always to meet different people, brands, and products from different areas of the world or industries excites me the most! I often say that designers do the best job in the world cause we have to learn all the jobs in the world to really communicate their message the best way.

Thomke Meyer – Illustrator

Thomke Meyer’s Website and Behance 

It sounds like a cliché, but I had a preference for drawing for as long as I can remember. As a child, I drew all the time in school, and then I went to a free art school, where I later attended life drawing courses and free art courses. For me, it was always clear that I wanted to do something with art. In the beginning, I wanted to become an art teacher  (because I didn’t know about other jobs) then a freelance artist, and when I realized that my interests were more in the illustrative field (and I was rejected three times at art universities), I got the idea to become an illustrator and applied to HAW in Hamburg, where I will soon finish my MA Illustration.

I love to be able to divide my time freely and work on projects that I enjoy. For me, jobs for magazines, advertising, or newspapers are as fulfilling as my own projects. I like that people come up to me with an idea, I work on it for a short time, and then the project is finished. My own projects are a bit more lengthy, and I have to set my own framework, so I find the variety especially pleasant.

I like that I can do what I want to do for the most part and live my life in a way I have always liked. The most beautiful moment is when I am finished with the sketch and need only to take care of the final artwork. Then I turn on an audiobook or podcast and just sit at my desk in peace and do my work.

Even when my job is more strenuous than it sounds (I often can’t get ahead because of my perfectionism and don’t feel like it and have to kick myself in the ass because I’m my own boss), I would never want to swap it for another job.

Mach Studio – Creative Studio

Mach Studio’s Website and Behance 

Each team member has entered the industry at different times, but we all have the same beliefs in common: the tireless search for new aesthetics and the mixture of art, design, and technology to find new experiences.

The opportunity to create, imagine, and make ideas tangible is the best part of working in the creative industry. It is a work of exploration and adventure. And when you are on top as a team, the sum of all the energies makes the experience much more valuable.

We love beauty, we love technology, and we love that they are separate infinite fields. Our mission is to play with them independently or mix them (right part of the brain + left part of the brain). We love knowing that it is an infinite field where we could spend a lifetime finding different results.

Mine Uribe at Super Magic Friend – Design Studio

Super Magic Friend’s Behance and Instagram 

I’m not really sure, but I think it’s a kind of heritage from my mom, she is neither a designer nor an artist, but she has a great talent. She always drew amazing girls for me with different outfits in order to entertain me at breakfast time, so I think I just follow and imitate her.

In the words of Hal Riney: “The frightening and most difficult thing about being what somebody calls a creative person is that you have absolutely no idea where any of your thoughts come from, really. And especially, you don’t have any idea about where they’re gonna come from tomorrow.”

Creative business is a really hard business! I think the best part it’s also the most difficult one: searching for inspiration… in every project, we have to work hard looking for that clever idea, and it’s not easy at all. We don’t have a formula or a manual. Every brand is unique, special, and has its own challenges. That is the most exciting (and frightening) part of our job.

One of the main reasons for loving my job is that we can connect with many people worldwide. Our motto is to make new friends instead of just clients, connect with the humans behind the products knowing their personal histories, help them develop their amazing ideas and brands, and grow together through the design process. And to be honest, being able to work some days in pajamas it’s amazing!

Final Thoughts

I would love to express my immense gratitude to all of the creatives who took some time to write their answers. You are the reason why these articles (Part I is right here) are so marvelous!

All in all, the stories just show plenty of reasons for enjoying your creative career. Some just stared from the influence of the relatives or the surroundings and morphed into the dream job, reminding of those positive impacts. Others enjoy the freedom of expression and a network of inspiring, innovative people that this industry provides.

Do you want to share your own creative story? Feel free to leave a comment below, contact us here, or directly via [email protected]. We read every response!

See you next month!