Introducing Juan Cervantes

Welcome and Thank you for signing up to the depARTment blog!

Here you will get the real stories and advice for navigating the freelance design world that school never told you about. It’ll be a journey of resilience and creative breakthroughs.

But first a short intro about me.
I began my career from the computer lab at my local community college. I didn’t even own a computer when I designed my first official paid project for a client with a new product. But I still delivered a brochure, digital photography (when it was in its infancy) and 4ft tall banners for his trade show booth. All of it on time and with the assets I created from beginning the job right.

I quickly became an in-demand freelance designer for local design studios and ad agencies in Ventura County and Los Angeles. After a year and half I became the in-house Graphic Designer for K•Swiss Footwear. More stories from the inside later. I made the switch to beauty and cosmetics as the Art Director for Youngblood Mineral Cosmetics brand in Simi Valley, Ca. Even more crazy stories there. Now I’m back to freelance and contract work for various industries in tech, manufacturing, beauty and cosmetics as well as restaurant and food trucks.

So let’s expand your view of the design world and what you can do to get the advantage in your career no matter where you are in it. I’ll find a way to level you up and get you the tools and advice to take your current situation and advance your skills.

A few things to start with: NO ONE IS PERFECT

If you think that the most successful designers in the world must be great because they have perfect photoshop skills or know every hotkey in illustrator to every tool and know every adobe app, then you’re wrong on all counts. The “Best” designers are just designers you admire. Whoever labels them “the BEST” are magazines, social media Likes and award shows handing out awards to the best that entered, not the BEST that exist.

Most designers don’t waste their time with awards. They’d rather be working. Getting paid. Investing in advancing the skills, visiting art galleries and getting inspired by other creatives. There is a simple formula to winning awards though. Be Creative, Enter, Pay and hope someone on the board likes your work more than the design next to it. That’s it. Who decides who is exceptional and who is not a winner? In reality the only competition you have in life is You from yesterday. And the only person you need to please is You from tomorrow. But to get paid you need to please the people signing the checks. Understand this is a business not an art lesson. You need to get over the industry terms of other peoples weird judgements like “selling out”.

If I make a design and it’s cool and someone else wants it for their brand to put on hats and apparel then YES sell it. Make money and do something else for someone else. Next project. This isn’t a blog to help you cheapen your work either. I’m here to be straight up truthful and you need to decide what to do next no matter what I say. If you agree and it resonates with you or you can see it now after I talk about it then there is only one thing left to do, Execute. The “BEST” designers execute. They don’t wait to see how many people like it on social media, they just make it happen and move on to the next thing to Make Happen and so on. Eventually they’ll end up with a ton of work and some will be very good but getting paid for it is the true art.

So thank you for joining and looking forward to seeing your work and get you moving forward. Each step forward is a win.