The Design Business Show 091: Diving into the World of Graphic Design with Claudia Ramos

Claudia Ramos of Claudia Ramos Designs is a graphic designer, surface designer, and illustrator, who has worked on everything from web design, greeting cards, soft good graphics for fashion dolls, and apparel to signage.

She loves keeping up to date on trends and she’s constantly checking what’s going on in the social media world. She loves to draw, create patterns, illustrate, and do DIY projects with her 11-year-old daughter. Her daughter is her inspiration and she always reminds her that she should be having fun! Her work expresses who she is, colorful, fun, and creative! Creating patterns are fun and that’s what she wants her work to express. She was born in El Salvador, San Salvador, but came to America when she was two-months-old. She grew up in Central Los Angeles, where her neighborhood was a mix of different cultures, food, music, and art. Since a very young age, she’s enjoyed coloring, doodling, and even collecting cool pens. She’s married to her high school sweetheart and the mom to a spunky 11-year-old and loves spending time with my family and capturing every moment with her iPhone!

Here’s what we covered on the episode:

How I found Claudia’s Instagram and invited her to come on the podcast
How Claudia knew from a young age that she wanted to do something in design because she always loved art while growing up
What happened when Claudia’s counselor suggested graphic design so she could still make her own designs and impact the world
How Claudia fell in love with graphic design and got her AA degree then transferred to California State University, Northridge where she got her BA
When Claudia graduated she worked in the graphic design field where she was focused on print because social media was just starting and she didn’t have much knowledge on creating websites or coding
How Claudia was doing banners, label art and repeat patterns but decided she wanted to learn more so she applied to jobs that asked her to create websites
How Claudia was given the opportunity to learn how to code because of how open she was in interviews about not knowing how to code, but knowing how to design websites
Claudia’s first job out of college was working for a signage company, creating big banners and signage designs
How after working for the signage company she worked for Forever21 doing label art, creating the tags and doing repeat patterns for the fabric of their clothes
How after working at Forever21, Claudia had her daughter and stayed home for two years where she started a blog, did some illustration and spent a lot of time creating boards on Pinterest
How American Greetings reached out to Claudia looking for a graphic designer who was very in touch with online and phone usage
How Claudia did design for American Greetings mobile and website creating a brand called Just Wink where you can send greeting cards over the phone
How Claudia worked for American Greetings for three years where she got to create digital greeting cards, draw and create layouts for greeting cards
How Claudia was looking for a job for a year and decided to create an Etsy shop to learn more about what she wanted to do
How Claudia’s friend asked her to create a save the date invitation that she posted on her Etsy and Instagram which got her noticed by a wedding magazine who reached out to her
How the wedding magazine asked if they could put Claudia’s save the date invitation in their magazine and how that gained her exposure, which grew her business
How Claudia was networking and creating for herself, then posting on her blog and Instagram which gained her exposure
How you don’t really know whos behind these design projects when all you see is the big company’s name and how Claudia started sharing on her Instagram that she was behind the scenes for some projects
How giving back to the community and inspiring young girls and boys with her work and success is important to Claudia
Why creating artwork you love and sharing about yourself can help you stand out in your business
How sharing events that you’re attending can also help you gain exposure
Why Claudia keeps it real and positive with her audience so they can get to know her and how you should do the same
How Claudia knew she liked repeat patterns and started researching textile design and found you can do repeat patterns with items like pillows, blankets and planners
The story behind how Claudia created a bunch of repeat patterns and took them to an event in NY where licensors or artists go and show their next line of textiles
What happened when Hasbro reached out to Claudia for an interview after seeing her portfolio and how in addition she showed them her textile designs which they loved
How Claudia was hired as a temp at Hasbro with the goal of getting them to hire her on after her temp year was up and how she has now worked for them for four years
How Claudia has worked on amazing brands such as Frozen 1 and 2, Moana, Descendants 2 and Star Wars Force of Destiny
How Claudia had experience with adult and child clothing but had to learn how to do artwork for dolls clothing which has helped her grow
A behind-the-scenes look at Claudia’s other design hobbies as a freelancer such as embroidering, her Etsy shop which is now on her website, label art, print and stickers
The story behind Claudia’s new podcast called Homegirl Chat to share her story, background and journey because it’s not a story she hears often and wanted to speak up and inspire others
Another project Claudia is focusing on is Hola Mijas Bonitas which is an Instagram page full of cute, kawaii comics that are inspired by her growing up in East LA
The things Claudia does for fun, like embroidery and going to events where she gets to meet amazing other creative people
How you can connect with Claudia on her Instagram or at claudiaramosdesigns at gmail.com