Today we’d like to introduce you to Clara Fernández

Hi Clara, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?

Even though I have been attracted to arts, illustration and creative practices since I was a child, I wasn’t sure if Graphic Design could be the right profession for me. I was 17 years old and I had to take such an important decision: what I would study in the next few years and what would be my professional career. I decided on graphic design because I had some good feelings but I wasn’t really sure what the career was about. I went to Buenos Aires University which is one of the best graphic design universities in the world. The whole experience there was amazing, it was also really hard I must say, but I discovered a complete new world and I got almost all the skills and tools that made me the designer I am today.

When I finished college I was already sure that I wanted to have my own graphic design studio. I had no experience, no contacts, no clue about how to start, so I thought I should spend some time working in other design studios to learn from more experienced people. I did it, but this plan lasted just one year. I realized almost immediately that being an employee was not for me. I really wanted to have my own project with my ideas, my clients, my rules… so I quit my job and started my freelance design practice.

By that time I was dating Francisco, who used to be my friend from college. When we moved together both of us were working as freelance designers, so very quickly the idea of working together appeared and stuck in our minds. Sooner than later we founded Asís, our own design practice, where we have worked side by side since 2015.

Our growth was slow but firm. We are now a well-known Latin America design studio focused on brand identities working worldwide.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?

To be honest, I have been very lucky. I am a very obsessive and hard working person, but also I think good fortune was by my side all the way.

Since the beginning I had this big dream of being a well known designer in my country doing good quality work. When we started Asís we didn’t have any business contacts, we didn’t have rich parents or entrepreneurial friends, we didn’t know anybody from abroad, we only had a couple of very important qualities that I think identify our country and also Latin America: courage, passion and the willingness to work very hard whatever the circumstances.

On the way, we had to struggle with some obstacles. First of all, I live in a third world country and having a business here is not as easy as in many other places. Argentina is constantly going through a deep economic crisis and there’s no stability for anybody. Dealing with adversity is something we do every day, to have the ability to be creative with limited resources is our talent and to have the flexibility to adapt all the time to different circumstances is our strongest power.

Besides the economic situation in our country, we had to deal also with the regular struggles of being independent because when you are running a small studio like ours, you can’t only be a graphic designer or an art creator. You are involved in accounting, marketing, finance, you have to learn how to deal with clients and lots of other things that make it easy to burn out and lose yourself.

In my case there was another situation that affected me: when you are creating things, your work is very personal and is very much connected to who you are as a person, your mental health could be so easily impacted by your work and also by the criticism you constantly receive, no matter how good you are in your job.

I care so much about good design and the work I do. It is a real passion, so the work doesn’t usually end when the studio door closes. Sometimes at night, my mind looks like hamster treadmills, racing for hours with ideas, colors and images.

Having your own business is definitely a hard and challenging road, it is more like a roller coaster ride, but in my experience I can say that it is absolutely worth it.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?

I’m a Graphic Designer in Buenos Aires and run my own graphic design studio: Asís, where I work side by side with my partner Francisco Andriani. We are focused on developing visual identities for brands, books, cultural events, people and anything that comes up and we find interesting.

Our studio is known for the quality in the performance and the care on the detail. We are both obsessed with good design: honest, pure, beautiful and consistent and we work really hard to provide a high creative, conceptual and innovative content in each project we develop.
I am constantly looking for inspiration and going further. I understand each design challenge as a deep search to elaborate a message that allows to communicate everything that distinguishes and differentiates each client, framing it in a visual universe of high creative potential. I think the essence of Asís is the ability to adapt and create personalized creative good looking solutions. Aiming at giving each project its own voice, we put a lot of effort into experimentation and exploration of concepts to find the right visual language for each project.

Any advice for finding a mentor or networking in general?

Honestly, I never had a mentor or something like that. I would love to, but graphic design is a relatively new profession in Argentina, so it is not full of people working on this field as it has happened in many other countries for many decades. That’s why there are not so many famous graphic design studios here that I admire or see as an inspiration.
I can say that I learnt a lot from my university professors. There are plenty of people in Buenos Aires University giving their best and doing an amazing job. Furthermore I always had in mind other designers, illustrators, typographers… whose work I follow and admire. Probably, I haven’t met those people personally but in some way they guided my path and they were such an inspiration for my own work. I think it is very important to keep close people you admire: maybe you can contact them and try to have a chat but if that is not possible, you can always can read interviews and try to known their stories and that way you’ll probably find out that they are people like you: with their fears, obstacles in life, desires… and that probably followed a similar path before you do it then you can learn from their lives and experiences.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://weareasis.co/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clarifer___/
• Other: https://www.instagram.com/weareasis.co