We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Adam Pecora a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Adam, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Have you been able to earn a full-time living from your creative work? If so, can you walk us through your journey and how you made it happen? Was it like that from day one? If not, what were some of the major steps and milestones and do you think you could have sped up the process somehow knowing what you know now?

It was a long route for me creating art as a full time job. I got an internship right out of college doing full-time graphic design for a minor league baseball team and I thought the sky was the limit from there. However, once the season concluded I found myself unable to find work in my field.

That was 2015. From then until 2022 I worked in retail and craft beer to pay the bills, never giving up on my longterm career goals. Eventually I was hired as an Art Director for a local apparel & gift company and have created countless products and artwork for a wide array of clients. This is my long winded way of saying that you should never give up on your career pursuits, the right opportunity will present itself at the right time.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I got into graphic design while in high school. I was in 1-2 art classes each year, mostly focused on cartooning and illustration. We had one computer with access to Photoshop CS3 and the rest was history. I fell in love with working on computer generated art. This was how I determined what I wanted to study in college and led me down the path of working in graphic design professionally.

Currently I am focused on client product development. We will each bring ideas to the table and work together to make revisions towards a final product. This covers a wide range of items – from Apparel to Enamel Pins, Keychains, Drinkware, Promotional Products, Stationary, you name it. It’s really about getting to know your client and what their needs & taste are, then you can accurately give them options they will be happy with.

While I mainly use Adobe Illustrator for my projects, I also have experience in After Effects creating lyric videos and some animation, as well as Premier for video editing. I self taught myself Logic to begin my music and podcasting endeavors as well.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Personally, I believe that there is too much emphasis on trying to fit into boxes right now. Everyone seems to be focused on algorithms. Of course you want your work to be seen, I do too obviously. But I think if you took the time to work on the art you want to see instead of trying to create something solely for the purpose of trying to catch a trend, you will find it to be more rewarding for yourself. So, to answer your question, I think we need to find a way in society to shine spotlights on smaller artists, it’s very hard to get your name out there.

A fantasy idea of mine is, if I had a large enough number of followers, would be to hold submission contests from artists with less than 1,000 followers and heavily promote the winners work to grow their exposure.

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

Honestly, it’s the need for criticism. You need to be able to handle feedback on your work, and you need to be critical of yourself. Every minor detail needs to be scrutinized, even after production. I feel like people around me are constantly trying to put positive spins on moments where I am critical of my output, but I am just being honest with myself and what I see.

Contact Info:

• Website: adam-pecora.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/adam.rfat/
• Youtube: youtube.com/@requiemforatuesday
• Other: linktr.ee/rfat