We recently connected with Aina Kawamoto and have shared our conversation below.

Aina, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My practice is in graphic design and art direction.

It all started because I took an elective art class in high school called ‘graphic design’. At that time I had no idea but my school advisor recommended and I always loved art classes so I decided to try it out. Next thing I know, I fell in love with the craft. The idea that you can work on a computer and your idea can inspire, inform, and captivate the viewer was fascinating to me and I got sucked in right away. Went to take few more graphic design classes in high school and without any hesitation, I went into University which offered a Bachelor of Communication Designs program.

After school, I went straight into working in the field as a graphic designer for about 5 years with my industry targeted in fashion and beauty design. 5th year into my career, I had a huge opportunity to work for a rapid growing fashion brand. I learned so much in the 2.5 years I was there. Went from only designing emails, prints, websites to actually helping concept content and campaign photos which lead me to finding my new passion as an art director.

I now work as a graphic designer and art director tandemly. I help create concepts for a photoshoot, then take the photos and work them in graphic design.

Aina, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Are you 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?

As they say, it’s all about timing…

I was working at one of the biggest retail corporate companies in Canada at that time. It was a creative role, full-time but no flexibility and the typical 9-5 job. Meanwhile, I always had a vision to work for myself one day (and when I say one day, as in once I have few kids and want to be home closer to them) doing the work I do so I kept applying for part-time roles or freelance work I could find on the side with respect to the time dedicated to this full-time job.

One day I received a call from one of the freelance clients (an agency) asking me to join them as a full-time freelancer immediately. This meant that I could be available to them as much or as less I wanted but if I wanted to, I could have over 40 hours a week with them. I could make my own schedule and be free from the corporate 9-5. Even enticing, they were already paying me on an hourly basis (which was higher than my full-time corporate job), I would be making over double my salary if I were to take this freelance gig.

I called a few people in my life, seeking advice for this choice but intuition was telling me to take the leap. I had always envisioned working for myself, but little did I know it was going to fall into my path so soon!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I really think it’s all about the people. Having the right people in your life (work or personal) will help you expand your network and help you connect further for future opportunities. So many of my projects I work on are due to connections and referrals. I also find that after few years, the industry starts to feel small because you know lots of people, so it’s important to keep really good connections with everyone and not to burn any bridges.

We’d love to hear about how you keep in touch with clients.

This may be old school, but every year, I hand write my holiday cards to all the clients I worked with that year. I am so grateful for the opportunities we’ve had together so I find year end is usually a great time to reflect on that!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.ainakawamoto.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ainakawamoto/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ainakawamoto/