We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Ana Karina Da Silva a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Ana Karina , thanks for joining us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?
As an advertising creative, I’ve done amazing work for big clients like Disney, Allstate, Kellogg’s, Nissan, US Army. My work always try to be inclusive, and working for Hispanic and General Market agencies, I’ve done projects that helps children be inspired to study STEM careers, or find mentors for LGBTQ+ young communities. I won my dream awards including a Cannes Lions… and after 11 years in the business in a successful career I decided to publish a children’s book I wrote five years ago. I was holding back into doing it because every time I hired an illustrator he would cancel or go away and last year I met a Polish author who has published 90 titles in Poland and asked me why as a writer I’ve never published anything. I told her about the illustrators and she said something that stroke me: “Do you think kids are going to judge you?!” and that triggered me to go home and start drawing the book by googling and tracing and learning and re drawing. In a span of three months I made the illustrations, I translated into English, and published it on amazon.
I went to schools in Chicago, Mexico, Madrid and London to read the story to them and I was blown away by all of their answers when I asked what they want to be when they grew up. I had answers like “tiktoker” or “billionaire” but when I dug deep all the kids from all over these countries, independently of their backgrounds, they all ultimately said that they wanted to help people.
Now I’m developing a program for schools where kids can have more space to explore their passions and be more conscious with it. Parents will also be involved with it so they can document their kids passions so when they grow up they can’t forget what keep them motivated as kids.
They say the most important moment of our lives is when we are born and when we find out why.
Helping kids find their truth is definitely the most meaningful thing I’ve done and I want to keep growing it.
Ana Karina , 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?
A word that could describe this copywriter is “resilient”. Originally from Venezuela, Ana Karina needed a visa to be able to work in the US. To do so, she decided to go to Chicago Portfolio School, built a portfolio from scratch, started as an intern at Leo Burnett Chicago even thought she was a mid level copywriter at DDB Venezuela. This made her work three times harder being a Latina and a woman in the industry.
She quickly showed her talent and climbed her way up creating all kinds of integrated campaigns that include social, traditional, OOH, activations, launches, openings, rebranding, digital, content and branded experiences for a broad range of industries. In 2017, she and her team at LAPIZ created the “Tequila Cloud” to promote the Mexico Tourism Board in Germany. The innovative idea spread like wildfire going viral in the US and globally. It sparked half billion impressions with just 60k of media buy. The Tequila Cloud not only brought science and art together, but also a silver Cannes Lions and the most impressions for a campaign ever garnered by the agency and the client.
Before that, she developed campaigns for Disney, Kraft, Lunchables, Kool Aid, Capri Sun, USTA and helped win the Olive Garden business at Mcgarrybowen.
Now she’s at fluent360 working for Army, Nissan, INFINITI, Big Brothers and Big Sisters and Spectrum, pushing the creative boundaries of all teams by helping bring the mindset that good work can happen no matter the assignment. She’s also helping lead the social media team of the agency, bringing strategy and creativity to revamp the agency’s presence across platforms.
Her creativity doesn’t stop at doors the agency. Ana Karina is the creator of Closet Therapy, a concept that inspires people to find themselves through fashion. Yeah, superficially deep. She has an Instagram account and Youtube Channel with episodes that help her audience shop what they already own in their closets. She has extended her passion project to the Latin Grammys, Premios Tu Mundo, Cannes Lions, and Vogue’s Forces of Fashion.
In 2022, Ana launched her first children’s bilingual book Emma’s Dream, to inspire kids to explore their dreams. She goes to schools, reads the book, then make play therapy to give kids the space to discuss about their passions so parents can notice them and hopefully when their kids grow up they can have more info on what they do. This is how we inspire more self-realized adults.
Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?
-Having a mentor would have been useful to give me the confidence to feel that everything always ends up working out. Maybe a parent who reminded me of how good I am so I didn’t have doubts about the future. Creativity comes from many sources, anxiety made me more creative because of deadlines but I wish I had that outside encouragement so I was easier on myself. Looking back I’ve achieved everything I dreamed of, but for some reason procrastination and anxiety made me waste energy unnecessarily. A mentor maybe would have made me feel that sense of entitlement where I know I’m good enough so I create from a place of joy instead of a place of ego.
if you are lacking mentorship or a strong parent figure who gives you strength, I would recommend reading books like “Steal like an artist” “how to say f*ck you”, or any book that helps you lift your spirit. Artists need time to decompress and express what they feel but in the meantime also need to feed their brains with something that gets them motivated to continue.
-Habits: Bringing a vision to life takes more than creativity. Takes discipline. We are at the mercy of distractions and if we are not careful our valuable ideas can turn in just ideas that will hunt us forever. Developing habits is very important as a creative since it gives us a time frame where to develop our craft. I know we are free spirits but without a container, our talent can get wasted in Instagram scrolls and cat videos. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes it’s important to waste time to be able to be creative, but that can also be on a time frame.
-Therapy is a great resource to get to know ourselves. Learning why we do the things we do it’s helpful. I have a friend who is an artist and many times he considered harming himself because of his gallery business crisis. I asked him why he didn’t try therapy and he is afraid it will calm down his creative drive. His anxiety and anger is what keeps him going. Every artist has their point of view, but I believe creativity can come from many places and therapy won’t completely change your personality, it will allow you to hone in your skills and strengths and learn how to cope with your weakness like distractions and daydreaming -me!-. If pain is your ally, yes of course go ahead and feel it, there are many ways to express and heal ourselves especially with art.
-Having a group of friends where you can actually express and be yourself without any limits is maybe the most important thing for a creative. I feel I reprimí many sides of me for many reasons and in the long term it affected me. I felt lost and I was just mimicking others.
How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?
Despite my success in advertising, this year I decided to launch this children book I wrote 5 years ago but been procastinating it for years. I couldn’t find an illustrator. Last year I met a Polish author who literally told me “why are you going to pay 3k for an illustrator? do you think kids will judge you?” and that blew my mind. I went online and started tracing and did all the book myself in three months. I published it with the help of my friend who owns a publishing house and now I sell it on a bookstore in chicago and amazon. It’s been a magical ride, I went to London, Portugal, Mexico, Madrid and Chicago. Kids shed tears with the story, teachers get moved by the magic of making your dreams come true.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.anakarinawrites.com
- Instagram: @anakarinaexists
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ana-karina-da-silva-a3a91244
- Youtube: closet therapy