We recently connected with Anuja Pothireddy and have shared our conversation below.
Anuja, appreciate you joining us today. When did you first know you wanted to pursue a creative/artistic path professionally?
I decided this was my path after I floundered for a long time, made a lot of mistakes and tried to pursue anything else. My parents get a lot of credit for this too. I was 25, completely lost, and my parents really encouraged me to give a creative career a genuine try. So I committed to a degree and focused on it in a way I probably wouldn’t have if I tried to pursue a BFA as a younger person.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I am a multi-disciplinary designer, letterer and illustrator based in New York. I went to school in my home town at the Art Institute of Dallas and earned a BFA in animation with a focus in motion design. Lately I work primarily in social media–it really lets me get my hands dirty with editing, animation, and audio. I am also a freelance illustrator. My illustration and hand lettering work has been used for a variety of clients including Whatsapp, Olay, and Poopourri–also for social media. I was also included in the first “Women of Type” art book compilation. I love collaborating and bouncing ideas off other people. If a client has an idea that doesn’t quite work, I really like getting to the core of what my client is trying to express and searching together for a different way to execute that suits both of us. I hope people look at me and see someone who loves what they do, making fun, playful work.
Is there mission driving your creative journey?
I feel like my creative journey is really a visual expression of a person trying to figure themself out. Who am I, what makes me tick, and where do I fit in the world? If someone else sees my work and thinks, “oh she doesn’t have all the answers, but she’s getting in there and making stuff anyway,” and that person feels a little encouraged in their own creative practice, then I think that’s the most fulfilling contribution I can make.
Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?
There’s a quote in this interview of Stefan Sagmeister where he’s talking about advice he got from Tibor Kalman just before embarking on a very well-paying job abroad. The advice is not worded politely, but what I took from it is this: don’t let your standard of living get high and out of hand because you have a huge income — you will compromise your creative potential just to maintain that standard of living. This really stuck to me because at its core, it’s both financial and creative advice. I used to feel that money and art existed on two opposite ends of a line, and this suggestion really helped me grab the ends of that line and bend them into a circle, if that makes sense. Same article, Sagmeister spoke on the very common sense logic of running a business, “You need to take in more money than you’re spending and you need some sort of system that allows you to check that.” My father also made a similar point in a different way: “Wealth is not about the money you make–it’s about the money you save. A person who earns $5000 a month and spends $3000 a month is richer than a person who makes $10,000 and spends $12,000.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.hey-anuja.net/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hey.anuja/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heyanuja/
Image Credits
Photo of Anuja by Roger Young Jr.