Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Carmen Jabier. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Carmen, appreciate you joining us today. I’m sure there have been days where the challenges of being an artist or creative force you to think about what it would be like to just have a regular job. When’s the last time you felt that way? Did you have any insights from the experience?

For the most part, yes! But like anything else in life there are ebbs and flows, and it would be inaccurate to say that that happiness is present 24/7. It can get overwhelming running a one-person production and I definitely wonder every so often what having a regular job and everything that comes with it (such as consistent income and the ability to turn off “work mode” at the end of the day) is like… But the excitement and fulfilment I get from doing work that feeds my soul is like no other, and I’m more than happy putting in the extra hours and hard work to keep it chugging along!

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’ve been interested and involved in the arts ever since I was little, and my mom got me all the things (craft kits, art classes, etc) to fuel my creativity, but I never thought of art as anything more than a hobby. When university came around, I decided to apply to an academic program at a great school in Toronto and found myself feeling lost, especially among my peers who were focused and had a direction. I stuck it through, but so did that lost feeling. In 2018, a good friend of mine asked me to make a logo for their new food business, and I had so much fun with the process that I thought “maybe *this* is my next step”.

Mad Love Creative Co. was technically born a couple years before the pandemic, but it was a slow start and went through a few iterations before becoming what it is now. My first products on Etsy were downloadable and customizable stationery templates using elements created by others but as I worked on my personal illustration style, they were eventually replaced by physical products (prints, cards, stickers, and more) all featuring original designs I had created!

The start of the pandemic was a scary time for all of us, but I was particularly worried about my business falling apart before it even had the chance! Luckily, snail mail started trending and next thing you know, I had orders for cards coming in from all over the world and that gave my shop the momentum it needed to get started. I’ll be forever grateful to those first customers.

While I continued to work on my style and built my design and product inventory, I was also working on client leads for the freelance part of my business! Now Mad Love Creative Co. has turned into a full fledged business with two main facets – a retail shop where I sell my work as various products online and in-person at markets, as well as a freelance studio where I work on fun projects of all kinds for awesome clients. It’s hard to choose what I’m most proud of – on the retail side, it’s always such an honour when customers show me how they display/use my products, or when they tell me how they relate to my work, and on the freelance side, I’m always proud to work on projects where the end product is the perfect combination of the client’s vision along with the classic Mad Love style (whether it be an editorial, merchandise, or any other kind of design area)!

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

In my opinion, an important step in fostering a thriving creative ecosystem is to acknowledge the value that art and design brings into many areas of everyday life (instead of treating it as a secondary factor, if at all), as well as paying and crediting artists and creatives accordingly!

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

The most rewarding aspect of being an artist has been seeing my work exist in a physical, tangible form – from seeing client projects existing in the real world, to seeing how customers use/display products they’ve bought from me shop. Since much of my work revolves around emotions and nostalgia, as well as my desire to connect to others, an equally rewarding aspect is when a customer tells me how they relate to my work!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://madlovecreativeco.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/madlovecreativeco
• Other: https://madlovecreativeco.etsy.com