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

Christina, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about how you got your first non-friend, non-family client. Paint the picture for us so we can feel the same excitement you felt on that day.

My first ever client taught me the most and had earned the least from. Before I graduated from Ringling College, I was studying Motion Graphics and was desperately looking for ways to pay rent. I was determined to not move back home to my family and had started picking up odd jobs that involved design or animation. Ringling was great for being able to connect small startups or individuals for freelance jobs through their job board/portal. I remember I had picked up a logo design job for a gentleman who said he was teaching guitar lessons. In hindsight, I should have not taken the job once I gave my hourly rate for designing because his immediate reaction was to belittle me. His exact words were “it took me 30 years to get to that hourly rate for teaching guitar, this better be worth it”. The rest of the process was a slew of insults about not only about my work but my actual physical appearance too. After several iterations of designs he was basically asking for, I just had to walk away and not communicate with him anymore. This was a very hard thing for me to do. I grew up doing several customer service jobs and the idea of “the customer is always right” or “do whatever makes the customer happy” was ingrained into me. I never sent him an invoice, I stopped responding to his emails. The biggest lesson I learned from this client was that there was no way of making everyone happy. Sometimes it just doesn’t work out, and self-worth is more important.

Eventually, I found my footing on finding businesses and individuals respect my skill set and what I bring to the table. Not too long after that I was able to find regular work with Visit California and working on their internal marketing assets. The camaraderie and respect from the representative I have felt was immense and really boosted my confidence after having such a bad first client experience. To explain the contrast, when I gave my first hourly rate with them, they offered me more hourly. We were able to communicate clearly and have become friends over the years. They are my longest running client and we have worked on over dozens and dozens of projects together, and eventually I brought them into be a client into my business. The hard earned dollar from those projects had made that first client really look like a lesson that I needed to get through. A lesson of humility and gratitude, as well as confidence and self-respect.

Christina, 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?

I was given Adobe Photoshop 7.0 when I was 13 years old, and I loved how people could do all types of photo manipulations. I wanted to do that for myself, and in the process, I taught myself the principles of graphic design. I explored how to compose an image and tell a story with many still elements. I could never draw, illustrate or paint, so this quickly became my medium and my daily challenge to improve. When I was 16, I had a similar learning experience with Sony Vegas (a video editing software). I fell in love with editing videos and retelling footage with one story that could be molded into another. I was teaching myself basic animation without knowing to even, especially when I combined my love for Photoshop too. I didn’t know this was a profession, and when I found out that Ringling College of Art and Design had Motion Design as a BFA in 2012, I had to attend.

During my time at Ringling, I met my now partner and husband, Karim Maksoud. He was a year ahead of me and was technically skilled, while I was gifted in design and conceptual thinking. We had the perfect blend of skills to do our business today. Karim graduated from Motion Design in 2015, and I graduated the following year with a minor in Business of Art and Design.

In my final months at Ringling College, I noticed a need for content marketing in the Sarasota, Florida, area. While I wasn’t able to obtain a full-time job from any Design Houses, I was great at being able to get freelance jobs and create my opportunities. With this, MakSchu was born in June 2016. My nickname was Schu-Schu during my years at school, and I did not want to lose that branding, so we combined Maksoud and Schu-Schu, now MakSchu. MakSchu LLC has spent the last 6 years focusing on creating promotional content through design, animation, live-streaming, and video campaigns for 100+ brands. We started with creating motion graphics and animations first and plunged into Video Production for small businesses, large corporations, and non-profits. The connections made through Ringling college and numerous local professionals have allowed us to bring specialists from different fields to our projects and work on a vast array of portfolio pieces. They have had the opportunity to work with several major brands, including Bealls Inc., Champs Sports, Visit Sarasota County, Sarasota Opera House, and Visit California, to name a few. These collaborations have led to awards, such as Tellys, Local Addys, Online Video Trend Awards, Vega Awards, and District ADDYs.

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

Definitely networking and building relationships. Sarasota particularly than other places is really about “who you know”. When we started in 2016, we did not have any of the contacts that people usually starting a business build along the way. We had our talent, drive, and, most importantly, the hustle. We had to wedge into the local market, which took work. We had some sources to gain portfolio building through our Alma Mater (as mentioned before) with smaller local start-ups. As much as it helped, we needed to find other means and sources that were more regular. For about a year and a half to two years, I was networking with the Sarasota community non-stop. I was one of those individuals who used to do breakfast networking meetings, lunch networking meetings, dinner networking, and after-hours daily. I quickly learned that Sarasota was a community of connections and was worth meeting everyone.

It got to the point that we only needed to network less often, and we were getting booked 3 months out, and businesses were willing to wait to work on projects with us specifically. That did change during COVID, but eventually after getting back into online networking and adding new adaptable services such as livestreaming, I was able to build up our schedule again.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

Creatives really have to fight for their respect and time to non-creatives and clients that do not understand the skill set and profession. While being a freelancer and growing our business, I have had to deal with this time and time again. Mainly because they don’t always have the same creative vision as creatives do. I think patience is the key to it, and we need someone to communicate the process. In my business, I know I communicate what a client is looking for as clearly as possible to our technical team. A lot of the process they think anyone can do and don’t always appreciate the talent and thought that goes into a video production or design. This shows in the way individuals want to compensate for projects. Non-creatives sometimes don’t equate the time and practice of creating a beautiful visual piece as training since all programs are accessible. It’s the same as an electrician going to a trade school, yet they don’t have their time and compensation questioned. Why is it so different between industries? We do need to fix the disconnect and educate future generations that all forms of art are important and how it contributes to our daily lives. We need to erase the idea of “art is a dying field”, because it most certainly is not and is growing more relevant every day.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.makschu.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/makschuproductions/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MakSchuProductions/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christina-maksoud-72940165/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpKoPXUXYFE5yVhMQi7cIrQ/videos