We recently connected with Hanna Choi and have shared our conversation below.

Hanna, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I was born in Seoul, South Korea, but my family and I moved to Mexico City when I was five for missionary work. They are auto-financed missionaries, so they worked hard as merchants to give my brother and me a proper education and wanted us to attend college in the states with money-guaranteed careers. Since I was a kid, I have always had a passion for art and wanted to attend an art school. Of course, my parents rejected the idea saying I would end up selling paintings in the streets, and rather told me to become an accountant, doctor, dentist, lawyer, etc.. typical Asian parents’ dreams. Since my parents were financing my studies in the states, I had to oblige.

I started with international studies, accounting/information systems, and marketing… but I couldn’t see myself in a cubicle for the rest of my life, so I tried advertising/PR per a friend’s recommendation. My college didn’t have a creative program then, so my classes were based more on media communications.

It was not until my senior year of college that we were introduced to a new creative class, in which I learned about art direction, creative campaigns, Madmen, and Miami Ad School. That’s when I decided I wanted to become an art director. After I graduated college, I went to Miami Ad School in Mexico City(free rent from my parents and cheaper tuition) to pursue my creative career in art direction.

During my first quarter at Miami Ad, I won awards, and my parents finally gave in and started to acknowledge my creative career. Of course, this all was effective after all my nagging and comparing myself to another Korean friend who went to an art school and got a visa. I would tell my parents, “if you sent me to art school earlier, that could’ve been me, but you be playing.” I graduated with 34 international awards and got my O1 visa to start my professional creative career. I started as an art director at Momentum Worldwide in NYC during pandemic and now work at TBWA/Chiat in Los Angeles.

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.

During my senior year of college, my first creative class was based on creative advertising campaigns, and since I knew how to sketch, I presented my ideas with drawings. Then I took creativity 102 for my last semester with the same professor, but when I presented my first idea campaigns, my mentor, who I admired, told me my ideas were great, but I wouldn’t go anywhere with sketches. I was obviously hurt, but I wanted to prove him wrong. For the next half of the semester, I locked myself in the library computers on the weekends to learn Photoshop to create all my campaign ideas for my final presentation. I ended up helping all my classmates visualize their campaigns, and the judges were in awe and offered me a summer internship at DDB. Unfortunately, I missed the opportunity because I thought I needed to make a portfolio and spent the summer making one (oops).

Miami Ad school doesn’t teach you intense programs of Adobe suite programs, just the basics. I learned how to use photoshop, illustrator, premier pro, and after effects through youtube mainly. If I liked a particular video and its effects, I would go to youtube and search for how to do those transitions/animations.

Can you share your view on NFTs? (Note: this is for education/entertainment purposes only, readers should not construe this as advice)

If I were told to create an NFT or Metaverse idea, I would politely decline. These new digital transformations are still on their early stages of development and it’s tricky to make something creative out of them. Yet, creatives decide to come up with 153489204 NFT ideas because they believe they are being “innovative” and adapting to the new system. Not only do those ideas have no true value nor solve any problems, but rather feel decorative, a “cute thing to have” per se.

What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?

As an art director working in the advertising industry, seeing my ideas come to life and being recognized for my hard work are the most rewarding moments as a creative. Seeing the results of my sweat, and tears makes me happy. And of course, awards always bring euphoria.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.theasianlatina.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hannachoi93/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/theasianlatina
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/hannachoi93

Image Credits
1: Walmart – The Beauty Aisle 2- 5: Walmart- Homecoming ft. Imagine Dragons Chance the Rapper, Kane Brown. 6: American Express The Centurion Suite | US Open 7-8: Walmart x Batman: Suit Up Together