We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Maia Warner. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Maia below.

Maia, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

I began learning what I do when I was in high school when I picked up my first camera. I got interested in photography and, more importantly, conceptual photography. Given that I was in high school, most of the conceptual part of the photography did not come from expensive sets or props, it came from photoshop. From learning how to digitally alter photos through YouTube, I also learned the basics of graphic design. In college I worked with an event planning council at my school wherein I learned more marketing and put my photoshop knowledge to the test creating logos, stickers, graphics for advertisements and swag items. After college, I realized that I did enjoy this part of my life and wanted to continue this journey. From here I started doing some free lance work with local small businesses and colleges and thus, Maia Warner Media was born.

I started doing freelance work with a small business I frequented which resells vintage items and grew my base by offering Pet Portraits of my friend’s pets to raise money for a local shelter my partner and I got our second dog from. Now, I frequently work with my alma mater college as well as friends and acquaintances who have heard of my work and need help with marketing or general digital design.

I continue to grow my knowledge base through SkillShare courses and YouTube videos. I try to challenge myself even when I don’t have a paying client by trying to create new free content for friends and small businesses. This way I continue to learn and grow but am not dependent on someone relying on my services to continue to develop. This is something I should have been doing from the get-g0 – intentionally challenging myself with new softwares and digital marketing techniques outside of client based work.

The skills that are most essential are time management and the desire and will to learn more. Anyone possessing these skills is capable of developing their own business based around their hobbies and talents.

Currently, the biggest obstacle to learning more is the fact that this business is not yet my full-time business and I still work full-time outside of doing freelance graphic design. This is where time management and will power becomes crucial as continuing to work on these projects after a full day of work is definitely a test.

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?

My name is Maia Warner. I’m a Colorado native who currently resides in RiNo, Denver. I am a self taught photographer and graphic designer who does freelance graphic media creation for local businesses and schools. I elaborated a bit on how I got here with the previous question but basically it was all chance. While in high school I got a camera to get into photography and became invested in conceptual photography which taught me the basics of photoshop and allowed me to start creating more complex graphic media when I got to college. In college I worked in the student activities office and did work hosting and marketing events. I also got the chance to create event logos, brochures, t-shirt designs, stickers, etc. Following graduating college (BS in Chemical and Biochemical Engineering), I realized my workday was not giving me the creative outlet I craved and so I began doing freelance work for my college and for local businesses.

I am proud of my customer-centered work and ability to adapt to anyone’s vision and needs. I think this sets my apart from a lot of other graphic designers in that since I am self taught I have a lot of methods of creating different “styles” of work based on my clients. I tend towards a more maximalist design type but love any chance to work with someone who will give me the opportunity to explore new design styles and methods. If you ever work with me, I will give you as many rough drafts as I need to get you the design and style you are really looking for before I begin fleshing out any idea. I also love to leave my clients with plenty of options beyond what they’ve asked for.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

I previous used to work as an event planner while in college. My senior year of college I was elected as the Engineering Days (E-Days) Chair. E-Days at Colorado School of Mines is a huge event occurring every spring for the last ninety some-odd years. Over the years it’s grown and changed but in recent history it has been a 3-4 day long event with campus wide activities including comedians, magicians, over-the-top field days, the traditional Ore Cart Pull which is the original E-Days event, and the two headlining concerts. Every year’s event is made unique by a theme which is typically a pun of sorts (think Lost at SE-Days – deserted island, pirates, and under water decor and games, PrehistorE-Days – jurassic park and dinosaurs, Save the CitE-Days – heros vs villains)The budget for this event while I was planning was around a quarter million dollars before corporate sponsorships. As you can imagine, an event like this takes awhile to plan – while the bulk of the planning with the large group of volunteers begins in November (the event being in April), the E-Days chair begins planning the summer prior to the event, and so that’s what I did. In Summer of 2019 I began pouring my heart and soul into this event which would take place in April of 2020 (you can see where this is going). By December my team and I had agreed on MythologE-Days for this years’ theme – think all mythology from all cultures, greek gods, egyptian myths, asian legends, etc.

My team and I had been extensively planning this event for months and I had been working towards it for almost 10 months. Headlining artists had been booked, the theme had been announced, the fencing, security, and swag had begun to be ordered and the publicity committee and myself had poured their extra curricular time into designing graphics for the event. March 16, 2020 the campus shut down for two weeks while COVID washed the country to allow the faculty and staff time to adjust to virtual learning. A historically in-person event which the entire student body looked forward to was now cancelled. We had a few options but only one clear solution. We could scrap the whole event (not an option in my team’s mind) or we could pivot and re-plan the entire event to take place virtually. The catch? We only had a month to do this – to book artists willing to try performing online, find activities which were COVID friendly and find a way to make the event allow students to feel connected.

I’ll be honest, when I found out that E-Days was for sure being cancelled, I was not thrilled and didn’t know how to move forward. Forget that I would lose out on my graduation and other end-of-school celebrations – I was *livid* that this was happening. After a few days of moping about the house and crying to my partner and roommates about my frustrations, my team and I got back on our feet and said “what can we do?” We began reaching out to all of our vendors to cancel all in person services and asking about their ability to transition to virtual. Obviously this was not an option for our food trucks or inflatable rentals – but it was an option for some of our performers. We managed to pull together a whole crew of jugglers, magicians, musicians, comedians of all kinds, and even managed to get our headlining artist (Bryce Vine) to agree to do an instagram live performance in place of our traditional concert. We also added new things which we had never considered before (and still make an appearance in today’s E-Days). Things like virtual scavenger hunts, a minecraft server of the campus which hosted games, virtual game tournaments, etc etc. We changed the theme from MythologE-Days to Virtual RealitE-Days. Typically, the event ends with a fireworks show and is especially cathartic for those of us who planned the event as we finally get to sit back and enjoy and take a breath. This year, the fireworks show was hosted on the minecraft server and let me just say I was far from emotionless watching it on my computer screen. All the hours poured into the first event translated into a very heartfelt second event and I’ll hold it dear to my heart forever.

For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?

My favorite part of being an artist or creative is seeing other people appreciate my work from their own perspective. I like seeing them find the little details or Easter Eggs I might have added to make it special. Seeing people use my art (whether on stickers or t-shirts or posted on social media) is also very special. It’s very gratifying to know that I contributed to something much bigger.

Contact Info:

• Website: maiawarnermedia.com
• Instagram: @maia.e.w, @media.by.maia

Image Credits
Alexandra Demopoulos Photography