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

Naveen, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you take us back in time to the first dollar you earned as a creative – how did it happen? What’s the story?

I’ll always remember the feeling of making my first dollar as a creative. In 2015 I started playing around with my limited knowledge of Photoshop to make some song artwork and concert flyers for my musician friends. After word about my designs got around, that eventually got me to my first sale: $20 for an album cover. Mannn, as a broke college kid that $20 felt like a million! Especially knowing that it came from something I did for fun. That first dollar would then lead to a long journey as a creative, and a lot of other first dollars. I made my first dollar as a music producer, my first dollar as a clothing designer, my first dollar as a business owner, and the list keeps going. Making that first $20 off that album cover was proof to me that I could make a career out of doing things I love.

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 Naveen Mathai and I’m known mostly as a graphic designer and as a music producer under the name “sleepy”. I spent the majority of my childhood doodling manga characters in school and making my own versions of Pokémon in Microsoft Paint, which eventually brought me to a knock-off version of Photoshop that would kickstart my graphic design career. Although I went to art school for graphic design and worked a full-time job as a lead designer for a couple of years, I’ve built a following as a creative for wearing a few different hats.

How did you build your audience on social media?

When I started my career in design, I had always used Instagram as my main platform to build my clientele and portfolio. I was posting every design I worked on, and I even reached out to bigger artists to make free artwork for them, just so I could build relationships and hopefully get tagged on pages with a wider audience. I spent all my college years making artwork for free, but it eventually led to me being able to work on way bigger projects than the local artists I had been working with prior. I was able to make artwork for artists like Lil Yachty, NBA Youngboy, Chance the Rapper, Lucki, redveil, and a lot more. As cool as it is to be recognized for my artwork, the funny part about social media is that I also started to get recognized for other endeavors I was pursuing. I’ve always been equally passionate about producing music as I have been about graphic design. While I was posting all my flyers and visual art on Instagram, I would also post music that I had been working on, which thankfully started to pick up as well. I posted a couple of videos of me making beats that went viral on Instagram and TikTok, which ended up doubling my audience at the time. This brought me to a point where I couldn’t even tell you what my main gig is because depending on who you ask, people who follow me might know me better as a producer, or better as a graphic designer.

For any other designers or creatives offering a service that are just getting started building a social media presence: connecting with other creatives and collaborating has always been a great way to build an audience that you can turn into a client base, even when it doesn’t immediately pay the amount you deserve. I think it’s important to always see the bigger picture. I’m blessed to be able to make a living off of my art, after spending years doing it for little to nothing.

How about pivoting – can you share the story of a time you’ve had to pivot?

I’ve very recently come to a point where I had to make a major pivot in my career. After graduating from art school, and working as a freelance designer, I landed a full-time job as the lead designer at a sign company. I spent a couple of years with this position, but again, I felt like I was missing the bigger picture. The job was safe, and it was a great experience, but I ended up deciding to quit because I was losing time to work on other big-name jobs that I was getting booked for, along with my own personal projects. A couple of months ago I launched my clothing brand “polywrl” and it’s been my main focus. Even though I had already built enough clientele to work full-time as a designer, I wanted to take the chance to make a business of my own where I could make whatever I enjoyed making, instead of getting commissioned for a job with specific instructions. I’ve only done 2 clothing drops so far but I’ve been lucky to completely sell out both times and sell over 500 shirts. Making and operating this brand has been really important to me because it gave me confidence in taking the risk of betting on myself.

Contact Info:

• Website: naveenissleepy.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/naveenissleepy
• Other: polywrl.com instagram.com/polywrl

Image Credits
Amer Sadek & Syed Sameer Ahmad