Interview
Andrea Serrano Villaverde
Spain
Andrea’s passion for advertising leads her to create clean, simple designs that breaks conventional boundaries.
1 Please give us a brief bio of yourself and your background.
To begin with, my name is Andrea Serrano Villaverde and I'm an Art Director from Spain. I'm very grateful to have such excellent teammates without whom this award wouldn't have been possible: Stefanie Salguero (our copywriter) and Sergio Martin (the other Art Director on this project). I was raised in the northwest of Spain, where life is constantly overshadowed by clouds, I learned to find the bright side of things quite early; flying back and forth between two continents, I became an expert in time management; and, with the influence of my French mother, who always said me “impossible n’est pas français”, I’ve come up with creative solutions since I was a kid. I firmly believe that, to create something new, you have to break conventional boundaries.
2 What made you become/why did you choose to become a digital designer/artist?
Advertising suddenly appeared in my life, in the final stretch of high school, and I liked it so much that I decided to switch my career. It was a video that I saw on the internet, it's called "The Power of Words" and it's from Purple Feather, a marketing agency. It made a huge impact on me and I realized that depending on the way you tell things, you can change the lives of the people you reach.
3 What’s your favorite kind of digital design and why?
I would say that are the ones that you can interact with. It makes you feel part of the process, of the ad itself and I think that's strong because you will cause a major impact on the customer.
4 To you, what makes a “good” design?
Well, we all know that advertising is subjective and what for some may be incredible for others may not be. But, for me, what makes a design good is that it is easy to understand and, above all, its impact, on how it has made me feel and if, after seeing it, I still remember it.
5 Describe your design style and its main characteristics.
Minimal, I like simple lines and easy reading. Play with the colors to create a clean design.
6 Tell us about your design process.
First of all, we have to come up with the idea, which will give the spark to our project, from there we get the insight and then the design process would begin in which we always turn it over and over again until we find the perfect way of representing what we want. Listening to music helps me a lot when designing.
7 Where do you draw inspiration from?
That totally depends on my mood. There are days when I need to walk alone while listening to music to clear up and let my mind flow, but there are also days when it is as easy and simple as meeting up with my teammates and starting to say random things (obviously related to the project) till we come with the idea.
8 What current trends in digital design (or really anything digital related) are you most excited about?
Experiential advertising. I LOVE IT!
9 Congratulations! As the winner of the 2020 Vega Awards, what does it mean to you and your company and team to receive this award distinction?
Well, I can say that we are very excited and grateful to have received this award. It means that the effort we put into this project and the idea with which we developed it has had a great impact and that makes us very happy.
10 Can you explain a bit about the winning work you entered into the 2020 Vega Awards, and why you chose to enter this project?
They presented us a complicated brief in which we had to combat the throwaway culture and reduce food waste. Something quite ingrained in society. We realized that the rich were wasting much more food than people with lower income and from there we decided that the best way to make them understand this problem was to explain it in a way that surprised them so we hacked an art auction!. We thought it could be fun and inspiring, and, hopefully, it could reach out to people and change their mind about food waste.
11 What was the biggest challenge with this project?
Make someone aware not to do something that even we have done!
12 How has winning an Award developed your practice/career?
Winning an award is always an honor and being able to put it in our portfolio always helps to achieve and improve our goals.
13 What are your top three (3) favorite things about the digital industry?
First, it is always evolving and growing Second, it makes the consumer more involved with what we advertise. Third, it allows you to keep making an impact on the customer when advertising is becoming something people usually ignore or try to avoid.
14 What makes your country specifically, unique in the digital industry?
In my personal opinion, it needs more development in my country but that's the reason we are here, right? To make a change!
15 Where do you see the evolution of digital industry going over the next 5-10 years?
I think it will grow even faster, in a few years almost everything we do will be digital. We have even had to learn how to wfh this year!
16 If you were a student entering this industry or an aspiring Vega Award submitter, what advice would you give them?
Never give up, trust your gut, and if you think that the project you have is good, DO NOT doubt yourself, fight for it and the results will speak for themselves!
17 What resources would you recommend to someone who wants to improve their skills in the digital industry?
Stay up to date, every day. You have to be an advertising nerd, know all the campaigns so that what you will do hasn't been done by anyone before.
18 Tell us something you have never told anyone else.
(laughs) Let's see ... there is something on the bio in my portfolio that I changed to not look even crazier! You can guess it in the about section at andreacreart.com
19 Who has inspired you in your life and why?
My mom. She is a clear model that you can achieve what you want if you don't give up and fight for what you love, no matter what.
20 What is your key to success? Any parting words of wisdom?
Trust my gut and be brave enough to fight for what I believe in. I'm going to quote a phrase from Mark Twain that made a difference in my life: "They didn't know it was impossible, so they did it". There's nothing in life that you cannot achieve if you set your mind and fight every day to get what you want.
21 Do you have anything else you would like to add to the interview?
Well, I hope you enjoyed it and that it can help you, my fellow advertisers!
