Today we’d like to introduce you to Christian Gonzalez.
Christian, before we jump into specific questions, why don’t you give us some details about you and your story.
Growing up in Bogota, Colombia, I vividly remember my mother working on her graphic design jobs. Being surrounded by design through made me become incredibly curious about it. Colors have always been a huge obsession of mine. How a simple palette can evoke an emotion. We moved to the United States in the year 2000. Florida (Miami/Coral Springs/Orlando) has always been home. I picked up my first film camera in 2015.
Photography had always been something I wish I did. Loved collecting zines and just street photography in general, so I decided to shoot a zine for a streetwear brand I’ve always looked up to. I figured I would mix both street photography and fashion, put it into a zine and see if it’d hit. Little did I know that during the process of making the zine I would fall in love with design and layout. Became so obsessed with it that I decided to teach myself it. I’m grateful of my creative friends I surrounded myself by as well. After many sleepless nights and grey hairs, I feel like I’m finally somewhere where I can say I’ve made my own fingerprint in design. Thankfully, social media has helped me get clients across the states. So I’m traveling between Florida, Los Angeles and New York constantly.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Being a creative never comes with in form of an easy road. You’re constantly growing and evolving, which also means you’re constantly not satisfied.
It took me a while to realize that that’s not a bad thing and appreciate previous work I’ve done. During my journey of freelancing, my perspective has dramatically changed. When I started, I firmly believed that success came in the form of garment flexing, sharing my travels through a social media app or just being tagged by someone with more than 20k followers. That all has changed. I measure success by someone’s life being impacted by my work and having fun while executing these things I share with the world.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
When I got started, mental health advocate posters were the only thing I was designing. As someone who gets hit with mild depression episodes occasionally, it would help me reset my mind.
That caught the attention of some brands in the fashion industry and lead to a collaboration with Sporty & Rich. From there on, I’ve been helping design apparel for brands, companies and record labels since. It also pushed to start my own, Mauvais Garçion, my proudest baby so far.
What have been some of the most important lessons you’ve learned over the course of your career?
Never stop creating for yourself. Always create for you. Let everyone that’s watching (believe me, they’re watching) be inspired by your art and identity. You’ll be surprised to what opportunities will come your way from that.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.christiangonz.com
- Phone: 7729244300
- Email: hey@christiangonz.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/badboypapi/
Image Credit:
Andrew Woomer
Suggest a story: VoyageMIA is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
