With Greg Ayala

Tell us a little bit about your life at present?

Right now, I’m doing full time freelance work, the work I do really ranges in all sorts of projects. Primarily, I do a lot of 3D art/ design as well as logo work and branding. I live in Tacoma, Washington, USA, but I work on projects all around the world.

Nice, and what does a typical day look like for you?

A typical day looks like a solid morning coffee and a quick cuddle session with my dog, Kona, before I get to emails and work. I try to take a break in the afternoon to walk Kona. Evenings can vary depending on my deadlines, but I love ending it with a glass of wine and hanging out with my fiancé.

When did you discover you had a passion for design? Any key driving influences to creative design?

Honestly, I didn’t really know I liked design until the pandemic started. I was really sold on the idea of getting involved in photography more, but obviously no one was really interested in doing shoots at that time. I ended up experimenting with some previous batches of photos I took from the months to years prior and did designs on top of them. This satisfied my creative itch, and after a while, I just wanted to do more creative work with imagery and typography. That led me down the rabbit hole of 3D design since the possibilities are endless with creating your own images/ artworks, and now here I am haha.

What are your key influences in your work, and in life in general?

I'm influenced by other artists in the queer community, I'm just super inspired when I see another queer artist just be so authentically themselves.

How would you describe your style? And what is your main source of inspiration?

I would mainly classify it as my version of surrealism.

I still take a lot of inspiration from photography, even if it isn’t my main medium anymore. My style has really just shifted based on the medium I’m using. I think since I was doing mainly photography years ago, my mind wasn’t open enough to think of different ways of incorporating different mediums together. I feel the most inspired the deeper I immerse myself.

Tell us about your early days and how you came to be where you are now?
Was this always the plan?

I actually have been creative my whole life I just didn’t really know where I fit in my own ‘thing’. I fell in love with music production and sound design when I was 16 and kept that hobby until now. Later it developed into a love for photography and now design. I didn’t really have a plan on figuring it out. I kind of just decided what I wanted to get into and just started doing it. Freelancing was not something I anticipated, but ever since the pandemic, it’s been how I support myself, so I definitely found the silver lining through that time.

Tell us about your meaningful milestones to date. Are there any particular moments or projects that hold a special place in your heart?

Ugh, this is hard, but because the last few years have been such a wild turn of events for me creatively, I would honestly say the most meaningful moment has got to be realising I could be a full time freelancer in the pandemic. It really shifted my mindset on what I can achieve in my career.

Where do you find inspiration and creative influence?

I feel like this is such a cliche, but music really is a major source of my inspiration. I love to dig through SoundCloud and just find all these random tracks from different artists. Most of the time it’ll spark a visual idea for me to create.

Outside of design, what are your other passions?

I really enjoy the art of sound design and music production, it’s my second vice when it comes to being creative. It’s just a different way for me to satisfy a creative itch when I don’t want to do anything visual based.

What is most challenging about being an artist?

The business side of things for sure.

What advice would you give someone wanting to follow in your footsteps?

Try everything! You’d be surprised at what you actually like and what you could be good at.

What’s next for Greg Ayala?

Currently, I’m just enjoying where my career is headed. I have some new concepts for some personal work I’m working on and my side project, ‘Pops’, which is more catered to my music production mixed in with my visuals. I hope to share more of those ideas soon xx