Meet Alex Lazaris

We were lucky to catch up with Alex Lazaris recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Alex, appreciate you sitting with us today to share your wisdom with our readers. So, let’s start with resilience – where do you get your resilience from?

I think a large part of my resilience comes from being dyslexic. Learning to read as a child was extremely challenging but taught me how to overcome obstacles, push through failure and remain motivated. Living with the daily constraint of being dyslexic helped me learn how to push past my limits and grow as an athlete, in my career and business. Competing in sports throughout my life reinforced the same mental fortitude and resolve that has enabled my career success. Building brands and logos for clients is never a linear process. The process involves reworking ideas, incorporating feedback, direction changes and requires a healthy dose of resilience to find the perfect solutions for the client.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I run a branding and design studio named Lazaris (www.wearelazaris.com). We focus on transforming businesses in ways that ensure the business stands out from their competitors, industry, and attract new customers. I’ve had the pleasure of working with brands such as Adobe, Balenciaga, Epic Games, Fortnite, Unreal Engine, Twitch, Hilton, Pfizer and Louisville Slugger, Hertz, MillerCoors, as well as many more. I love the work I do on a daily basis thanks to the trust we receive from our clients. This trust allows us to push their comfort zones and deliver something new and novel for them. We look at pushing creative boundaries for projects as a necessity in order to challenge the status quo of their industry and attract new customers. We love to put a bit of flair and uniqueness into every project we do, and are incredibly grateful to our clients for trusting us to take them on this journey.

Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?

I think for me the biggest qualities/skills anyone can practice in order to make it in their creative career are; be obsessed, be curious, and be resilient.

Obsession in my view is a career growth multiplier. What obsession means to everyone is different, but what it looked like from my experience was consuming as much design and design related information as possible. I think my obsession with the creative field allowed me to take an active approach to digesting and understanding the world around me. For example if I were at a restaurant, I would dissect everything from their menus, branding, lighting, and interior design. I would try to understand where the consistencies and inconsistencies were. I would then try to analyze how it all ties back into the culinary experience and the quality of the food and balanced against the price. I have created decks filled with designers, agencies, their designs, and creative executions that inspire me. In these decks I would synthesize each piece of work, who made it, and write out why the piece/ project resonates with me.

Curiosity pairs well with the obsession trait, as it allows you to ask questions and dive deeper. I think with how fast media moves these days and the breakneck speeds we consume content, we often forget to pause and ask questions and dive deeper. Curiosity also allows you to explore and try things outside of your comfort zone and see things from different perspectives. I think it’s super important, when working with client’s, to understand their perspective before building solutions. The deeper you understand someone and their challenges the more accurate you can be with creating effective solutions to their problems.

We started this interview talking about resilience and I think it’s only fitting to include it as a top skill to practice and it will pay long term dividends for your life. While social media tries to promote how linear lives and careers should be, it is never in fact simple and clean. Even individual projects may have plenty of moments both high and low. How you handle the twists and turns of projects, careers, and life will determine how people around you react, and will also impact your own mental health. To me resiliency is a muscle that you can train regularly, but requires being mindful and in touch with yourself, your emotions, and stepping back to assess and coach yourself through the tough bits.

One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?

I am always looking for people to collaborate with. How that shakes out is dependent on the person’s background and skill set, and what kind of collaboration they are looking for. Right now our studio is looking for motion designers and 3D artists for client and personal projects but I’d love to collaborate with jewelers, fashion designers, artists, and chefs. Easiest way to reach me for a collaboration is via email at [email protected].

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.wearelazaris.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wearelazaris/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexanderlazaris/