Meet Carlos Apitz

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Carlos Apitz. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Carlos below.

Carlos, thank you so much for taking the time to share your lessons learned with us and we’re sure your wisdom will help many. So, one question that comes up often and that we’re hoping you can shed some light on is keeping creativity alive over long stretches – how do you keep your creativity alive?

Maybe you, who are reading this answer, go to the gym frequently, do some weight lifting or other types of exercises, and over time your body sees the results: You are at a good weight or toned and you feel full of energy. Is that so, right?
Creativity is like a muscle and needs exercise every day, sometimes with a daily routine, discipline and above all a lot of variety that stimulates your mind and imagination. Thomas Edison said that a good idea is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
I have been exercising my creativity every day for more than 30 years and I do several routines, which I will tell you about below as advice:
• Dedicate time to creative activities: Make time to paint, draw, write, or any other creative activity. Constant practice is key to keeping creativity flowing.
• Stay curious: Explore, research and study. Ask yourself “why?” and “what if?” more often. Curiosity is the spark for your imagination and creativity. Let your mind wander and explore different possibilities of a topic that interests you.
• Get out and explore: Open the door and get out of your comfort zone, visit or try new things. From using a new color in your paintings, going for a walk or visiting a park… it all counts. Variety feeds creativity.
• Collaborate, share and interact: Talking to other creatives or artists helps you learn, see new perspectives and enrich your creative process. Don’t underestimate the power of a good conversation.
• Work in an inspiring environment: Whether you work at home, in your studio or just go with your laptop to a coffee shop, try to make the environment inspiring, surrounded by art or things that stimulate you and above all good music. A stimulating environment can be the birthplace of great ideas.
• Relax and disconnect: Sometimes, the best ideas come when you least expect them. Give yourself time to rest and disconnect, allowing your mind to recharge.
Remember, creativity is like a muscle, the more you exercise it, the stronger it becomes! Keep creating!

Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?

We talked before about how to maintain creativity and for me creativity is not only a business, it is the reason for my life, creativity is like the coffee every morning, it wakes me up and makes me move physically and mentally.
Like many people living in Miami (a city I love), I am not from here. I was born in Venezuela, where I studied and developed a large part of my career and experience in Graphic Design, Artistic Illustration and Advertising or Marketing, where I held different positions and led teams and companies, obtaining merits, recognition and professional renown.
My curiosity and desire to always learn more led me to study and take courses to become a multidisciplinary professional, working in different creative areas successfully: Graphic Design, Web, Content Writer, Marketing and above all an artistic painter.
Currently, I have divided my professional creative activity into two important activities: Artistic and Marketing.

Link Team Marketing Agency
In Marketing I am dedicated to consulting, creation or implementation of strategies, management of marketing groups, design, web services, creation of written content, video, social networks and much more. I do my marketing work from my own company Link Team LLC together with a small but select team.
Currently we focus on Latin businessmen and entrepreneurs who are looking to speak one-on-one with their creative marketing group. Our most requested service is the creation of online stores on the web and printing services.

Carlos Apitz POP ART
At this point you may be asking yourself: What came first? The chicken or the egg? or what is the same: Painting or Design?
In my case, Painting. But over time, the two activities complemented each other very well and one helped enrich the other.
Carlos Apitz POP ART is my personal brand that represents my activity and artistic expression through painting. My style is very characteristic of contemporary POP ART. Although I have works of art with painted celebrities, one of my characteristics is that I try to mix the urban or natural landscape with POP ART and to bring together elements of Venezuelan culture with this style of painting.
From this fusion, works such as “Avila en Tres tiempos”, “Jose Gregorio POP”, “Miami Skyline”, “Casablanca” and others have been born. Many of my works are aimed at Venezuelans in exile, who like me, miss their culture but cannot return.
Most of my works are available in an original and unique version, but also in high-quality printed versions. I want everyone to be able to have some of my work on the wall of their home.

Art and Design
As I mentioned, design and art complement each other, for this reason I turned most of my works into designer pieces: T-shirts, dresses, bags, mugs, etc.
I realized that people also want to wear something artistic that represents them or identifies them.

Teaching is the best legacy
The work of every artist is the legacy that he leaves behind. But I believe that showing and teaching people what you love is also a form of legacy, it is also a way of making this world a little better.
For three years I have been giving painting and drawing classes to people of any age, who want to discover the artist that lives inside them and wants to express themselves. I help them so that this inner artist speaks through painting.

My dear reader, if you are looking for good art, design or painting classes, I invite you to contact me.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Looking back, I could tell you that my main skill that opened doors for me professionally was drawing and artistic illustration. This, together with my design studies, made me stand out quickly in the advertising agencies of my country and later, with the experience accumulated, also in the United States.

We all have a skill and talent that is sometimes hidden and other times that talent is noticeable to everyone. But if you don’t cultivate that talent or skill you lose it.
To develop your talent it is essential to study, practice and have goals or as some say: “Follow your dreams”.
Previously I gave you some examples of how to keep your creativity active, now I am going to make some recommendations, which I even tell my painting students or design tutors. So I am going to divide this advice into two parts:

#1- For young designers.
Nowadays the main workplace of a designer is the marketing department of a company, so a designer today is required to have more technical knowledge or use of digital tools than creativity, this is a reality.
Therefore it is necessary and important that you are acquiring new knowledge, learning and updating yourself all the time. Even if you are specialized in something specific as a designer (graphic or web), it is important in the professional market that you also have knowledge in other areas such as photography, video editing, social networks, web, printing and marketing. You do not have to be an expert in each area, but you must have practical knowledge.
In addition, with more knowledge you can make your projects have that original and creative touch that will make you stand out from the rest. Try to think outside the box, have a broad horizon and solid foundations to support your ideas and proposals, being persistent, responsible and careful with the details also helps you achieve professional success.

#2- For Young Artists.
You are a creator, your ideas and vision come to life through colors and brushstrokes, therefore it is mandatory to develop your talent and skills, improve your techniques and try to make your creations have a professional finish. Study the great masters of painting, attend art exhibitions and analyze current artistic trends. It is essential that you get or develop your own style that makes your works original and that the public identifies them with you.
But all art needs to be exhibited to be known and here comes the difficult part, you must initially use any possible means to make your artistic work known. Social networks are your first ally, learn about network algorithms and the best publication techniques.
It is also necessary that you get individual and collective exhibitions in art galleries, this will make you known in the artistic community and receive criticism. Don’t see criticism as a bad thing, in the long run it helps you improve your work.
Attend fairs and offer your art to a more general public, interact with people and learn from them and what they are looking for artistically.
Finally, it is necessary to learn other skills to support your artistic activity, digital marketing and printing will help you a lot.

Awesome, really appreciate you opening up with us today and before we close maybe you can share a book recommendation with us. Has there been a book that’s been impactful in your growth and development?

Reading has always been fundamental for me. I must confess that when I was young I read a lot, I was a consumer of all kinds of books on universal history or art, science fiction, novels, comics and much more.
But there are several books from which I learned a lot, and I keep them as a great treasure, these are:

Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis.
A book written in 1939 but still very current, it helped me a lot in relation to the use of Line, Tone, Color, Telling the story, Creating ideas, etc. A great phrase or lesson that I took from that book and I tell my students: “The Camera captures the image, the eye chooses what to see.”

Patrol System by Roland Phillips.
A book written for Boy Scouts that teaches you from a very young age the importance of teamwork, the responsibility you have as a team member to achieve common goals, how to organize yourself in a simple way and most importantly, become the Leader of your team and not just a boss.

The Art of War by Sun Tzu.
A Chinese book of military and political strategies written in 1521. In the 1990s we discovered how these strategies could be applied to marketing and business. With the arrival of the Asian tigers to Western business at the end of the 20th century, it was an important tool to understand the business vision of the Japanese, Koreans and Chinese. Don’t think it’s not current, on the contrary, its strategies are applicable to digital marketing in the 21st century. There are two phrases in this book that are important to me:
“There are only 3 primary colors, but in combination they produce more shades than you saw”
“In the midst of chaos there is also opportunity”

Contact Info:

• Website: https://CarlosApitz.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/apitz_graphic_design/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Carlos.Apitz.Design/
• Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosapitz
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/CarlosApitz
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXZ2VPkf7GFLW25HJQ1rdzA
• Other: https://linkteam305.com

Image Credits

All images or photographs are copyrighted and are the property of Carlos Apitz.