Meet James Bonilla

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

James, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

I always knew I wanted to make things. Not necessarily as a career, but as a constant source of joy and understanding. Often times, it’s the only way I know how to communicate — through creative expression. For a while, this was rooted in drawing or the visual arts, which was what led me to graphic design. But over time, I realized the medium matters less than the idea or message the creative urge contains.

So I don’t know if that’s necessarily “my purpose”, but it is a vocation of sorts: to always be curious, attuned to the environment around me, and to synthesize that into something meaningful to me, no matter what form that takes.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

For the last decade or so, I’ve spent my career focused on graphic design and art direction. This was primarily revolved around creating solutions for corporate entities, which was never my passion or dream; I always yearned for more expressive outlets closer to the arts than design. But it helped instill a sense of discipline, hone my skills, and kept me afloat financially, so I’m grateful for the opportunities it granted me.

I mostly have focused on branding and visual identity work, which means I’ve spent most of my time making a lot of logos and figuring out how a brand visually tells their story. But I’ve also worked on a multidisciplinary range of projects throughout my career — from designing websites to art directing photo shoots and even doing production design for videos.

Parallel to that, I write, record, and produce all of my own music as Phantom Heir. It’s a fusion of heavy music and atmospheric soundscapes; I like to think of them as scores for films that don’t exist (yet). Because of my skills as a designer, it also enables me to explore more dynamic expressions of visual and graphic solutions to support these releases. So in a way, it’s become a satisfying marriage of my talents and effective manner of channeling emotions.

For now, I’m simply writing and releasing music that speaks to wherever I am in my life. In the future, I’d love to expand upon these ideas and explore what they look like as films and multimedia experiences. I’d also love to collaborate with other artists and perhaps even consider what my music looks like in a live setting.

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?

The first would be to always maintain humility. No matter how much I learn or grow, there’s always something else out there that will be new to me. There will always be another person who is better than me or who knows more. And that’s okay. Surrounding oneself with all types of individuals, especially those who possess different talents and abilities, is essential to one’s prosperity. Knowing my best work is still ahead of me has always been a great motivator, even in my darkest moments.

This enables me to be open-minded, curious, and eternally hungry for new perspectives and knowledge. Part of the reason why I’ve had a multidisciplinary background was because I possessed this desire to absorb concepts, cultures, ideas, and perspectives that were foreign or unknown to me. There is an entire world of possibilities and opinions out there, and I see no reason why I should limit myself to accepting just one narrow viewpoint. I won’t always agree or like what’s in front of me, but that’s just part of living. I don’t see how one can make an informed, practical conclusion without first at least attempting to understand the wider context.

The final quality would be to always follow one’s instincts and intuition — within reason, of course. That last bit is extremely important, and almost non-negotiable for me. Without the balance of pragmatism to offset the instinctual behavior, there is nothing but chaos. But expecting life and humans to behave in accordance to some rational sense of order and logic at all times is simply impractical and foolish. The equilibrium of these two attributes — intuition and reason — have always been the foundation for my integrity and resolve when it comes to making decisions and pushing forward.

What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?

Learning to live with less. Over the past year, my father suffered a stroke, I was laid off from my last full-time job in design, I got sober, sold or gave away a significant amount of my possessions to get by, left the country without a real plan in mind, and lived out of a backpack and suitcase for several months. Through all of this, I was economically insecure and existentially uncertain, which prompted me to file for bankruptcy and reshape my life.

It was a period of awakening for me. For essentially my entire adulthood, I had been living irresponsibly as an alcoholic and under this spell of pursuing a myth of luxury and acclaim. The more I accumulated and drank, the more despair and hollow I felt. I had been slowly eating away at myself and unless I did something to change that, it would only have gotten worse.

So I’ve spent the past year reconciling with that and learning to forgive myself. A large part of that meant leaving behind what didn’t serve me well any longer so there would be room for me to prosper and grow. The result is a lighter and more fulfilling life, even if it means I own or do less. I’m no longer consumed by this pursuit of a “greater” life, but instead committed to appreciating and preserving what I have before me.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://jamesbonilla.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/jamesbonillaisonline
• Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/jamesbonillaisonline
• Other: https://phantomheir.band