Thinking about my goal and vision is both exciting and daunting.  It's exciting to consider that I could be pursuing my passion for art and design as a career and way of generating income. It is equally daunting, however, because the world is full of unknowns, and to be successful in any field, a person must be willing to make sacrifices and take risks.

The value proposition is my "X-factor". Everybody has unique backgrounds, experiences, skills and abilities, and by identifying these and understanding how they benefit myself and those around me, I can pitch myself to employees in a way that is engaging and unique.

My goal and vision has significantly changed in the past year. I think over time and experience my confidence has grown and in turn, my goals. I never really considered pursuing a creative director role as a concrete goal because it is a position that may seem too high to attain, but it has now become something I want to achieve.

ROAD MAP

To reach my goal of being a creative director, I need to work on more creative projects, both for clients and my own personal projects. By being in positions where I need to make creative decisions, I can hone the skills that are required for my career goal, such as coming up with creative concepts and justifying them.

I think that I'm more confident and assertive than I was before. I discovered that I'm braver now in taking risks and sharing my work.

To get started toward my goal and vision, I must create more outputs. They say experience is the best teacher, so by pursuing projects, both my own and work for clients, I can learn through my experiences and failures to become a better creative person.

Hi! I'm Mario Bermejo. I'm an illustrator and graphic designer helping creative groups tell their stories through visuals.

DEFINE MY WHY:

I'm a storyteller by heart. What I love about stories is that I believe that a single story can change a person's life; it's certainly been the case for mine.

WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE:

Being an illustrator and graphic designer, as well as a general multimedia artist, I can gather the skills and experiences from various disciplines into my work. For example, I directed, animated and edited an animated music video for a local band. By combining my experiences with various mediums, I was able to produce a video that helped a local band tell their story.

CALL TO ACTION:

You can find me through @mjanmarino everywhere on social media; please feel free to reach out to me and I'd love to know how I could help tell your story.
Thank you very much.

I felt a little nervous throughout the interview, perhaps more so in the beginning than the end because of the fear of not properly delivering my introduction in the succession that I had practiced. I felt more relaxed and “in the moment” during the interview portion as I was paying close attention to the questions being asked of me, and worrying less if I mix up my prepared speech beforehand.

I think the most significant thing I learned was how important it is, as a visual creative person, or just a creative person in general, to be self-aware in your work and being aware of why you create the things you do. In the past, and perhaps even now, I feel as though some people look down on my work, and on me as a person in general, and feeling like my work and I will never be enough. My past experiences with bullying and unmotivating comments on my work made me realize that I need to stand up for myself, first and foremost, and that I can’t let people step on me like a doormat like they used to. I must present myself as someone who is aware and respectful, and ready to answer anything with grace. I think this significantly helped me in the interview portion.

I’m grateful that there were no suggestions in the final interview, however I’m sure that I would cringe upon watching the playback of the interview and have many opinions on what I could do better. I try my best to be realistic in critiquing my own work and performance, both looking at the good points while constantly looking for improvements. I think I did decently given the circumstances, but I think I could be more personable in general. I think one technical thing I would like to improve is having a better lighting setup in my workspace so the webcam image is more pleasant.

This wasn’t a comment made during the mock interview, but a general comment that I heard about my recorded speaking voice that I heard before is that my cadence could use some improvement for a more pleasant, effortless experience for the listeners. I think I can tend to sound quite monotonous if I’m not careful or intentional with how I speak, so I think next time I could work on that so I can be more personable.