Welcome to the fourth edition of Async Chats! This letter is all about candid conversations with people like yourself. If you’d like some more context see this letter. Otherwise, let’s get into this.
Katerina is an independent graphic designer, specializing in web illustrations. She is located in Thessaloniki, Greece and is a remote worker.
Why remote work?
My clients nowadays are from other countries and not Greece, so it’s a necessity.
What are your interests outside of work?
Love video games since I was a little kid, photography and lately I’m into gardening. Oh and movies + series!
What are some of your favorite digital or physical tools?
I’ve always been a Windows user and design on Adobe Illustrator there, but slowly and steadily I found myself moving to Apple products so now the iPad Pro + Pencil and my Macbook Air are my favorites. Illustrator remains the main creative tool for me. However there are new tools that help with expanding my work like Rive.app for animation, Blender and Spline for 3d and sometimes Procreate for hand-drawn designs. Oh and Adobe XD for testing designs inside prototypes, etc.
Do you prefer to work/ communicate asynchronously or synchronously? Why?
Asynchronously for sure! It allows me to better handle my schedule and attend to matters when I am able to properly handle them. Also there is a sense of freedom to be able to communicate without losing time waiting for replies or rushing to answer.
Questions of the week:
Based on this edition of The Gray Area.
What is your opinion around finding a niche and sticking to it?
I thinks it’s different for everyone and depends on the personality. Personally, I believe it’s a great way to make significant impact, master work you truly love doing and stand out. But my husband is wired in a different way. He gets easily bored, he prefers to learn and work on different projects / areas. What’s weird I think, is that in the end it’s a different journey to a similar destination. Even if you find a niche, you still have to master several other qualities and skills that won’t be directly relevant to what you initially set out. For example my decision to work mostly with web illustrations is really fulfilling but I still have to keep an eye on tech developments for new formats and tools. To learn about how the images are served, the context designer teams work and the business goals of each company. These help me become better but still it’s not as simple as people think.
Do you have a niche? Why?
I think so. Having created unDraw led to a larger client base that were reaching out for similar work. So I’ve created so many web illustrations l think it has become my niche audience.
Do you think more people should have a niche, rather than being “jacks of all”?
As I mentioned, I’m a bit biased towards that, due to my personal experience and my personality. I love a routine and I’m happy progressing forward to a specific skill I really feel comfortable practicing.
If you could start over, would you niche down and what profession would it be?
I wouldn’t change anything and I would still be an illustrator specializing in web illustrations. But at some point, I’d love to move to other types of illustration but one at a time, to be able to niche down again! Haha...
What is something few people know about you?
Don’t laugh at me but I’ve reached a point where I am terrified to see horror movies. Although I’ve always loved the genre, I saw too many in a short amount of time, that I now find myself really not able to watch any more. But I will overcome it at some point! More seriously, I love working on art illustrations that I have not shared because I don’t feel ready so it’s pretty much something only a few people close to me know.
Anything new or important you’d like to mention to the readers?
If you’d like check out unDraw where I share open-source illustrations.
Links
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Know someone that would be a great fit – comment on this letter or reach out to me on Twitter
excelente página, y mejor es la disposición de esta señora Katerine quien, de verdad, se nota que posee gran entendimiento y conocimiento del diseño, así, para ella y su querida familia, les mando un abrazo desde Caracas, Venezuela. Ah, descargué unas veinte imágenes vectoriales para practicar en el programa synfig que estoy aprendiendo. Un abrazo y buen día para Katerina, su esposo y demás seres queridos
That was a great read. Thanks.