Today we’d like to introduce you to Andrea Macasadia.
Andrea, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My creative work honestly started as a hobby I’ve always had as a kid that grew into something special I realized I could thrive off of as an adult (Both for as a career and for my mental health). It started off as a child does, loving to draw and make things, I put out my best work in everything I did and eventually, I saw myself mixing in my artistic tendencies into schoolwork, writing, and productive tasks that needed abstract thinking. After high school, I felt the pressure to do something practical in college. I just wasn’t sure what I wanted to do yet, but I wasn’t completely lost because by then, I had more freedom to explore where my art could take me.
I’m thankful that my family has always been supportive in the things I’ve decided to do and they always nurtured my creativity growing up. In my search for a “practical” field, I found architecture. A cross between engineering (something I believed to be practical to satisfy that weird feeling in me) and design (where I could put my creative ideas to work). Through high school and going into college, I picked up a few more creative hobbies like Vlogging and video editing, music production, and apparel/graphic design. Making things made me feel whole. I made some money where I could from friends and family who liked my work, but it paid off more so in the satisfaction I got from seeing people acknowledge and enjoy the things I made. Putting my energy into design work had me feeling like I was where I was supposed to be. Architectural design and other mediums of design satisfied my craving to create and I’m definitely having fun doing it. It felt so great to get the same positive affirmation and excitement for the direction I was going from the people around me. I feel like my choice to pursue a creative career was probably the best decision I’ve ever made for myself, and I have my appetite for creativity that brought me to this point to thank for it.
By June 2019, I finished the architecture program at San Diego Mesa College with the intention of applying to UC Berkeley’s school of architecture to continue undergrad but after exploring my options for finishing my bachelor’s degree, it took me a single day to decide and apply to the NewSchool of Architecture and Design right here in Downtown San Diego. In my mind, I thought, “wow, it WOULD be cool to move out of San Diego for school,” but then I realized I could get the same education right from home and ironically enough (because of COVID) that’s exactly and literally what I’m doing today. It’s not somewhere I thought I’d be for school but it was so exciting to be immersed in design thinking and surrounded by such passionate people and knowing it was only 10 minutes from my house. So that’s where I am today.
With the design skills I’ve picked up in my life from being a self-taught illustrator to tools I’ve picked up from community college and NewSchool, I’ve done illustration/graphic commissions for anyone who has taken a liking to my work via Instagram and references from friends of friends. Overall I have all my friends and family to thank for getting me this sort of coverage with my work and I’ve had so much fun in all my experience working with people. Because of them, I had the opportunity to freelance graphic design work for a range of universities from SDSU, Touro University in Vallejo, CA, and NYU’s School of Global Public Health. I started getting offers for logo designs for different universities and local businesses and I think that’s where I started to take off with commissions on a more official level. I’m still taking off with my experience in the architectural field but so far, I have also been given opportunities for architectural consultation and drafting for private residential projects in Los Angeles.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have been lucky enough thus far to have a strong support system of friends and family behind me in my pursuit of work in the creative field as well as a community of creative young people that I have the honor to call many of them friends, that continue to inspire me.
A personal obstacle that I would say has followed me growing up was the notion that “making art is not a practical job that you can make money off”. At some point, I did feel that pressure to put my creativity where I can land a stable career. In college, that notion started to fade once I found out that there were fields and areas of study that I could be creative in and people around me who were thriving in those fields. This landed me to study architecture and to explore my skills on my own with graphic design. The idea of stability is still something I think about when I think of my future but whatever does happen, I’m just glad I’ll always have that motivation to do things I enjoy. My advice to young creatives who feel held back by the same social pressure to study something “practical” is to not push aside your nurture creative strengths but to nurture them and go for whatever it is feels right for your future. My love for the Paradise Hills community runs so deep that I will try to do everything in my power and in my future career to represent it and inspire young people to pursue the “unpractical” creative career that we were always told to avoid. The moment I started to trust my skills and realized that creativity is worth pursuing, I started to feel more confident about the direction I chose to go in.
I do consider my journey to have been fortunately smooth but, I will always have the motivation to bring up my community for the young creatives today who’s journeys have not been as lucky as mine and who deserve more resources and support in their creative ventures.
We’d love to hear more about your work.
I work on a range of creative mediums like illustration, video editing, apparel design and production (I teamed up with my dad who does screen printing), logo/graphic design, and I’ve recently extended my services to architectural consultation and drafting. I feel like I’m best known for my illustration and graph design commissions. I’m so proud of all the moments I’ve been able to produce in the form of icons and illustrations for people who have commissioned me. There are so many creatives like me who work in similar mediums who I admire but the simplest answer to what sets me apart from others is that they are not me.
One thing about art and design is that it’s EVERYWHERE and things could look very similar but it’s an artist’s unique style, execution, and thought process that sets them apart from the rest, and I do think I’ve formed a style for my own. Creating my own style and range is so important to me. To be able to collaborate and show clients options and styles they could choose from. I would say I’m a little more flexible than a traditional artist and I get this from studying architecture where it’s a form of collaborative design with a client to produce something that both of us can be proud of that I have since incorporated in all forms of my work.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
If we’re talking “proudest moments”, I would say one has been my decision to continue my architecture studies at Newschool of Architecture and Design. At the time, it was such an impulsive decision but it’s a step I’m glad I decided on my own to take. I was sitting in my last community college class in the spring, which happened to be one of the last classes I needed to apply to Berkeley, and I was in class looking at the school’s website and in that moment, it was just an idea. It turns out that idea was all it took because I was in the undergrad program by that winter. The fact that I made this decision my own has really defined who I am and how I approach things. This choice has given me the comfort and space to grow with my architecture while giving me the resources to learn and better my design career. I really see that confidence and self-assurance in other decisions I make today.
Contact Info:
- Website: andreamacasadia.myportfolio.com
- Email: andreamacasadia@gmail.com
- Instagram: @badgrldre / @artgrldre
Image Credit:
Kristen Trinidad, Diane Collado
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