Fiverr Pro designer and art director Ana Rita Sousa (aka AnaSousa212) is a digital nomad with a passion for branding and visual identity. Ever evolving, her next step in her freelance journey is joining the Fiverr Pro Team at Cannes, designing web content for The Work, for Cannes’ next global campaign.
Follow along on her adventures via #FiverrDoesCannes to see what’s next for this incredibly talented doer. In the meantime, here’s Ana Rita’s story:
Tell us a little about you. Who you are, where you’re from, what you do on Fiverr Pro. My name is Ana Rita Sousa, and I’m a designer and art director. I am originally from Portugal, but I’m currently based in Amsterdam. I’ve been freelancing for the past 7 years in Europe and Australia. And I just recently joined Fiverr Pro. My services there focus in Branding and Visual Identity. When I’m not working I love to read, dance, and spend time with friends in nature.
How did you get your start freelancing? Is Fiverr your full-time Gig, or more of a side hustle? I started freelancing in between jobs. It was a moment of reflexion and re-evaluation of what I wanted to do in my life.
Freelancing was the way I found to work commercially, all while investing my time and energy developing an aesthetic and creative approach that I could call my own. Fiverr is a side hustle, and I’m excited to join the Pro team at Cannes.
Walk us through your creative process. What information do you need from a buyer to set them up for success? Upon receiving a briefing, my process starts first with research. This helps me to understand the nature of client’s needs and service/product, as well the market where it’s positioned, the competitors (their strengths and weaknesses) and the kind of imagery used in similar products or services. After that, I start to build a visual map that helps me position the briefing into a very specific visual world.
Often I share this “map” with my client in order to get their opinion, and then together we define a stylistic approach that’s suitable with what needs to be done. That’s the basis before starting to sketch ideas and develop them into different design options. Before I start, I try to learn as much information as the client can share with me. About their brand/product, their expectation and visual references.
Thank you for lending your talents to helping us build an exclusively Fiverr Pro campaign for The Work. What are you most excited for this week? I am very excited and curious about how everything is going to unfold and what kind of work are we going to produce. I think it will be very interesting to be part of a new team and to work together for such a concentrated, short period of time.
What is the significance of the Cannes Lions, in your opinion as a creative? I do believe it has an important place when it comes to showcasing and sharing some of the most relevant work every year in the creative industry. I’ve never been before, and I’m very curious to understand the dynamics and evaluate from closer perspective.
What are the key elements of a good design? For me good design needs to serve a purpose, and it needs to be functional to a certain extent. If it doesn’t answer a question it should help formulate a better one. I do believe there’s a certain level of authenticity necessary when considering good design. Design in my opinion can apply to all sort of things, even outside of its creative world/industry.
How would you describe your style? I’d say my style combines a bunch of different things and its result is colorful, fresh, clean, fun and a bit elegant.
Has working on Fiverr Pro changed the way you think about your profession and/or freelancing? I hope it will give me the chance to develop interesting work that I can be proud of, and that clients will be happy with. I believe Fiverr Pro can give buyers an easy access to worldwide professionals (and a variety of them), who are used to developing and delivering top-quality work.
What drives you as an entrepreneur? Why do you do what you do? To be honest I am still defining and shaping what being an entrepreneur means to me and how I want to evolve as one. Being a freelancer has been a great way to work and travel simultaneously. By doing so I’ve had the chance to understand that this is a combination that really interests me. Developing a system that supports my lifestyle is important to me.
What are your goals for 2018—and what can we expect next from you? There are several things I’d like to do! I’m working on a couple of photography projects that I’m looking forward to launching and sharing before the end of the year. I’d like to learn Gravity Sketch in order to design VR environments. There are a couple of collaborations with artists and brands that are supposed to come out soon as well. And of course, I’m looking forward to many interesting Fiverr Gigs!
Have a Pro story you want to share? Tell us in the comments below! And follow all of our amazing Fiverr Pro Team at Cannes using #FiverrDoesCannes
