Interview with ENVY’s Nick Valerio
Author’s note : Nick Valerio is the one that designed the A$AP Yams avi for the @RapHQco twitter page, and the business card displayed on the about me page. He’s also worked with several in the industry, not limited to but including retired NBA players, and numerous music labels.
How long have you been in the multimedia, graphic designing industry for?
I’ve been designing since like 12 years old and developing since around 16 or 17, I recently just got into the industry as I progressed through college, trying to get my bachelors by 20 years old. Decided to start doing freelance to build my name and brand up.
Who’re your inspirations?
My inspirations honestly is myself, and those who don’t believe in me… I don’t have to many people I look up to but I do respect a lot of artists out there, to me the biggest inspiration would have to be overall art and nothing else.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
I see myself having my own independent design studio, allowing me to work with great people developing websites that launch and gain many viewers and overall wealthy, I dont care about being famous, mostly just want to be happy and comfortable doing what I love and enjoying my life.
You graduate with your bachelors this May, correct? What’re your plans after that?
Yeah, I think it’s around May or a month after I’m not too sure exactly on the date but my plans are simple, continue freelance and building up ENVY and try to snag a nice career job that gives me a healthy paying salary. My goal is to create amazing visuals that people will love but in my niche as a freelancer is the music industry, I love music and creating amazing visuals for artists who need cover arts or banners. Including but not limited to, promotions and flyers would be amazing to me, since I love hip hop and the culture, giving back to it and helping artists bring their vision to life on a canvas would be an incredible feeling for me but starting off I want to learn the ins and out of business behind multimedia development and graphic design.
What do you design with?
Photoshop and Illustrator are my go to softwares to design with and for development, brackets and dream weaver are my primary softwares. Each one helps for different purposes.
What would you recommend to anyone trying to breakout in this industry?
For anyone trying to get into this type of industry doing designing or development, I’ll say this, it isn’t easy. You have to have patience, learning will be an every day thing and failure will make the best out of your accomplishmenst. When it comes to this type of work the more time you invest into it, the better you become and the more knowledge you gain. When starting off, yes the software might seem a bit intimidating but use your resources like the internet to search up tutorials and learn from them and try to understand everything being taught. Don’t ever give up on the vision either because with design and development, anything is certainly possible as long as you commit to finding out how to do it.
Any last minute shout outs?
Shout out to those who love me. Shout out to those who don’t believe in me, shout out to my grandmother… rest in peace. Shout out to everyone who enjoys dope art and visuals. Shout out to those who share my blood and shout out to those who aren’t my blood but are honest, loyal and respectful.
