Meet Elvis Torres | Freelance Designer & Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Elvis Torres and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Elvis, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
When I decided to go into business for myself, I was working as kitchen help at a local Chinese restaurant and doing freelance design on the side. As time went on I found myself losing money while on the clock at the restaurant. The money from the freelance jobs was better and coming in faster than my checks at my day job, as the energy I would expend in the kitchen was taking away from energy and available hours that I could put into my design career. I weighed my options and ultimately determined that the extra time I would be able to put into building my design business could sustain my lifestyle and allow me to grow. Working as an employee there is a hard ceiling on your income with each job title, as an entrepreneur I saw income potential being unlimited and dictated purely by my work ethic and business skills. So I took the leap and decided to bet on myself.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
Visual communication in the graphic design form is best considered commercial art. While I do design beautiful things, it is important to remember that everything I create has a job to do. A specific message that needs to be delivered to a specific target audience to achieve results for the business I am working with. While that is basic art school knowledge it also gets lost many times in today’s age that is so aesthetically driven. Myself, I use the job that my art is hired to do to drive what I create, I focus on achieving the goals of the business before letting my heart dictate the art. I believe that’s what sets my business apart form others and a reason why so many clients gravitate towards my work.

Getting to this place and understanding of my craft took years of hard work and a good amount of time taking losses and learning lessons. I didn’t begin my career classically trained, I started off self-taught. During the time when I was learning my craft and refining my skillset I did a lot of work for free, intentionally and unintentionally. I dealt with shady businessmen that sold dreams and stole artwork. I did plenty of work for promotion or exposure, and also endured many too-good-to-be-true business deals that eventually soured. Through it all I learned many lessons and taught myself how to recognize and avoid making many of those same mistakes again.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Being a native Cleveland-er I would say the best way to enjoy a week long trip would be to come during football season. Early football season if you mind the cold weather. The tailgating and game day experience is unlike any other in the United States and Browns fans passion runs deep. Besides that I would encourage a visitor to see all of the tourist spots that Cleveland has to offer including the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Christmas Story House, I-X Center (The largest single room in the world), and to check out the food scene in Cleveland. Several world renowned chefs live and work in Cleveland and have opened up some incredible restaurants that are mostly hidden gems to outsiders.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
There’s been a few pivotal moments in my career but none as influential as when Josh Maunus, owner of Top of the World studio taking a chance on me in 2015 and hiring me as the staff graphic designer at Top of the World. At the time Josh’s business was expanding and he brought in talent of all different media channels. Once we all came together we made a huge impact on the local arts scene, and that period brought myself a huge number of new clients and exposure that still benefits my business to this day.

Website: ElvisTorresDesign.com

Instagram: @ElvisTorresDesign

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elvis-torres-11a930122/

Twitter: @ElvisTorresDsn

Image Credits
Chris Goody