Alina Gutierrez brings colorful visuals to organizations - S15/E03

Update: 2024-03-19

Description

In this episode, Alina Gutierrez reflects on her childhood passion for art, her work as a banker, and how her banking experience led to her career in graphic facilitation.

Running Order

Intro
Welcome
Who is Alina Gutierrez
Origin Story
Alina's current work
Sponsor: Concepts
Tips
Tools
Where to find Alina
Outro

Links

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

Tools

Amazon affiliate links support the Sketchnote Army Podcast.

Tips

Push yourself to try something new so it doesn't become boring.
The more people are engaged with creating the visuals, the more impact it has on them.
Give yourself grace if you are starting. Don't compare yourself with those who started way before you did.
Give yourself realistic goals.
Listen to a TED Talk or a podcast to try taking live notes.
Challenge yourself to add new icons as you progress.
Look for something you're not an expert in and take visual notes of that.
Leave your comfort zone and get exposed to different tools.
Find inspiration from other artist's work.
Just do the first line, even if it means signing your piece before you get started.

Credits

Producer: Alec Pulianas
Shownotes and transcripts: Esther Odoro
Theme music: Jon Schiedermayer

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Episode Transcript

Mike Rohde: Hey everybody, it's Mike, and I'm here with Alina Gutierrez from Visual Versa. Alina, it's so good to have you. Thanks for being on the show.

Alina Gutierrez: Thank you. I'm super excited to be here.

MR: Yeah, me too. You were a recommendation from my friend Alejo Porras, who has been on the show in the past, and he's coming back again this season because so much has changed in his world, but he highly recommended you, and I'm always looking for new, interesting people, and you fit that perfectly. So why don't you tell us a little about who you are and what you do?

AG: Perfect. Thank you. That's such a simple question, yet complex answer.

MR: Sure.

AG: So who am I? I am a mom, wife, friend, lots of roles. I like starting with that because I think beyond whatever we do, we're all humans and have a personal life outside what we do. I have two little boys, seven and eight. I'm originally from Columbia, but I've been in Canada, oof. I lost count, I think since 2007, around those dates.

I am the founder of Visual Versa. I've been working for a little bit over 10 years, bringing color and visual notes to organizations. Well, there's a little bit of everything because I have a background all over the place. I think through Visual Versa, I found a way to merge all those passion and all that experience that I've had gained. I don't know if I answer.

MR: It sounds like you're kind of a generalist, I would say. You have lots of skills and you find ways to weave them together. Maybe that's a way to say it, I guess.

AG: I love that. Yes.

MR: Yeah, there you go. You can steal that if you want to.

AG: I like it. Thank you. I'll be stealing it. Yeah.

MR: Well, you hinted at it, but I'm really curious, I'm always curious for every guest, but especially in this case with you, how you ended up in this place. It sounds like you had lots of interests and lots of things happening, and yet you found this way to weave them together or find a place to weave them together. I suspect there were things you did in the past where you couldn't do the other things.

Like you had to focus on one thing and maybe you're frustrated, or. Tell us that story, go all the way back to even when you were a little girl. Were there things that you did as a little girl that you see now the thread tying you to the present?

AG: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I was actually having a conversation with my parents not too long ago, and they were like, "We're not surprised you're doing what you're doing right now." I used to paint everywhere. I was the one who did a mural in my room and painted my jackets and painted on my backpack, whatever. You name it, I have painted on it. I was blessed enough to have a family that allowed me to do that. But I also had, I would say, this duality between that rational side of me and the artistic side, I think a lot of it came from my background.

You know, back home, the opportunities or the amounts of jobs available were not as many back then. Right now, I think there's a lot of stuff going on, and there's actually a lot of people doing sketch notes back home and really good people. But I felt that I had to go for a more secure career. When it came to the time where I had to design what, I wanted to do, I went into a program called design Engineering. It had that design aspect of it, the creativity, but it had the engineering title that kind of had that recognition. So social recognition.

Back in high school, I was the one who painted doors for every single party or whatever we were celebrating. I was part of a musical actually in my hometown. I used to sing and act. Then I got to university, and despite the design part of the program, there was a lot of calculus and physics and all that kind of stuff.

I've been kind of a perfectionist my whole life so I wanted to excel, but I had to put a lot effort into it. I realized by now, but then looking back, it's like sometimes when you have to push that more effort, things do not come natural to you maybe that's not your place. It doesn't mean that you cannot do it. If you put yourself to it, you can. But, you know, all the creative part of it used to come so natural to me.

Then there was this opportunity to do exchange program in Quebec. So I applied to university and the way it worked, it was a agreement between governments, so I could come here and do a semester or a year of my program and some students would go there. I had to pay for my expenses, but I didn't have to pay for the university.

I applied to Concordia University. I got accepted. Then when I got my acceptance letter, they said, "The only thing is we don't have the same program here, so you have to either go into fine arts or the engineering department." I was like, "Ta-da." I was so excited. Scared but excited. So I said, "I wanna go into fine arts." And you know, that self-doubt of like, "Oh, maybe I don't have what it takes because these people that are doing all plain arts and I haven't done that much."

But I submitted my portfolio, got accepted and came to Montreal. After I got here, I kept extending my stay, extending, extending. I was like, "Oh, I like it. I'm gonna finish my program and then go back home." Then I graduated. In Canada, when you graduate as an international student, they give you a work permit. And I was like, "No, I need to get work experience here and then go back home with that in my CV." Long story short, I ended up staying. I met someone and it's been way too long and I'm still here. I'm getting to your question.

MR: Oh, this is all part of the question. You're doing excellent. Keep going.

AG: Okay. I then graduated and I had to find a job because part of the rule is they give you a work permit, then you have to find a job within a timeline. I found a job. It was hard for me to find a job because you had to speak English and French for most job openings, and I didn't speak French back then. I found something, I was not too happy then found a job at a bank, you figure.

They hire me. They were like, "We don't care, you don't have that background. We'll train yo