Ari Takata-Vasquez, Founder - Viscera Studio

Written by
Ari Takata-Vasquez
Published on
September 25, 2024

Design with Ari Takata-Vasquez

Ari Takata-Vasquez is a passionate artist and entrepreneur committed to fostering Oakland’s creative community. She is the founder & creative director of Viscera Studio, a multidisciplinary studio providing creative consulting to startups and businesses with the goal of promoting economic justice.Prior to the studio, she founded of Viscera, a USA-made brand and shop established in 2014, Ari promotes intentional living through ethically sourced products that highlight craftsmanship, creativity, and storytelling.

"The platform makes it easy for me to collect and organize my inspiration both in a visual way while designing."
- Ari Takata-Vasquez, Founder - Viscera Studio

Design Process

Collect: How do you explore new ideas?

I don't think I'm always fully consciously exploring ideas, I think a lot of it happens subconsciously. I'm constantly finding inspiration and often my camera roll is how I log different ideas. It can be a unique plant I come across, or the way a particular font looks on a well designed package. I have these little snippets littering my camera roll, but I don't always have a great way to organize and pull them together. They’re in a big jumble in my brain.. The studio team knows I'm absolutely horrible with file management but do so much better in collage or word map format. I need a big open space to throw down all my ideas so I can start or collect and organize them.

'Collect' - Mural Inspiration - Ari Takata-Vasquez

Design: How do your ideas start to take form?

It'll usually come to me when I spot a problem or something that isn't working as well as it could. It's like a puzzle my brain can't help but solve. In my home, for example, I might have my kitchen tools organized in a way that just won't stay organized and even though it's a minor inconvenience, it'll kind of knock around in my brain as an open tab until I solve it. So I might be wandering a vintage market and find the perfect little set of vases that can hold the spoons, spatulas, in a way that won't only be more efficient but beautiful.

'Illustrations' - Ari Takata-Vasquez

Share: How do you communicate or express your ideas?

As I mentioned earlier I love a big open space to throw down all my ideas and then sort and organize them into something coherent. I typically find just writing, just visuals, or just sketches really limiting. I usually need them all together to show my inspiration, my thought process behind it, and then my iteration of it that solves the problem at hand. I find it difficult to purely use one medium to express my ideas, especially when I want to provide more context and background.

Process - Ari Takata-Vasquez
Process - Ari Takata Vasquez

Ari Takata-Vasquez

Founder & Creative Director

@ari.viscera

@arimadeart

https://www.viscerastudio.com/

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