Camilo jumped into the creative scene at 14 when he discovered his passion for graffiti—also known as CEROKER— which led him to refine and challenge his skill through learning graphic design. Following this passion Camilo has set up a three man street art studio A TRES MANOS ESTUDIO and also delving into the branding world with SEVERO ESTUDIO. We're big fans of Camilo's amazing use of colour and the clear passion he brings to his creativity.
What are some of your earliest creative memories and what lead you into design?
Well, I really came to design through graffiti. When I was 14 years old, I started to paint illegal graffiti on the street and at school, I always spent my time drawing. Then, when you are in your last year of school, you are always asked: what would you like to study? And the truth I had no idea. I started researching and found something called Graphic Design. From what I could find out, there were many things that caught my attention, including typography and branding, which were much related to graffiti and therefore I decided to study Graphic Design.
What was your plan for graduating and what actually happened?
When studying I never had a clear goal, I simply wanted to learn for myself and for my life. I never thought about learning to have a job or work in a large studio. That was never my goal. My life is always parallel to what I do with graffiti or street art, so a few semesters after finishing college I made the decision to stop and dedicate myself 100% to graffiti, and that's how it was. I never finished college but it helped me a lot to be able to do what I'm doing now. It gave me an important base to potentiate my work and see it in a more professional way. Now, after a few years, I have a street art studio that mixes graffiti and design A TRES MANOS ESTUDIO and recently I re-loved the design and decided to start my own studio called SEVERO ESTUDIO where we are dedicated to branding.
What does a typical working day include for you right now?
My days are very varied. I almost always dedicate a single day for meetings with clients and I do not work on anything creative. The rest of the days, I usually start watching some episodes of my favorite series on Netflix, then I check my email, I dedicate an hour to my Instagram account and then I dedicate myself to work on the project I have. Then most of the time, my creativity flows more at night or while I’m taking a shower hahaha, I do not have established schedule.
What do you look for in a great client?
I always seek for a client to be open to new ideas, to let propose and to know how to listen, of course also to pay on time hahaha!
If they look to me for a job, I have the advantage of having an established style that leads them to look for me, so almost always the client already has very clear what he wants and this facilitates my work.
I took references of the Greek, Egyptian, Mayan paintings in summary of the ancient civilizations where they started from the basic ways to create their murals. Let's say that I wanted to start from the origin and that's how I created a style.
How did you develop your style as an illustrator and what tips would you have for others?
Everything went wheels on and as always thanks to graffiti. Before I did graffiti writing or hip-hop (as you want to call it) and when studying design, I started to understand the city and its walls in a different way. I wanted to start to illustrate since by this means I could show things that classic graffiti could not.
I was not drawing so to start to illustrate I started from the premise of the design "less is more", then I began to illustrate from the geometric figures, I took references of the Greek, Egyptian, Mayan paintings in summary of the ancient civilizations where they started from the basic ways to create their murals. Let's say that I wanted to start from the origin and that's how I created a style and well, in Argentina I had the opportunity to meet the illustrator Vanina Starkoff, from whom I learned a lot about color. Thanks to her I became obsessed with this topic and well we Latinos are very emotional and colorful! Hehehe
What’s on the cards professionally and personally in the next 12 months?
As much of my life revolves around street art, one of my plans for next year is to travel to Europe to paint some good murals and see how things move in other countries, but without leaving aside everything I have achieved with the two studies I have done.
As for A TRES MANOS ESTUDIO, we want to take what we do to galleries and possibly venture into fashion. The idea with SEVERO ESTUDIO is to consolidate ourselves as a creative studio and grow much more since at this moment we are a small studio made up of only two people.
2018 for you in a scentence
Don’t be afraid of failure.
Where to find A TRES MANOS ESTUDIO & SEVERO ESTUDIO online.
Website: ceroker.com
Instagram: @ceroker
