Guille Manchado

What are some of your earliest creative memories and what lead you into design?

Art always struck me, I remember when I was a child and was studying history in school I loved to see the photos of the paintings that appeared in the books representing the historical moments that we studied. Later I started to paint graffiti on the street. It was graffiti that led me later to study illustration and graphic design.

What was your plan for graduating and what actually happened?

I really didn't have a plan, I thought that things would happen sooner or later. I was learning things on my own, researching authors, viewing conferences and documentaries on the internet, there aren't many documentaries about illustration, (but there is one you must see if you are interested in illustration, it's titled: Illustrators - A documentary.) and alongside that doing a lot of personal work. You must be able to criticise your own work, it's the most important thing, more than having a plan to follow step by step, being critical with your work is what will help you to improve, and this is what will give you opportunities in the future. So better than having a plan is being consistant and critical.

How did you develop your style as an illustrator and what tips would you have for others?

The best way to develop your style is working, but I think that the most complicated thing is being conscious of what your style is. It's like — be yourself, you can't be other people. Obviously, you'll be influenced by authors or by how it has grown your mind in the creative world, for example, I am influenced by my time painting because it gave me very well curved shapes and I never used to try to overdecorate my work and I think that can be seen today in my illustrations. You need to know yourself better and try to be great every day.

What have been some of your biggest disasters and how have you learn from it?

I always love to talk about failure because I learned that is the funniest and greatest thing in the world if you can to see it from the correct perspective. I think that I can't make a list of ''disasters'' because maybe I haven't enough experience, my career is just at the beginning but I fail a lot in the process of being what I am today, and I know that I'm going to fail more and more. People normally understand that failure is only a negative thing, nobody wants to fail, but failure is the best teacher you can have in your life, failure is the first step to success. Be open to failure and the next time you do it ask yourself what things you may do better for failing less because failing that time is an opportunity to learn to be better. I like to play chess and I know a guy that says 'Don't be afraid to lose a game because the loser is the only one that learns something.'