I'm Sioswel

I am a graphic designer, 23 years old, native from Venezuela. Passionate about technology and learning, from a very young age, thanks to my brother's introduction to the world of computing, I developed an uncontrollable interest in software.

I was always recognized and motivated by all my teachers (challenged by some), undoubtedly one of the most direct sources to my spirit, a lover of academic and professional challenges.

In my adolescence, thanks to the guitar, I had a direct approach to art and discovered areas of study that inspired and motivated me, such as physics and cosmology.

Later, I went to Law School, and as life takes many turns, one day I found myself studying the Graphic Design curriculum.

I met incredible and very talented people, surrounded myself with friends and colleagues who boosted me professionally.

Without a doubt, I am a lover of challenges and extremely fortunate to have this talent I call "The Talent of Learning," which has allowed me to improve in every area that interests me efficiently and quickly.

My history

The technology in my life

From a young age, I was very aware of the value of discipline when it came to studying, which is why my academic performance was always very positive, always gaining the motivation of family and teachers since primary school. On a trip to visit some relatives, I went to an aunt's house, where there was a computer. I remember hours and hours of playing on it with my cousins who were around my age. Without a doubt, when we returned home, there was nothing I wanted more than a computer.

A while later, my parents decided to buy one, a great gift, and the best part, a powerful tool that was now at home.

My brother, who at that time was the most knowledgeable about computers, was in charge of teaching me basic things and sparking my interest in the world of software, video games, learning to use office suites, how to install and uninstall programs. I mean, at that time we didn't even have the internet; we had to buy DVDs, haha, those years were my awakening.

I was very good at learning. As the years went by, I experimented more and more on the computer with the confidence in my brother's phrase, "You have to learn, if it breaks, we'll fix it." I found myself learning about how computers worked. Before I knew it, I was programming Minecraft servers to play with friends I had met online in some video games. At less than 12 years old! Understanding the basics of Java to be able to play, all without teachers and only with YouTube and a bunch of forums on my side.

My brother started studying Systems Engineering, so he eventually had to do object-oriented programming projects in Visual Basic, and some things in HTML, and of course, I was curious to learn, and I did.

“Later, my parents paid for me to attend an in-person programming course, covering topics like VBasic, HTML, CSS, PHP, and Apache. It was an interesting experience.”

By this time, I was a lover of video games, and programming was fascinating.

My love for technology had been born.

My academic career

When I was about 16 years old, I discovered an interesting article that talked about exponential growth, using the typical example of how many times you have to fold a piece of paper to reach the moon. This blew my mind, so I kept reading and reading, and discovered another fascinating topic; the sizes in the universe, how small we are, how giant the planet is, but how tiny it is next to the Sun... simply my mind had an explosion of interests at that moment, my love for physics and cosmology was born. From then on, it was a non-stop, consuming videos, articles, data, books, movies, all related to science, history, politics, religion, philosophy. I was overwhelmed (and still am) by an insatiable hunger for knowledge of everything around me.

I loved learning things, I loved studying and understanding new things, but I hated memorizing topics for exams, the exams that required exact memory were always a problem for me. I am remarkably good at conferences, presentations, and oral defenses where I could go along with my script, analytical development exams were my specialty, but those exams that had to be exact, like formulated physics and mathematics, were my weakness, I am not good at learning things that bore me or do not interest me. I was about to fail physics in my last year of high school, all because a large percentage of the subject was formulas and things like that, however, in the last opportunity that the teacher gave me, I was alone with him (I was the last student pending to recover my points), and I went blank, it was my last chance, and I could not solve speed and acceleration formulas; in complete solitude with the teacher, I was sincere and told him, "I do not know how to do this, teacher I love and really like physics, if you want let's talk about whatever you want, relativity, gravity, black holes, speed of light, history, Einstein, Tesla, Edison, Newton, but I do not know how to do this." The teacher allowed me to talk about what I knew about relativity, we talked for more than 30 minutes, to which he said "Keep learning son, reading and studying, that is what really matters, you are approved." Without a doubt, that was one of the moments that marked me for life. For the first time, I felt that the problem was not my weakness with memory, the problem was not focusing on what I did well. I am immensely grateful to Professor Ramón for that moment.

The design era

At the end of 2017, just finishing high school, I moved to another city to study Law at the Faculty of Legal and Political Sciences. At 17 years old, I had to decide which career to pursue, and how could I not choose Law among several options, if I loved analysis and debate, complex challenges, and solving complex problems based on logic like nothing else.

It was a difficult stage, moving to another city without too many resources, going from place to place of people who could support me with a room in their homes from time to time. I discovered a new world; for the first time, I was surrounded by very intelligent people, incredible people, classmates, professors, and just listening to them talk about complex topics was a pleasure. I discovered a cultural and academic diversity that was unimaginable in my town.

Four years later, at the height of the global pandemic, the university became an inaccessible place. I had to return home, the professors tried to continue online, but it was something too new, it didn't go well, they didn't know how to handle all the pressure, and on my part, I was surrounded by internal and personal problems, anxiety and stress ended up leading me to a collapse to the point that I stopped studying for the exams telling myself "I will continue next year."

The growing phase of NFTs and the crypto economy began, and in Venezuela, this was a dominant trend. Among many things, in NFT communities, I made very important friends, partners, and colleagues.

In one of the communities, they held a contest,"Create the logo for our academy and get a free scholarship in our NFT game." I can remember my friends saying, "You know how to use Photoshop, do it, maybe you'll win something." Designing a logo in Photoshop... oh my god, but yes, I needed the money, so I participated.

I told myself that if I was going to participate, I had to do it well. I remember turning off my phone and disconnecting from everything to spend the whole day researching and reading, "How to make a good logo" was my premise. I discovered concepts that I never imagined, I had never known what design was, fundamentals like color theory, the psychology of form, laws like gestalt, principles, and fundamental bases... the more I read and listened, the more interesting everything became. And I, when something interests me, I get obsessed. I spent a week there, consuming content and design topics, I designed my logo (not very good by the way), and participated. I remember being in the top 3 best proposals, surpassed by two real designers.

Design ended up appealing to me, and I, who didn't want to base my life on volatile economies like NFTs, said, maybe this is an opportunity. I started taking courses, reading a lot, studying with a lot of discipline for months. At one point, when my economy wasn't the best, I managed to save $50, and I took a risk for myself, spending it to acquire a digital tablet and start taking design seriously. It sounds little now, but back then, it meant leaving weeks and months of work for a possibility.

In the end, I bought my tablet, saved a few more dollars, left my NFT job, downloaded the curriculum of one of the most recognized universities in my country, and studied subject by subject from my computer, videos, books, articles, podcasts, for many months. Some very small and poorly paid work here and there from forums and social media groups. I kept improving my practice, filling my portfolio, and constantly studying to be good at what I did, I didn't want to stagnate.

And here we are, eventually, I got better and better clients, previous clients recommended me to their acquaintances, other designers admired my work, others questioned it, students I knew approved my practices, many things happened around my growing career, and all of them were a driving force to improve.

I specialized in the areas that represented the greatest challenge to me, and I continue to work on them, brand design, UX/UI design, and motion graphics. And of course, I'm not going to stay still, I plan to expand even more, because if others can, I can too.

My introduction to arts

When I was a child, my parents encouraged me to learn singing and to play the cuatro (a Venezuelan instrument similar to the ukulele), however, I never developed a genuine passion for them, and I ended up leaving them aside. Over the years, motivated by a TV series where the protagonist was a musician, I was inspired to learn to play the guitar, an instrument that I found much more enjoyable than the cuatro. I started taking classes at an affordable place, two hours every Saturday. The teacher had to lend me a guitar since I didn't have one. Eventually, my father got me a guitar, which is the one I hold in my photos 13 years later. I attended these classes for about two months, then I stopped going to learn on my own by watching tutorials on YouTube. And so I continued as a self-taught musician until today.

Learning guitar helped me develop motor and mental skills. It also opened up an entire artistic world in front of me, allowing me to understand musical anatomy.

From a much younger age, I was always interested in drawing as well, partly inspired by my brother, who also had this hobby. I took a couple of courses, learned some things from YouTube, but I was never too good at it. The impostor syndrome always got the best of me, and it remained a secondary hobby for me.

Around the age of 15, I discovered literature and poetry. J.K. Rowling, Elvira Sastre, Pablo Neruda, Gabriel García Márquez, and a bunch of independent poets on the internet nurtured my taste for poetry. I had learned a new indispensable skill: reading, truly reading.

In 2017, with the growing virality of Billie Eilish, everyone was talking about "IDWBYA," a media hit. But it didn't completely catch my attention until a friend insisted so much that I forced myself to listen and pay attention. I listened to The Colors Show version on YouTube, and I didn't love it, but WATCH, part of the same session, appeared in the recommendations. I only had to hear one high and sustained note from Eilish to get hooked. I discovered music that filled my chest. Seven years have passed until today, and I am still a big fan. This also contributed to my love for music production and discovering interesting music and artists, which definitely influenced my culture a lot.

A couple of years later, I developed a passion for cinema, all thanks to movies like Interstellar, Inception, and The Joker. I discovered the vast world of cinematography and how it combined so many incredible things: story, philosophy, photography, music, acting, poetry. It was the ultimate expression of art. And today, I consider myself a lover of good movies.