Alicia Souza, an Example of Pure Simplicity and Success!

Sometimes, things don't move as they are planned. Whatever has to happen, happens and there is definitely something good in it. So is the case with Alicia Souza.

The reason she started illustrating as a freelancer was because she needed to pay rent. She feels like she didn't intentionally get into the place that she is in today but rather fell into it with circumstances at hand and the choices she made. Alicia moved to India to illustrate and her style evolved into the style she uses primarily today. Setting up the online store came after massive demands started flowing in for it.

The Inception

Launching her own studio, Aliciasouzastudio has been her biggest responsibility. Even after time constraints restricting her from visiting the studio often, she makes sure to communicate with her wonderful team working there through instant messages and collates information via spreadsheets. She also has a partner taking care of the studio.

Fate and Fortune

Alicia is one lucky person to have destiny on her side! She didn't set out to establish her brand with competition in mind, she started it because there was a need and she wanted to fulfill that.

The basic idea of starting out, let her live without any competition pressure and keeps her grounded because she is true to her work and does not look in any other direction than her own path. She believed in herself and her work, and considered it as a case of 'I'll take this as far as it will go' and it's still going!

A liking for funny characters and a special love for drawing cartoons seems to have just seeped into her work. From drawing many different characters in the past, Alicia now prefers telling stories and incidents via the ones that imitate her life in a way. Whether that character be her husband or her cute little dog go, she converses with those characters in her own style.

Promotional Planning

Alicia feels that it is important to market oneself and these days with the choices of avenues available for marketing, it sometimes becomes confusing to decide the one which would do maximum justice to the promotional work.

She chose the platforms of Facebook and Instagram to promote her work as she felt the most comfortable using them and she knew she was going to stick to them. Also, she tried some other ways of promoting her brand and they too proved to be successful for her like Amazon, Happy Wagon, a retail and online store founded by aliciasouzastudio as well. She also has an online store on Etsy.com under the name, 'Alicia Souza UK' which is handled by a team based in the UK.

Alicia does not have a success mantra, but she firmly believes in the concept of trial and error. She does not follow trends, instead does what makes her smile and hopes that it will get a smile on other faces as well!

From her experience, Alicia suggests not to over-think, to work hard, be humble and enjoy the process.