A Game of Rapid-Fire Philly Questions
Host: Hello, everyone, and thank you for joining me. Thank you, Ricardo, for joining me. I really appreciate it.
Ricardo: Thanks for having me.
Host: Of course. Well, we’re going to start today with a little game. Since you’re here in Philly, I think that this is perfect. We have a list of what we like to call rapid-fire Philly questions. So, most of these are like one-word answers. You’re welcome to explain them if you’d like, but in a short amount of time as you can. And yeah, it’s just your opinions on your favorite things in Philly and such, etc. Does that sound good?
R: Yeah.
Host: Yeah. Alright, let’s get started. Okay, first question. The first word that you think of when you hear Philadelphia? You’re thinking too hard. First word.
R: Chaotic.
Host: Yeah, I would agree with that. Okay, what celebrity do you think of when you think of Philadelphia?
R: Betsy Ross. Is that a celebrity?
Host: I mean, I guess it counts as a historical figure that’s, that’s, yeah, in its own right. That’s a new one, so that’s why I was surprised. Okay, cool. Okay, favorite cheesesteak spot?
R: I, I don’t have one. I’m not really into cheesesteaks.
Host: That’s blasphemous.
R: I know, I know. Maybe, maybe I can, I can get some recommendations after this, but yeah.
Host: I’ve got you prepared. I have, I have a long list of restaurants that me and my boss have created for Philadelphia to send. Yeah. So I think that are new to the city.
R: As a disclaimer, I moved to Philly in, you know, right, like during COVID, and I already had a small kid. And then here we have a second child, so my whole life is more, more like this, like new parenthood. So the food exploration has been very low in my priority list. So that’s why.
Host: That’s fair. I really don’t have a favorite spot. You should be feeding cheesesteaks to your children. That’s important. They need to be trained from an early age to like them. You’re from New York, right? Don’t they have like a chopped cheese? Is that what it’s called? Like their version of a cheese steak?
R: I don’t know if they have that.
Host: Interesting. I, I know it’s like pretty popular but I could just be completely. I know what I like about New York was more the like international food.
R: I agree. Especially, you know, being far from from from Ecuador and Latin America, being, you know, having access to like all that cuisine for me was like feel a little bit like, not like super home home, but like close enough to home.
Host: Yeah, that’s exactly. I mean, Philly is great for that too. I hope you’ve been able to maybe minorly explore the amount of cuisines that we have to offer. That’s why I love the city, solely because it’s like it’s a closer knit New York almost. That’s what it feels like to me, at least.
R: Yeah, you’re from New York, so you might be a little biased.
Host: Yeah, well, I only lived there for for ten years, so I don’t know. I’m not a long time.
R: Ten years.
Host: Yeah, so, you know, like, it’s nothing. But I moved on. You moved on to bigger and better, smaller and better things. Philadelphia is smaller. Okay. Because you haven’t had a lot of time to explore, this might not be a thing that you have, but this might be a thing. One small business that you frequent the most. It can be a restaurant, it can be…
R: Yeah, so we live in Port Richmond. So I do like, I love this Mexican restaurant, Nemi. We go there quite a bit. And then there’s also this little coffee shop called Little Susie that we also go quite a bit.
Host: I love Little Susie’s. That is one of my favorite places. Is this, okay, wait, okay. Let’s make sure we’re talking about the same thing. Is the place with the hand pies?
R: Yes.
Host: My favorite place on the earth. I take everyone there. So they don’t have like an indoor place where you just order from the window. You have to wait even if it’s super cold or whatever, but you still do it because it’s great.
R: Yep. Because the hand pies are so warm.
Host: That is my favorite place on the earth. I’m so happy that you brought that up there. You know, there’s multiple locations, but that is still a small business. They just have spread out a little.
R: Yeah, no, it’s great. I love it. It’s really awesome.
Host: Well, we’re hitting it off. Okay. Favorite place for a drink or a meal?
R: So, I, I found this place also in Port Richmond called the Corner Bar that if you’re looking for fancy, this is not it. It’s more like a neighborhood, very grounded. Dare I say, even a little greedy. You know, like, just straight up like beer shots, that’s it. I like, I like that for for that vibe. But also in East Kensington, I like Post Haste.
Host: I think I’ve heard of them. If you go more into this, more cocktail kind of place, I think that’s a great spot. Yeah, I’m a big dive bar person. So the fancy cocktail bars are usually not for me either. So I understand the Corner Bar vibes. If you’re ever in Fairmount, my favorite bar on the absolute earth is the Green Room. It’s on a corner on Green Street. I can’t remember the address. But if you’re ever in that area, that is the best shot and a beer bar that you could ever go to. They’re like the nicest people ever. And it is so cheap. And if you if you’re staying there all night and you sit at the bar and talk to the bartenders, they’ll just drink with you. They’re like, that’s my favorite kind of bar is the bartender.
R: Yeah, it’s super cool. So like at the Corner Bar, last time I went, there were these two ladies that they were actually the bartenders of the other chef. So they get just like hanging out there because it’s like just so homey.
Host: Yeah, right. Those are my favorite kind of places where you kind of feel at home. I think it’s, it’s, it’s weird to feel at home in a bar, but it’s also, maybe people might be judgmental of that, but it’s also, it’s just like, it’s a community. You know, like when you regularly go to a place and they remember you, it’s just really nice. I found out while I was living here because I had the same problem. I’m from New Jersey and people say a lot of bad stuff about people from New Jersey that drive. But Philadelphia single-handedly has made, I thought I was a good driver before. Philadelphia single-handedly made me a better driver because of how poor the drivers are in Philadelphia. I think that you have to be better in order to not get in an accident every time you have to drive. But I found out that the training to get your license in Pennsylvania in general is so easy. And that’s why the drivers here work because there’s no, in New Jersey, you have to have six hours of training with like an instructor. You have to pass your driver’s test. And it’s definitely more extensive than the Philadelphia one. I’ve heard some people don’t even have to do parallel parking. I’m like, you have to know how to parallel park to live in the city. So people aren’t even, they don’t even have to pass a parallel parking segment in order to get their license, which I’m like, wow, that makes sense. Cause I’ve watched people hit my car trying to parallel park. So that is the reason.
A Nonlinear Career Path
R: So I like that flexibility. And again, because there’s not that many specialized industries or studios, I was doing a little bit of everything. So I was doing branding, editorial, animation, illustration, packaging, you know, whatever came my way, I would do. With some friends, I started a t-shirt company. So that was like kind of like more cool, but also at the same time, I was doing illustrations for a children’s book or infographics for a geologist. So it kind of went like all over the place. And the problem that I had was that my whole portfolio was kind of a mess. I didn’t know how to put these things together because nothing looked like the next thing. So at that time, I was very concerned about trying to find my voice. And I thought that finding my voice was to do this one thing, like have this one style, go all in and that’s how you create your career. But I was never able to like really do that because anytime a new opportunity came, you know, to to do like a different kind of project, I would jump on it because I was like so excited to learn this new thing. And even just my illustrations, I could have like five or five different styles. So not even that, like kind of look the same. So I was like always postponing, postponing, like finding my voice thing. And then… Then one of the things that happened to me that was really, really great is that I got a scholarship to study traditional arts in Japan. So it was traditional painting. I did that for a full year. And that was awesome because I got detached from like all my digital stuff that I was like super into and just became, you know, just rice paper and black ink, painting bamboo for six months. It was almost meditative. And that also taught me how to think about composition and beauty in a different way. When I was coming back from Japan, this friend from college contacted me and said he was going to start an animation studio. So I was like, oh, that’s awesome. That sounds great. And he was like, and you can be the art director. I was like, oh, it has art and director in the title. I’ll go for it. I didn’t even know what that really meant. But it was a cool experience. I worked with them, with that friend and another one. So we’re just like a company of three people really at the beginning. And I worked with them for a little over a year. And, you know, just the learning curve was so… so expedited because we were always saying yes to projects and we didn’t know how to budget time, resources, talent, knowledge. It’s very new. So we were always in big trouble, not sleeping. But I think when you are early on in your career and you still don’t have massive responsibilities and you’re and you still don’t need a lot of sleep, yeah, maybe go for those five Red Bulls a day and just dedicate yourself to the craft. So I think that was so great. But still, my own vision or my own voice was still not formed because now I had added animation into this mix. And that’s when I found advertising. And I was never really into advertising. You know, I had this client, this creative director that thought I could be a good art director for advertising. And then I switched. But I had no idea of how to like more formally, like, I don’t know, understand the brief or talk about strategy, brainstorm, or working even with a copywriter. I’d never done that. So I had to do all of that kind of on the go. I didn’t have time to rehearse. It was just go. And it went pretty well. And I guess maybe the one industry that is developed all around the world is advertising. So then I thought, okay, so maybe advertising might be equal to go and explore other parts of the world. Because after Japan, I was so into like different cultures, different points of view, you know, like just different different settings. So I really wanted to move to the to the States. Also, you know, going back to my childhood, I like I love the Ninja Turtles. I love Spider-Man. I had to live in New York for those reasons. So it was like this. I know, I know it sounds like a kind of unserious reason, but it really was. You know, like I had to do it. So I moved to the States and yeah, like I’ve gone through like a little bit of a journey also in the States because I started in multicultural Hispanic market in Texas actually. And then I moved to New York to get my master’s in design and technology from Parsons. But again, I think that was another strange move, because if I was already in advertising and somewhat committed, maybe the most logical thing would have been to just stick to it and really, you know, like spend my career there, you know, trying to go win some awards or something. But then I decided to go and do these, you know, design and technology masters that, you know, like, and then I learned like how to code, how to do physical computing. I did more animation, UX, UI, and all of these things that are really not used in straight up advertising. So again, it was like, like another bucket list that I had to study at Parsons. So I was very happy about that, but I was not sure how exactly everything would piece together. But having that experience also helped me move into global markets. And then I started, you know, playing like in the big leagues, you know, in agencies like McCann or Publicis. But I always had like, as a side project, something that advertising by itself was not giving me like, like to develop an app or like doing my illustrations and art, like all of that has always like always needed to be like a side thing. And I think up to that point, I was either single or I had my girlfriend who is now my wife. But I could really dedicate a lot of my free time into the pursuit of those things. And also, the thing that I would always sacrifice, and this is not maybe advisable, but I will always sacrifice sleep doing stuff.
A Bridge of Creative Languages
R: So it doesn’t really matter if it’s a video, a website, an illustration, an infographic, it’s always gonna feel like me. If I’m really invested, I’m honest in the process. If I’m copying trends, that will never happen. So that’s what I learned. And that kind of gave me like a different perspective. And then to… And then just to bring it to where I am now, I have this opportunity to work at Comcast. And I’m the executive creative director of Comcast Creative Group. It’s part of Comcast corporate. And I had the challenge of putting together the team. We started with only two designers and one motion designer. And then we expanded to not a giant team. I think we are now with me, seventeen creatives. But I love to put together writers, art directors, designers, motion designers, editors, and everybody coming with different perspectives. And for the first time in my career, all this exploration that I’ve done since the beginning kind of made sense. Yeah, advertising and social, but also design and branding. And we keep up the corporate website and we do large scale events. So, you know, arts, technology, design, advertising all coming together and I can speak those languages. I love that I work with people that are better at me at all those things, but I can be the bridge because I’ve done a little bit of all of that. And I think that put me in an interesting position where I can really be a part of it and not feel like a fish out of water.
Host: Yeah, no, it makes perfect sense. It’s really comprehensive that you’ve had all this experience and felt like maybe I’m not narrowing my field enough. But then now you’re in a position where you’re working with so many different people that are in different mediums that work with different things artistically. But you know about all these things and you’ve had experience with them. So it’s also easier to probably navigate your team, like be able to talk to them about what they’re doing, get them advice, or be able to help out where it’s needed because you’ve had this extensive life experience in different art forms. Yeah, so that’s kind of what makes sense.
R: So I wish I could tell you I did that by design. But… I don’t know. I feel very fortunate that I could find a place where I can actually do all of this.
Host: Yeah, no, I think that’s amazing. And I think that there’s not… I like that you received some advice or turned it into advice from the illustrator because I think that… I don’t think there’s a problem. I think maybe… the US has kind of an expectation that you should stick to one field and stay in that field. But I don’t think that’s the right way for everyone. I know so many people that have been in completely different jobs their whole life, have switched around to so many different things just because staying in one place is boring to them. Or it’s not boring, but it’s, you know, they want to consistently learn and staying in one field and doing the same thing forever is not fulfilling for them. And I don’t think that there’s anything wrong with the path that you took, even though it’s like against the grain, I guess, for like our culture specifically, I suppose, because like the, again, the expectation is you stay in this one field for the rest of your life, you go to college for this, and then you go to grad school for this, and then you go, and it’s the same thing your whole life. And you know, you’re working towards something, but I think that you can work towards something by gaining experience in a bunch of different places. And even if you work towards something that you realize is not what you ended up wanting. I mean, like, if you spent twenty years doing that exact thing and realized that you hate it, you have nothing else to go by. So I think that if anything, getting different experiences is really valuable and it’s like it isn’t perfectly lined up with what you’re doing today. So, I mean, I don’t think that I think that, you know, it’s perfect.
R: Yeah, I think like like you, you have to enjoy what you’re doing. Right. And I will never tell people like, hey, you know, do what I did, because like, actually, I don’t even know how to put like that in a blueprint. But also like if your jam is to like just take this one thing and become like a master on this, then yeah, like by all means do it because that’s going to be fulfilling for you. And I think there’s a lot of like transferable skills. And I also always have this this motto of like, don’t suffer for free. You know, like the process is not easy. It’s going to be very uncomfortable, especially if you’re pushing the envelope. If you’re trying to do new things, you’re trying to learn a new skill or or even if it’s like the thing that you do, but you have like a different client and you have to do create like a, you know, like a different voice or something. Anything new is going to cause discomfort, it’s going to be tough. And, you know, not always, almost never is the case that you work with the perfect budget, the perfect timing, with the perfect team, with the perfect production team, and everybody’s loving your ideas or everything. There’s always going to be like some pushback and there’s going to be like these, you know, growing pains, period.
Host: Right, I actually really like cherish the, like it’s kind of in hindsight, but like I cherish like these moments of great stress and like when I suffered the most, because I learned so much.
R: You know? So that’s why like in my head is always, so there’s something I need to learn from this. It might be like design or creative related and it’s the skill that I need to get better at, but maybe there’s something else, something more tangential. Maybe like what I need to learn here is how to better communicate my ideas, how to get people on board with what I’m doing. Maybe it’s my turn to become a little more strategic or helping more with production or even just time management or stress management or trying to work a life balance. There’s something to learn. So I would say don’t just suffer for suffering’s sake. There’s always, always something to learn. So I think if you keep that open, even the worst experience, you can turn into maybe one of the best.
Host: Yeah, I think that I truly believe that mistakes or like failures are more important than successes because obviously successes feel really great. And everyone wants to consistently succeed or do well and do everything perfectly. But you learn the most from when you fail or when you’re having a difficult time. And I think that those are ways those situations are much more valuable. Obviously, if you continue to fail doing like regularly, maybe you’re just doing something wrong and you’re not learning. But I think that you have the potential to be more successful when you take risks and even allow yourself to fail sometimes just because, you know, it’s important to learn from those experiences. And if you’re doing the same thing over and over again, you can’t learn really from those experiences because you’re you know you’re doing the same thing over and over again, you’re not trying anything new. And I think that is a testament to your career path because you’ve had so much experience in different places that you’ve probably been able to learn so many different things. And that’s, I think that’s of more value whereas and you know don’t quote me on this, I don’t want anyone to beat me up for spending forty years in a career in this very specified career, they’re probably so good at it. But I mean, but I think that sometimes that provides more value in the long run because you’ve had all these different lived experiences. Whereas in comparison to a very linear trajectory where you are doing the same thing and not learning in the process, or maybe you’re not learning as much as you could because you’re not like going against the grain or like thinking outside of the box.
R: Yeah, so also one thing that I’ve tried to do is in this search for knowing more and know more things, I’ve always tried to have what is my thing that I’m really good at. So for the most part, very horizontal, but there are a couple of things that if everything goes to shit, I can, and I have to be like my, like a one-man band. Can I survive? So I have, so through this time, I’ve also have developed, I don’t know, four or five different hard skills that I think I’m really good at. And I can go with that. So for example, like maybe coding, maybe that’s not the one, you know, or like photography. No, that’s definitely not one of those. Animation, ugh, very hard. But then others, I think I can really just run with it. So I would balance always. Because the other, they say, jack of all trades, but master of none. I would say, yeah. You want to stretch yourself too thin. Be very good at a couple of things. And I try to learn horizontal from that.
Host: Yeah, exactly. I think that’s a very important note to make because I think that you can stretch yourself a little too thin if you’re learning from too many places. Because it’s like, it’s almost if you’re learning from too many places, you don’t have time to absorb the information, if that makes sense. Like it’s, you can have knowledge in a bunch of different spaces, but if you’re not really good at something, then maybe you don’t provide value for for example, like an agency or a company or whatever. You might not be able to do that, or you might not even be able to provide value for yourself as like you one-man band, so to speak of if you, you know, say you lost your job and you had to do something really well on your own to like make ends meet or whatever it may be. If you were in that position, if you were not a master of anything, would you be able to do that? And I think that that is a difficult balance to maintain sometimes when you do have an interest in a lot of different areas.
R: Yeah, that that that helped me at the very beginning of this job and sometimes even even now, because we were like thinking big and we were more ambitious. But then, you know, building a team takes time. So, you know, a number of times, you know, it’s not just, oh, I have the vision, just execute. Like we have a team of three people. So like, roll your your sleeves and and you’re it, right? So I’m, I’m, I’m very happy to do that. I still try to fight to to make myself active in in a number of ways and and, you know, keep designing, keep concept, keep doing, doing all of that stuff. So I don’t just become like an armchair creative. I, I always try to keep, you know, honing my because I think that’s important, but also that’s something that I enjoy. So yeah, that’s kind of where I am now. Like I do enjoy that process. And like sometimes we do have like these bigger projects and we don’t have an infinite team. So like if I have to be also part of the team, I’m so happy.
Wholesome Notes
Host: Well, I think that’s a really wholesome note to end on because we’re a little over time, but I think that this was, it was so wonderful to learn about your journey because I really do appreciate one that it’s nonlinear because I do think that that is like the majority of people, like you can’t necessarily expect exactly where you’re going to end up. Some people have very clear like visions in mind of what their future will look like. And it’s not even what they expect. And yeah, I just really love the transparency that you’ve provided only because I think that people are able to learn from that and resonate with it more than maybe like a more traditional path. So thank you so much for sharing all of this. This is really lovely.
R: Yeah. No, thanks for having me. I always like to share, you know, like what I’ve gone through and I can like really, really talk about my mistakes. Cause I also think I can learn from other people’s experiences and I enjoy letting people know what I’ve gone through. And sometimes I can guide them in a way, like I know that I’m not going to be like the perfect answer for everything, but like if I can just like give you like a different perspective and I just love that. So I’m always open to to talk to to to to new creatives. I, you know, and also like now, I mean, this moment that I want to expand my network in Philly, I think, you know, because I moved during COVID and I was like so much into like these, you know, parenthood thing. Now I think it’s time for me to like go and expand and learn more, you know, about the city and everything that it offers, but also the creative community. And I’ve been, you know, meeting some people here and there, but I think I can do a better job.
Host: Yeah, no, I think it’s really nice to be able to build your network, especially in like a new city. I think that it might be, I can probably connect you with some people too. And on LinkedIn and such, I’ve met a lot of creatives in the area and they’re very lovely. I do, I just love the city so much. So connecting people, I’d be happy to connect you with some people as well, so.
R: Oh, that’d be fantastic. Yeah.
Host: Yeah, of course. And again, thank you so much. This was really fun. And I really appreciate you sharing your story. And thank you also, everyone, for listening. We’d be nothing without you. So thank you so much for also participating, watching, listening, whatever it may be. And have a lovely day, everyone that’s watching as well. Bye.
R: Thank you so much. Take care.
