August 30, 2021Artists

Welcome to the Her Waves team Pepä

Team Her Waves recently embarked on a quick content creation trip to Costa Rica. We spent a week with Pepä Ivanoff at her beautiful beachside home in Playa Negra, Costa Rica. We are incredibly excited to work closely with Pepä as she joins our team as product designer. She created the most beautiful new brand logo design, and brought her creation to life as a mural! We sat down after an early morning surf session, coffee in hand and had a chat about art and the future...

Hey Pepa, Tell us a little about yourself and your art!

My name is Pepa Ivanoff. I was born and raised in Australia and currently live in Northern Costa Rica. I am a digital and analog artist, which means I create my art using both the computer and by hand. When creating computer-based designs, I have a very graphic style. I studied graphic design and love to create textile prints, placement prints, and logos. When I am working in more traditional mediums with my analog art, my specialty is murals. To date, I've painted 266 murals in seven different countries! It's awesome because I love to travel, and when I'm not being creative, I love to surf. My work has taken me on some incredible adventures and dream destinations. I'm always working on a new design and planning my next adventure, with my dog chi chi in tow.

As an experienced artist and designer, what golden piece of advice would you give to others in their creative journey?

My advice would be, no matter what stage you are at in your artistic journey - really push yourself to create every single day. Don't be afraid to experiment with different kinds of mediums. For example, if you consider yourself an illustrator and love to draw, don't be afraid to pick up a paintbrush, have a go at making a sculpture, don't be scared to mix it up and make a collage. Really push yourself to be creative outside of where you see yourself as an artist because creativity comes in so many different forms. When you open to other ways to unleash your imagination and creativity, and the more mediums you experiment with - it's only going to help make you a more rounded artist. You'll be really surprised - perhaps you see yourself as an illustrator, and then you delve into a collage, and if you absolutely love it then that helps take your illustration to a different level, and then that takes your exploration of collage to a different level and maybe that makes you want to explore painting. Just don't be afraid to unleash your creativity would be my biggest piece of advice.

Develop your own style - it's really important to look up to and get inspiration from other artists, but it's most important to be you! At the end of the day, there are a million artists out there, a plethora of illustrators, plenty of painters, tons of designers, but there's only one YOU. The people that love your work (and if you're looking at making a job from your art, your potential clients) they are going to want to buy YOUR art. It's always best to focus on creating your style and honing that as you explore your creative avenues.

How have you grown your artistic skills and from where do you draw your inspiration?

I blend analog and digital art in my work and am really inspired by both traditional and digital artists. I always try to find a way to marry those two styles together when creating. I'm inspired daily by what I see on the streets and during my travels. It's a big part of being a traveler, as no matter where you go, you're going to see art on the street in some form. It's always fascinating to see how that changes from city to city country to country and region to region. Some of my biggest inspirations and influences for street art would be Banksy, Shepard Fairy and his Obey movement, and the ceramic artist from Paris called space invader, whose work I absolutely love. Being a design nerd, I'm always looking for typography in magazines traditional print photography- there are always so many ways to draw inspiration from what surrounds you as you go about your day-to-day life.

Finding a way to blend both analog and digital for me is how I've created my unique style.

We're super excited to have you on board with Team Her Waves! We can't wait to work with you and our community of rad artists, and the skills and talent you bring to the table to help us grow this community. What are you most excited about joining our team?

I'm excited to join the Her Waves team because I have seen how their platform has grown and evolved in a couple of short years it's been out there. I'm really excited to be part of this community, to be on board and supportive as I can in the artistic journey and to work alongside other amazing female artists. I love being part of the creative team and community, especially behind a brand that supports women in their journeys both in and out of the water.

I'm really excited to work with aspiring artists, whether they're already professionals or starting out as hobbyists, and anyone who has an interest in being creative, particularly if they're also a surfer, as it's a great shared common thread that influences so much of our art.

I'm really excited to work on the spring collection that's coming up, and I'm really excited as the color palette is just amazing! I've already started working on some prints and graphics for that.