Meet Maggie Enterrios | Commercial Illustrator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Maggie Enterrios and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Maggie, what was your thought process behind starting your own business?
My business grew from the desire to turn a passion into a profitable career. When I was young, the idea of being an Illustrator (or at the time, the concept of “getting paid to draw”) seemed so far from reality. I was an academic with a flair for the mathematics, but my hobby was drawing, and it was the one past-time that stuck with me well into adulthood. While I knew I would end up in the arts, I figured it would be in a management role; being a full-time artist just seemed too dreamy. I didn’t know a single person with a job like that.

During my junior year in college I started working at GrubHub in Chicago as a design temp. My job was to crop logos from restaurant menu scans and upload them onto the site. By the time I graduated from college, I was working as a freelancer in the design department. 4 years later I was an on-staff art director. I worked with an incredible team of creatives: designers, developers and copywriters who were extremely talented and also extremely driven. My time there taught me the foundation for everything I do now: I worked with every type of media from printed signage to billboards to commercial campaigns. I also had the opportunity to work with other, more experienced freelance artists. I gleaned all I could from them; freelancing seemed like a great option for me, so I decided to try it out for myself.

I was illustrating furiously and I was determined to book work that was more in line with my own personal aesthetic: weaving tapestries of botanical patterns that took me 40+ hours to create. I started to acquire clients, mostly friends-of-friends, and spent the next several years working two full-time jobs: my on-staff art direction role and freelance illustration.

In 2016, I had my “big break” when was approached by Apple to work on their campaign for the launch of the new iPad Pro and Apple Pencil. As a featured illustrator, I appeared in digital and online media for the product launch, and my work was highlighted for the world to see. It was a surreal few weeks, and paired with increased demand from other clients, I felt confident enough to leave my day-job and formalize my own design company.

These days, I create work that I adore every single day. I specialize in hyper-detailed packaging illustration and installation artwork. 2022 was a wild work year. Highlights included projects for brands I already knew and loved like Bombay Sapphire, Philosophy and Altra. An illustration commission by John Mayer himself. Two large-scale illustration projects in England and Korea, the former spanning the length of a football field and the latter with 3-story intricately designed banners. Oh, and I also illustrated my second adult coloring book, Flowerscape in Paradise.

I never take it for granted that I’ve somehow managed to create art for a living. 9-year-old me would be sobbing with joy. Sometimes 33-year-old me is as well.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My work is a delight to create. Most of my clients hire me for special-edition or holiday projects and that means that I am the artist they engage to bring their “fun” projects to life: the projects where they also get to flex their creative muscles and showcase their big ideas. As a commercial illustrator it’s my job to translate ideas into images. It’s challenging and it’s beautiful and I love having the opportunity to work with design teams to solve their creative problems.

The illustrations I create are wildly intricate with countless elements woven together. I would describe it as extreme maximalism: more is more. No detail is too tiny to overlook. It’s a great fit for packaging, label design and editorial art. I also design textiles and wall coverings. Effectively, I specialize in anything that can be covered in over-the-top illustrations.

A while ago, one of my fellow creative friends asked me, “At what point did you really start feeling comfortable and confident, like you knew what you were doing?” I laughed so hard. The answer is NEVER. That point is never. It’s an ever-shifting dot on the horizon.

Isn’t that always the case? We chase success, certain that the with next “big” project we’ll finally feel confident. We convince ourselves that if we can make a certain amount of money, or reach a certain level of status, we can finally feel validation and safety.

Your goals will always be a step beyond your current state: it’s human nature to keep chasing the dream. And with that chase comes fear and confusion and imposter syndrome every step of the way. If you’re doing it right, you’re scared forever, because you are continually open to tackling new challenges and taking risks.

I’ve learned that you may never feel “ready” and that’s ok. Most people who I talk with about their creative pursuits never start them because they fear ultimate failure. Don’t let your fear of the end keep you from taking the first step.
Fight to keep joy alive in your work. Creativity isn’t a magical gift: it’s a skill that you have to foster and continue nurturing. Allow yourself the ability to play and explore and make mistakes. And more mistakes. And more mistakes. Allowing yourself to fail is true risk-taking and it’s also the most skill-building trait someone can possess.

Value and principles

All people have the capacity for creative thinking. I believe that what sets “creatives” apart from “non-creatives” is the ability to explore their ideas; the ability to think proactively rather than reactively to solve problems. Some people have to work twice as hard as others to be creative. Some people have to work ten times as hard for one tenth the creative success of others. Some people don’t have the time, the energy or the luxury of being able to take risks. I assume some people fail at their first creative dream and can’t get back up because their life demands they make a different–or more outwardly practical–choices.
For the last 10 years, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to freely explore my interest in illustration, and I’ve had the support to grow that interest into a skill. I want to do my part to make the future one in which a career in the arts is not a daunting path, but rather one that is equally accessible to all who desire to pursue it. ⁣In that, I make it a point to be open and honest in my creative journey; I gladly share my failures and successes with others. I think visibility is important, and I want to remove some of the mystique around what it takes to have a career in the visual arts industry. The more access to information there is, the better for the creative community as a whole.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
In no particular order – Brunch at Openaire at The Line Hotel in Koreatown,
and for lunch, ramen from Daikokuya in little Tokyo

Absolutely browsing books at The Last Bookstore downtown and shopping on La Brea, especially at American Rag.

We’d pick up some charcuterie from Say Cheese in Silverlake (my favorite cheese, by a landslide, is Murray’s La Tur)

Drinks at the roof bar at the Ace Hotel downtown and for something totally memorable, drag bingo at Hamburger Mary’s in West Hollywood

And of course, a spin over to the Huntington Gardens for some botanical inspiration.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
The Graphic Artists Guild Handbook: Pricing & Ethical Guidelines. It may be strange to thank a pricing guideline book, but it quite seriously changed the course of my life. I read it cover to cover when I first started working as a freelance illustrator and it felt like I had a hand to hold in a world that is usually so shrouded in mystery: how to value your work. It taught me more useful terminology than all four years of college. It taught me to confidently set prices and speak with confidence about my business.

Website: littlepatterns.com

Instagram: instagram.com/littlepatterns

Other: behance.net/littlepatterns