Meet Blake Silva | Creator and Graphic Designer

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

Hi Blake, can you walk us through the thought-process of starting your business?
What I love about this question is that I never made a goal of starting my own business or working for myself. I was working a corporate 9–5 job and ended up getting laid off, and the pieces fell in the right place. Of course, I had been hustling on the side creating content because I was so passionate about it, so it wasn’t like my full-time job as a creator was random. I just never DECIDED to make it my job; basically, I realized I was already doing it. I never aimed to be a full-time creator because I didn’t know if I would be able to make it work financially, and then when it hit me that I already was doing the work and seeing the results, it was an easy leap. It wasn’t even a leap, it was just a step in the direction my heart new was the right way to go.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
I have always been an artist. As a kid, drawing was my first love. It sounds weird, but me learning how to draw my favorite Pokemon and practicing drawing anatomically correct wild animals somehow resulted in me becoming an influencer in the pop culture and theme park space. HUH?! When I was in high school, I pursued studio art and took art all 4 years, then submitted an AP Studio Art portfolio as a senior, getting a 4 out of 5 and definitely doing me some favors for my college experience. My dad is a graphic designer, so growing up watching him work at his job and seeing that there was an exciting, vibrant world of creativity out there that I could possibly experience was exciting. I went to Cal Poly in San Luis Obispo and was accepted into their Art & Design program as a concentration in graphic design. I struggled through my first year to get acquainted with Adobe programs and feeling like I just didn’t have the same skill as my classmates who all came in having taken a graphic design class in high school (which my high school didn’t even have). I contemplated switching my concentration to my other creative passion, photography. But during my sophomore year, I took a class on typography and everything changed. It ignited my passion for design and love for creative process and it really turned my design experience upside down in the best way. I kept pushing and became a designer I would have looked up to when I was a freshman. After college I went and worked for my dad’s design firm, but in the first year I was there the company changed a LOT. The senior designers I worked with left. The creative director I worked with during my internship left. And it became less of an agency and more of a design and strategy/innovation hub. I stuck around for the design work I DID have on my plate, and learned a ton about being a smart designer that has analytical and thorough creative processes, and it made me better. I should have mentioned that in 2019, a year after I graduated, I was fully immersed in the Instagram world doing high-concept self portraiture and lifestyle photography hoping to gain an audience that could propel me (where? I don’t know) to my… future? So during my time at the agency, things fizzled during Covid and I, over about 6 months, lost my workload. I was grateful to have worked until about August of 2020 with consistent pay and then was unemployed for about 3 months. I also started posting for fun about my Funko Pop collection in 2020. A brand I worked with on a social media lifestyle ambassador basis, Pressed Juicery, posted a design job on LinkedIN so I applied! Turns out the listing was old, but I decided to reach out to my social media contact and she passed along my resume and portfolio to the creative director. I did not think it would lead to anything, but it did. I started interviewing at the end of September and by the end of October I had received a full-time salary offer at Pressed Juicery as a junior designer. I worked there for 2.5 years, exercising my creativity as a digital and print designer and studio photo assistant. I also handled all their lifestyle photography needs. When I got laid off in 2023, I had grown my TikTok account to 400,000 followers and my Instagram to something like 15,000. It was all ‘on accident’ — I was just having fun and being myself. Fast forward to now, I have grown my accounts to almost 800,000 on TikTok and 75,000 on Instagram. I am so grateful for every part of my journey. I still maintain a freelance client I love doing design work for, but social media became my main source of income. I am happy.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
I am personally a huge fan of theme parks so I would have to show them my favorite places… Disneyland, California Adventure, Universal Studios. I have the most fun connecting with my younger self in those places, and I am such a fan of embracing the parts of myself that are unique. My friends will have fun participating in things that bring me genuine joy, because it’s genuine. I guess for a whole week I would probably plan out some theme park days, but also allow them into my personal life to enjoy where it is that my life takes place. I would take them around my favorite restaurants in the city I live, show them the places I shop, where I like to get coffee. Also we have some amazing flea markets in the town I live in so I like to shop for vintage Disney there. Without sharing all the details of the city I live in, it’s important to me that my friends enjoy things in their own way. I am very extroverted, but I love to recharge at home — I would make sure we at least had the option to have a movie night-in (or two). I also love to go out and sing karaoke! That’s a must.

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?
I am so grateful for my partner Matt, my small circle of close friends and my family. It is so important to have support when it comes to chasing your dreams. I am so lucky that my parents see what I do as valid and that they see my passions as a conveyor of success. I am also a person of faith and I am grateful to God for allowing me to see the positives in my situation when I lost my job, and providing for me along the way on my journey to where I am now (whether that is the destination, or on my way to it).

Website: https://blakesilva.com

Instagram: blakespopnook

Twitter: blakespopnook

Facebook: Blake’s Pop Nook

Youtube: blakespopnook

Other: TikTok: @blakespopnook