Meet Paria Peyravi | Designer & Educator

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

Hi Paria, do you have any habits that you feel contribute to your effectiveness?
The most important thing is consistency and continuing even when an obstacle rises in your career. I have been always reminded by other professionals that there will be a lot of rejections and I should be prepared for that. Any rejection gave me the chance to work on the things that were not working and prepare myself for the better. In art and design, it doesn’t matter how much talent you have to begin with, It is only continuous small steps that help you reach your goal.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
I have explored many areas of art and design throughout the years. I have had multiple practices in traditional and digital mediums. I have been teaching what I have learned and using my design knowledge to create educational components. What distinguishes me and my practice, is exploring all these different areas and bringing them together at the same time. It was not an easy path! There were always a challenge making a healthy work and life balance and not getting overworked as an artist. As a designer I dealt with a lot of client’s expectation and sometimes dissatisfaction. During all these years I learned how to negotiate and communicate with them and see satisfaction in their faces ultimately. As an educator, there is long journey of adapting what you know and create teaching materials in a way that keeps students motivated. As education has had a gradual transition from physical spaces to online platforms and the syllabi have become accessible through eLearning, I think that there will be a lot of capacity for educators and digital designers to adapt to that. I always think about helping and solving educational problems with all these digital capacities like AR and VR and that is the current practice that I am focused on.

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.

Whether I am living in a big city or a small one I really like to find my cozy place in a Cafe to catch up with a friend and have a conversation. There are also lots of museums and bookstores who have their own Cafes which give me a great place to relax, learn and plan for the future projects. Other places to explore for me are stores that are selling antiques or use old stuff. These used objects might have the same function as the new ones but definitely have memories and mysteries with them that new items don’t have.

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?
That will be a huge list! I am an intersection of the poems I read as a child, the culture I was raised in and all the artists that I got inspired by and anyone who supported me throughout the way. I am so inspired by the Persian poems and stories I have learned as a child specifically Shahnameh the Persian Epic. During my lifetime as an artist, I got inspired by so many illustrators like Jon Klassen and Isabelle Arsenault. In 2019 I participated in the SCBWI summer conference and that was a point to get to know more professionals in the publication industry. Later I became more interested in the use of my work in the digital setting for educational purposes. Poems and stories are inseparable pieces of the Iranian culture. We refer to a lot of poems and stories as we talk to each other. I want to dedicate my shoutout to whoever taught me a new story, poem and the art of storytelling back in my home country.

Website: https://www.pariapeyravi.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/paria.peyravi/?hl=en

Image credit
Personal Portrait photographer: Neda Seyedsadjadi