This design agency is using Vectornator to make money

At Vectornator, we take great pride in our relationship with the design community. We love getting in touch with people from all around the world and hearing about how design plays a role in their life. Today, we are very excited about sharing the story of a professional product design agency, Lama Art Lab. The talented Charlotte, USA and Kiev, Ukraine based group consists of a young and driven women-led team of Liza, Dasha and Anna. Specializing in UX/UI design, visual design, illustrations, web design, and motion focus, this professional design team has been able to use Vectornator to produce incredible deliverables for their clients. ‍

We first got in touch with Liza Chernenko almost a year ago when we found her illustrations that were made with Vectornator on Instagram. Since them we have been in touch with her and the agency including, Dasha Polishchuk and Anna Merezhinska. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the interview!

Can you please tell us more about Lama Art Lab? What is it and how was this agency created?

Liza: Lama Art Lab is a full-stack digital studio consisting of specialists who are required to efficiently create processes from scratch. Lama Art Lab is a team of bright and creative people who are experts in different areas ranging from UI/UX, motion and graphic design, mobile and web development, and illustration.

The company started when I became friends with Dasha, a classmate who I met in high school. Dasha and I have known each other for more than 15 years. We have been working in the same profession and are working together ever since we started with our careers. Since we worked in the same creative and technical field, we thought of an idea of starting our own company. One day we made that big leap. The studio has been in the market since 2018 when we first started by meeting outsourced UI and UX design needs and have increased the diversity of services every year since then. ‍

What was the motivation to start your own agency?

Liza: Our creative and technical teams work together with one specific goal in mind: to make our customers happy with websites and apps that can engage and reach a high level of conversion. In our team, we are all united with a desire to do our work in the best way possible. We aren’t afraid of challenges and know the power of teamwork. Our rallying cry is to work together towards this common goal.‍

How did you come up with the name?

Liza: We decided to make the Lama our mascot because llamas are hard-working animals but are soft and fleecy. Just like Lama Art Lab, we can be as hard-working as llamas for our clients yet we can be soft and pleasing to them whenever we provide digital solutions for their needs.

As an agency, how do you manage to work remotely? Is the time-zone difference an issue? How do you divide the workload between the team members?

Liza: We manage to work well remotely. The secret is that we are flexible and disciplined enough to work at any hour that demands our availability by other teammates located in other time zones. The variety of messaging apps like Slack and Hangouts also helps us communicate with each other because they allow us to best meet our needs. We like to work with apps with real-time collaborative editing features which make life easier for us.

Dasha: We divide the workload between the design team members by assigning each team member the tasks that they can do within their own creative field. Everyone has a specialization that can contribute to the success of the project.‍

It seems like a lot of people struggle with maintaining a productive agenda. Has the current pandemic situation affected in any way your work schedule?

Dasha: With social distancing helping to slow the spread of the coronavirus, some of our team members are suddenly finding that not only do they have to work from home, but their kids are at home too and that becomes a problem because they have to manage a lot of things together. We have not had any trouble with productivity recently. At least, not yet, thankfully. ‍

This could be relevant to a lot of people out there. How do you guys find inspiration after hitting a creative block?

Liza: Coming up with ideas for what to create can be really tough. We usually have too many ideas and become unsure of which idea to use next. In situations like this, it is really important to keep in mind the client’s expectations. My advice is to have a sketchbook and an online library to save all your ideas so you can use them in the future. You also need to be one step ahead of the pack in order to overcome a creative block.

How did you find out about Vectornator?

Liza: First of all, I love illustrations. It is my passion and I find a lot of joy doing that. I literally spend all my free time doing illustrations of one thing or another. I heard about Vectornator from my colleague. Since this app was only available on the iPad Pro, I bought the iPad Pro for this sole reason. The app was the first thing I got from the Apple Store when I got my tablet. I used to use Adobe Illustrator but I was more eager to work with curves using an Apple Pencil. The features of the app lived up to my expectations! And I was excited to find out that Vectornator can be used for so much more than just Illustrations.

Anna: I found out about it from Liza. She was really excited about it so I wanted to try it out as well. The first project I used it for was to create designs for our client Aging Choices. I found that creating designs on this app was so much easier compared to other vector editors. Vectornator really simplifies the design creation process for professionals.

What do you like most about our software? Is there a special tool you find most useful?

Liza: I like the ease of putting all of my ideas in vectors. Vectornator makes it amazingly simple and fun! I work a lot with pen and pencil tools, which are basically the two things that you need to create whatever you want.

Dasha: For clients, we at times also need to design social media posts which Vectornator helps with. A cool feature for the future could be adding some templates of social media posts (such as an Instagram story, logo maker, or birthday invitation, etc.). I feel like this step can help not only amatuer designers, but also marketers and agencies push content faster.‍

How did you learn to use it? Did you watch any Youtube/Instagram tutorials, or read any blog posts?

Liza: The App is very intuitive especially if you already have some experience working in visual design and that’s why there was no reason to watch any tutorials. But I really enjoy your Instagram account vibes and I also read the articles you post on your blog. ‍

How was the learning curve? Was it difficult getting up to speed?

Dasha: I have had a lot of experience working with CorelDraw and Adobe Illustrator so I had no problem at all getting up to speed with the app. Vectornator really feels like it's made for professional graphic designer. The process feels effortless. I think that on some points the app is so much easier to use.

That brings our interview to a close! We thank Liza, Dasha and Anna and Lama Art Lab as a whole for taking the time to talk to us. We hope you, our readers, got an inside look into this small but dynamic art studio and were able to learn from their journey. If you want to learn and check more of their creations, follow them on Dribbble and Instagram!

At Vectornator, we believe that getting a glimpse into the process that enabled designers to reach where they are today also is an opportunity to learn for others. It is always inspiring and exciting to listen to the voices behind the designs that drive our community! Thank you guys for reading and we hope you enjoyed it.

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