Meet Catherine Caper of Cat Caper in Westside/ Marina Del Rey

Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine Caper.

Catherine, please share your story with us. How did you get to where you are today?
I grew up in a suburb of Los Angles County, Valencia CA with my very creative family. My father started off as a graphic designer (before there were computers) hand cutting decals for motocross & designing motocross jerseys by hand and later becoming a design director & product developer at a renowned glove company, my grandmother an avid watercolorist, my uncle an animator for Pixar – all on my father’s side. On my mother’s side, My Grandfather the owner of his motocross gear company built from the back of his van in the 1970s, my mother a creative in all areas of craft and decorating, and my great grandfather a talented painter. Since I was young, I loved drawing and learning crafts at my grandmother’s house, she would later tell me I needed to be a children’s book illustrator. I knew in elementary school that I would pursue an art career but didn’t realize till junior year of high school what that really meant. Sure I had natural talent passed down from generations to me, but I learned a little too late how much work I should have been executing all these years to make it to apply to Art School —about 40 pieces of art are required for applications for Illustrators and I had only ten good ones.

Fast forward, I spent three years taking night-school classes at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena on the nights I wasn’t working at a local bakery. I didn’t have the privilege of being able to attend full time here because of the cost and my personal stress issues. This was a big make it or break it moment for me, I knew that if I couldn’t attend the school of my dreams, I’d have to find another way to become successful and that for me was to become my own boss as a freelance illustrator, making me own clients through reference and Etsy. I spent these four years being a one-woman show doing absolutely everything on my own from managing, creating, printing, selling, shipping, marketing, vending at shows and learning several integral lessons along the way all while working a regular full-time job and the other stresses life brought me. This built my portfolio for four years until I finally felt ready to apply to big girl Designer jobs in the corporate world. So I packed my bags, moved 30 miles south to Del Rey, California and landed my first professional Jr. Graphic Designer + Illustrator gig at a boutique agency in Los Angeles. I learned some of my most important lessons in design working for internal Walt Disney Studios, Amazon Studios, and more at this agency. Unfortunately, this didn’t last long due to my boss landing a stakeholder position at Walt Disney Studios and shutting down his agency. Although this broke me at first because I was so excited for this new journey, it ended up being a blessing in disguise because I was reconnected with a previous employer who I built mockups for. She hired me on her team at Freeman Beauty where I am currently a Jr. Graphic Designer + Illustrator where I have the absolute pleasure of designing and illustrating beauty packaging and displays with illustrations that are fun, colorful, and exciting – my absolute dream come true.

I am most proud of myself for pushing through the many uphill battles I’ve faced to get where I am today. As someone who doesn’t have a college degree – but proved and pushed herself otherwise due to my own positivity, passion, late nights, empty bank accounts, ability to create relationships, and perseverance to beat the odds to be something I want to be proud of.

Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
If it’s a smooth road, you’re not working hard enough. The obstacles I faced to get where I am today was trying to do everything at once. I am always focusing on doing five things at once, even today. Through this journey, I’ve had as much as four jobs at once, I’ve worked one retail job at Trader Joe’s on the weekends, while I spent the week designing in an office, just so I could make rent and have myself covered in case anything happened. When I had one day a week to myself, I spent it on the couch doing Freelance work. Any opportunity someone gave me to keep building my portfolio, I always said yes to. Did I have the time? Probably not, but I made sure I didn’t let any opportunities pass me by. And I still do this even though it hurts me sometimes because my love for design gets me so excited I just want to see my work on anything and everywhere.

Cat Caper – what should we know? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
Cat Caper is an Illustration and design business. I specialize in quirky illustrations that are bright, funny, and just weirdly beautiful. I’m pretty well known for my love of cacti, I’ll basically try to add a cactus to any object I can. I thought it was just a phase, but it turns out two years later, I’m still doing it. I’m most proud of my style, I’ve been told I have a very recognizable style and that means a lot to mean because I’ve been told by many artists that they struggle with having their own. What sets me apart is that some of my ideas are out of the box, I like that I illustrate things that seemingly don’t exist, but are familiar.

What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
The proudest moment of my career so far is that I have designed a large Endcap display that is in stores now at Walmart for Freeman Beauty’s Body Mask line. This is a huge accomplishment for me because I just stepped into the beauty world less than a year ago, and the one thing I’ve always wanted for my career was to just see my art in the real world. I remember saying in an interview when someone asked me “What do you want to accomplish as an artist?” my response was, “I just want to see me designs out in the world for everyone to see.” This large display is exactly that people all over the country are seeing my illustrations on this display, and the products on it that I also had the pleasure of helping design. This project was also a big deal for me because I was able to set up the printing mechanicals for it, so I was apart of it from Start to Finish and I think thats huge.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.cat-caper.com
• Email: [email protected]
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cat_caper/

Image Credit:
Freeman Beauty’s Content Creator: Carina Kral

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