Cool Cat: Dani Flores

Interview by Caya Berndt | Photos by Dani Flores

CWU student Dani Flores is driven to carve out a name for herself as a graphic designer and push back against stereotypes about art not being a “real career,” one sneaker at a time.

Who are you, and what do you do?

I'd say I'm just a regular college student. I’m a first gen student, and I’m just trying to put an example for my little brother as well. I want to make a difference within the art community, especially for first gen students and for people who basically say, you know, art isn't like an actual job, or like, you probably can't go far with that career. I just want to show that you definitely can, and that you can do a lot with it. And basically change people's perspective with that. 

Can you tell me about how you grew up and what your family was like? 

I'm the oldest of two. I grew up in California, and then a couple years later, I moved to Puyallup. I spent most of my elementary years over there, and halfway through fourth grade, I moved to Selah. And the transition was kind of difficult, just because going from a big city to a smaller town was hard on me. I didn't know anyone. Being the new kid was kind of scary and overwhelming. But then over the time, I kind of fell in love with the small town and made a lot of my friends that are currently still going to Central. And I'm very family oriented. So spending a lot of time with my family is very important to me. And, they've always taught me that going to school is very important. And that always stuck to me. I always wanted to go to college to basically get that degree that my parents couldn't get. 

So it sounds like knowing your parents' struggles and their difficulties, or them not being able to get a degree was a big motivating factor for you going to school.

Exactly, yeah. My parents didn't finish Middle School, and so they've always implemented like, oh, you know, ‘just keep going. It's okay.’ Like they've seen me go through those rough, like, crying sessions because of school and they just keep telling me ‘you've gone so far, you can still keep going.’

Your major is graphic design with a minor in digital marketing. Have you been involved in the arts your whole life, or is that something that you only started getting into as you got older?

Within the arts, I got into it when I was very young. I would always be doodling, doing different drawings on my own. When it came to school, I never had the opportunity to take art classes just because I was a band student. So a lot of my electives were very minimal. But I didn't actually start learning the fundamentals of art until I got to Central with my first year, because that's when I was actually having time to take those art classes and learn more about it. 

Why graphic design?

I personally really love the whole structure of graphic design, coming up with the concept, the layout, making sure text flows well with the actual graphic. I am a very visual person, so doing a lot of that stuff on the computer is how I can express myself. I also do kind of illustration, like actual hand drawing. And so I like to incorporate that within my designs as well, especially now that I kind of have more freedom while working at the Publicity Center. We get to add our own little twist. So I'm doing a lot of adding some of my illustration skills into the actual graphic design is what I love. And I basically just love experimenting with it. And that's what I feel that graphic design allows you to do.

I know that you paint sneakers. That's really interesting. When did you start doing that?

So I actually started doing that, that summer where COVID was very high, where we all had to quarantine. So I remember, I was watching YouTube. And there's this YouTuber that I watch,  and he started customizing shoes. And I was like, ‘Okay, I want my first Air Force Ones. And when I get them I can paint them, because like, I can practice on my own shoes before actually doing it on other people.’

And so yeah, I started doing that during like, the high peak through quarantine. And I did the most simple designs on my first pair, which was just like three different colors. And then from there, I decided to make a TikTok, post it, and slowly a lot of my friends were like, ‘oh, you should, you know, do some small designs on my shoe.’ And I was like yeah, and then with those small designs, I would post them on Instagram, and then slowly my friends will also start recommending me to other people. And I just do a little bit more with just word of mouth.

So is sneaker painting a pretty big subculture?

Yeah! Sneaker painting is very huge, especially more in the bigger cities and within social media. A lot of people do it for like, you know, selling or they just do commissions within a bigger range, or people who are well-known. So I feel like that's more the industry for sneaker designs or customizing sneakers, and I kind of just wanted to do it more for local people, or even slowly starting to do it for like, some of my favorite influencers. 

Who would be your dream person, like you would love to get a commission to do a sneaker for them?

I would love to do some sneakers for Harry Styles. He's like one of my favorite artists.

Is it always Air Force ones that are the base of the Sneaker? 

Usually, yes.

Why Air Force ones?

It's a very popular shoe within a lot of sneakerheads. It's very practical and very comfortable. They’re one of my favorite sneakers. But as well as the canvas within it’s leather, so it's easier to paint on. 

What makes for a good sneaker design, from your perspective as an artist?

I say making it clean and crisp. Detail is very important, especially for me. Just when it comes to sneaker designing as an artist, I want to make sure the design is very well and good quality. The paint that I use is called Angelus direct paint, and it's specifically leather paint for these types of projects. And the paint itself is a very well known brand within the customizing world. And I just want to make sure whenever I'm doing something like this, for someone who commissioned for me, that their end product is going to be something they love and hopefully will continue coming to me for more designs as well.

Is this something that you think that you would want to continue doing, or even build up your own business on?

Yeah, I definitely want to continue it after graduation. I’d love to make my own little business with just to customizing. And I definitely want to grow and expand for hopefully going a little bit more big within my audience.

So with your graphic design degree, are there any other fields that you see yourself working in after you're done at Central?

I can definitely see myself being a graphic design professor within a university or even high school. I definitely want to promote more of that, especially within high schools, so they know my school and like my high school. They really don’t offer it, and I know a lot of them, from what I've heard, they still really don't offer those classes. So I definitely can see myself being a teacher or professor. I can also see myself being an art director. I love collaborating with people. I can get insights from other artists as well, and just see how we can make visually appealing designs for people. 

And job goals as well, or career goals…I feel like I still don't know what I really want to do. Like afterwards, I have my big goal of working for Pixar, and being able to do their movie posters, or some of their illustrations. And I'll continue working on that. I definitely think that from where I started to now, I've grown a lot. 

At the beginning, you said that you wanted to push back against the perception that art isn't a “real job.” Is that something that you've come up against? 

Definitely, that is something that it gets to me. I don't want others to feel like that, especially if they're very passionate about what they want to do. And so as a Latinx community member, I want to make sure that you're wanting to study something that you want, or you're going to love at the end. And you're going to do it for yourself and not for others. Something I want to do in order to help that, is just make a safe space within my social media community put out, especially like within my own personal Instagram, share different tips, and just be like a safe place for other people who are kind of going through the same thing or have gone to show that you, you know, you can make a career out of something you love, like art, graphic design, illustration. And you can make a difference with it

Who are your three favorite artists or designers? Who are your biggest inspirations?

I think one of my biggest inspirations, and she actually is a former student, her name is Alana. She worked as the art director for Auxiliaries. I've worked in there throughout Hype, and I had classes with her, and just seeing her style and how she's also improved throughout the years, definitely something that makes me want to continue and just practice more. I love her works of art as well. 
When it comes to shoe designs, his name is Marko, and he just does very intricate shoe designs. I look at his stuff all the time and his videos on YouTube, and he's one of my biggest inspirations when it comes to shoe designs. He has his own company, and I hope one day I can be just like him. And he does a lot of shoes for big celebrities as well. 

And I feel like this one's a very typical one for graphic designers, but Aaron Draplin. He is from Portland. We see a lot of his videos as well in class, and I just think his design work is very clean and sleek. He has a very fun and artsy personality. He's not very serious when it comes to actually speaking out, but his way of designing and coming up with concepts is very beautiful. And I also hope to be like him one day and to design–I see a lot of my designs being inspired by his because they're very clean. It's one of my favorites. 

What motivates you and pushes you to keep going?

Definitely my parents. They're one of the biggest motivators. My dad, every time I talked to him, he's always like, ‘Oh, what'd you do today?’ And I'm like, ‘Homework, as always’ And like does this countdown: ‘four more months! Three more months! You got this, you got this!’ And that's definitely one of my biggest motivations to get through the day.

And I guess the end result of whatever I'm going to be doing, if I know I'm going to have to do design homework, or do a task that I really don't want to do, I know that it's a learning experience that I'll probably either never have again, or will learn from it. And so I'm like, okay, I can do this. If it doesn't work out. It's fine. 

And what do you love most about sneaker painting?

Ooh. Besides actually doing it and painting, I love the end results and seeing people's faces whenever I deliver the shoes. It makes me happy seeing them happy, knowing that they're going to wear the designs on their feet with the shoes. I don't know if this sounds selfish or anything, but knowing that they're going to be showing it off to people, it just makes me happy because it shows that what I want to do, making a difference and making people happy, is paying off with the shoe designs.

Is there anything else that you want to add?

To whoever is going to be reading this or looking at this: keep doing what you're doing. And do it for yourself and not for others, that's for sure. And everything's gonna be okay. You're gonna get through things. I know, like school or during these rough times, they're going to be rough. But if we just continue, like pushing on and being positive, the end results are going to be, hopefully, what we dreamed of.