Today we’d like to introduce you to Cloud Holmes.
Cloud, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
My story is the story an of a kid, a big kid with big Attainable dreams, and that my story begins with poverty. Long story short, I come off the line of trappers and gangsters with big hearts. Since a youngin, my grandmother, who I’ll refer to as Grams from here on out, always stayed in my ear about staying in the books and not in the streets. Ever since she laid that law on me, my mom reinforced that making sure I have great grades.
As I began to understand myself more overtime, I lied to adults that my “plans” were to go to tech and become an electrical engineer in order to have a nice job and money when in reality, I didn’t know what I wanted to do with myself, no high-schooler does. The story began toward the end of senior year at Lithonia High; the counselor was bringing speakers from colleges. The one from Westwood College said to make your passion your paycheck. My “passion” at the time, was painting but there was a problem I don’t want to be a starving artist nor do I like art that much to be a draw and paint for other people, so wtf am I gonna do? I asked who I would call my mentor, Coach Hill for guidance; he told me I could do graphic design which kinda what yearbook committee was like. I began to dong my research and came to the conclusion that I could make logos and other things for people because graphics can be a need-based business. I made it my major at Georgia State University, where all that poverty and book smarts worked out I got Hope Scholarship, Pell Grant, and a couple of other scholarships, one was from GSU themselves for coming in with a 3.9 GPA. This was five years ago.
Now, here I am, I quit my day-job at about two months ago and I’m about to relaunch my company as an animation-focused graphic designer. So, my dreams of being paid to be myself are coming to fruition starting now!
Has it been a smooth road?
Bruh, school itself was an obstacle, I loved it. It made me the dope person I am today but not without tradeoffs. In 2018, I pretty much got my heart broken because I was hitting the books too hard. That was maybe the biggest thing obstacle at the time because it didn’t make anything easier, dealing with all the emotional stuff. Sadness made me stay in more and ended up bombing a class for being late to critiques, which if you didn’t know is an art school sin. Yep, still gotta take that class.
Working with clients is the other challenge. Not getting clients my work speaks for itself but just dealing with some can be a pickle. In the beginning, some clients would run off with the work and leave high and dry. Some clients try to devalue my work in efforts to haggle me like I don’t care what your friend charges. Ya boy has a contract now because we live and learn over here.
We’d love to hear more about your business.
My company is Yun Cloud Co., which is just my rapper name and the word company slapped right on it. What I do is bring dreams and visions to life through the infinite scope of graphic design. I’m known for the basic logos and cover art. What stands me out as a designer is a fact that I can do it all I don’t have a specific niche, so if a client needed an app, I could make it if a client wanted a fire YouTube intro, I could sauce that up until that too. That doesn’t mean that don’t want a niche though, I’m totally about to make animation my stand out factor. I haven’t hit a milestone yet that makes me proud enough to speak on that, but I guess that the fact that I can kinda support myself is a humbling place to start.
Is our city a good place to do what you do?
Hell yeah, Atlanta-stan is the hub for the small people with big ideas. I need to be where the ideas are so I can bring them to life. So many people want to be things that require some graphic design. I would definitely recommend Atlanta for someone starting up because the creatives here are hungry they love to collab and work together with the create dope stuff, I think that’s the dopest thing about the scene in Atlanta.
Pricing:
- Logos starting at $250
- All other graphics start at $100
- Animation Work starts at $150
- UX, and Web Design starting at $30/hr
Contact Info:
- Phone: 678.717.8614
- Email: fakeclouddesign@gmail.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/yuncloud.co
- Other: instagram.com/lameassperson
Image Credit:
Salinna K. Phon
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