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- Embracing Non-Linear Journeys - Featuring Laura Athayde
Embracing Non-Linear Journeys - Featuring Laura Athayde
Mihir Parekh
August 14, 2023
Hey there 👋 ,
Embracing non-linear journeys has been one of my most transformative lessons since university. Before, my life followed a predictable pattern: excel in school, attend a top university, and secure coveted internships—all to signal value to prospective employers. Every experience was neatly labeled as either a 'success' or 'failure'.
Yet after university, a huge degree of autonomy beckoned. Here lay both the beauty and challenge of crafting my own path. From departing Palantir for the awesome team at Hummingbird Ventures, to solo traveling South America for four months, to venturing into digital illustration without any formal training. These moments, filled with fear and uncertainty, surprisingly led to my deepest growth. They equipped me with a variety of unrelated (yet complementary) skills, whose relevance only became evident in retrospect.
Steve Jobs perfectly encapsulated this sentiment in his 2005 Stanford address:
…you can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backward. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
Drawing parallels, today's guest, Laura Athayde, transitioned from a lawyer to a celebrated illustrator. Originally from the Amazonas and now based in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, her diverse portfolio includes book covers, magazines, ad campaigns, and more. Her inaugural solo work, a compilation of autobiographical comic strips, won the national HQMix prize in 2019. Her latest creation, "Aconteceu Comigo," presents a collection of short comics capturing the raw, unfiltered stories of Brazilian women.
English translation: Funny to say that people drink to be ‘happy’. In some of my saddest memories, I tried to undo it with beer, a knot in my throat. Before he turned to tears.
As you transitioned from a lawyer to an illustrator, what were the most memorable highs and lows? Was there anything that helped you face the challenges?
I was around 25 when I started drawing and posting comics online. At the time, I lived by myself away from my hometown, and I think that gave me a lot of freedom to decide what to do with my time and think more seriously about illustrating. My parents never really supported that career for me, and I don't know if I would ever have considered it if they were around to give an opinion! So I started illustrating as a hobby, for projects I thought were cool, and worked as a lawyer to support myself. When I decided to quit law and study graphic design to insert myself in the market as an illustrator, my parents actually helped me! They said something like "yeah, we tried, but it looks like this is what you really want to do, so count on us". I had money saved from my previous job to rely on as I was studying and trying to get illustration gigs, but my parents helped me pay for my new school and that support it made the transition to a new career less scary.
The career of a freelance illustrator and designer isn't always easy. There are great times, when there are so many invitations for projects that I have to say no to really cool stuff, and also times when the invitations run out. But I also have a bunch of personal projects that I love to work on, specially comics, and having that passion to fill the slow times also helps me to not feel anxious.
Comics are all about storytelling. What has been your favorite story to tell the world and why?
I absolutely love to tell stories! I can't even pick one! I tell many of my own stories and I also told other women's stories for a couple of years, as I had a project in which I received anonymous life stories and turned them into comics. I learned so much just from listening to other people. I grew enormously as a human, and for that I will always be grateful. So I think I have a passion for telling other people's stories and trying to empathize with them!
Laura's work holds strong messages regarding LGBTQIA+ rights (check out her work for Uber below), women’s rights, as well as the raw, unfiltered experiences of women all across Brazil.
What can we look forward to in your future work?
I honestly have no idea. Maybe getting an agent to represent me outside of Brazil and getting to illustrate for foreign magazines and books. That would be wonderful! I still wasn't so lucky as to catch the eye of an agent, but maybe someday. I'd also love to finally get to my graphic novel, which is something I've been delaying for years, finding one excuse or another. The script is all ready, but I have commitment issues, and drawing graphic novels is such long work!
Laura's evolution from lawyer to illustrator highlights the beauty of unpredictable trajectories. Her story serves as a powerful reminder that embracing non-linear journeys, while frightening, can lead to the most personally rewarding destinations.
If you’d like to explore Laura’s other work, I’d highly recommend you follow her journey on Instagram, check out her portfolio, or watch her Domestika course if you’d like to make your own comics! (trust me the course is amazing, here’s my comic below 😉 )
