Meet Savannah Visser | Graphic Artist & 2D Animator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Savannah Visser and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Savannah, we’d love to hear more about how you thought about starting your own business?
After realizing this goal wasn’t impossible, I made lists. Lists of legal things that needed to get done, lists of items I wanted to create and sell, lists of lists that I ended up throwing away anyway, but my OCD needed somewhere to focus while the rest of my brain was freaking out about becoming my own boss.

The whole idea of starting this business was to become freer, not necessarily have more free time, but to let me be me. To let there be creativity in everything I do and to choose the areas and topics that I wanted to work on. Of course, there will always be projects that I’m not 100% jazzed about, but as my own boss, I can learn a lot from those experiences.

Through opening up SavRo Design, I have been able to meet and work alongside people who care for the same things that I do, whether it be dancing, nature, cooking, healing circles, or dogs (just to name a few hah).
I have also been able to open up a Boardshop with my boyfriend, Thomas C. and am so excited to see where our ideas take us next.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
My art is always shifting through different mediums, colors, feelings, and subjects. But I think that is true for most artists who don’t hold themselves down with too many strict rules about their creativity. So what truly sets me apart is that I am me, and I will always see the world just a little bit different than anyone else. I want to push my own and the feelings of my audience with my pieces. This is especially true with my hand-painted mixed media work. For those projects, I focus on using texture to emphasize the life around us. I want to see the brilliant texture of hair and feel the heaviness of the waves crashing onto shore by enhancing the vibrations and movement through molding and painting color on canvas.

I always believe my love for capturing movement came from my lifelong passion for dancing. In my undergrad, I ended up studying 2D and 3D animation which definitely made me fall even more in love with movement and the world around us.

To be honest, I didn’t even know how passionate I truly was until I started painting. I had painted many times before and had to take paint classes in undergrad, but I was never confident and almost hated doing it.
Then, for some random reason in 2020 I put texture to canvas and my world was changed. Because of the magic I felt when laying down layers of thick paste, my passion for putting paint over top of it grew by miles. I now had a reason to experiment and love painting. I was no longer scared, I was excited and the thought of creating more pieces like that has me lit up every time I think about it.

One thing that I have learned along the way so far is to keep trying different things, learn as much as you can and experiment with your favorites. Keep making the choice to spend time doing what makes you feel alive.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
A few things I would definitely do are:

– Go to the beach! ( We could hit OB, La Jolla, Cardiff, and Encinitas on different days)
– Go to Los Dos Pedros in PB for some awesome Mexican food, a total low key hole in the wall that will have you going back for their fire salsa verde
– Hit up Wheat & Water in PB on Sat or Sunday Morning for some outdoor Yoga taught by a local friend
– Grab some burgers at Cheif’s in Solana Beach (best burger in town and great sports bar)
– We would totally have to hit up North Park or Little Italy for some amazing food from the farmer’s markets and food trucks, ooh and some breweries too!
– Then pop on over to a few art galleries, of course
– We’d probably end off a lot of days at my old stomping grounds at Windansea to watch the sunset

Yes, a lot of my list contains places to eat … and I am sure I’d find more places to try

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
First off, I want to say thank you to my parents, boyfriend, and close friends/family for always supporting me. Secondly, I would like to shout out Gina Smigal. If I had never received her random call after she saw my website for the first time, I would have possibly never gone down this path of self-sustainability in the work environment. She is a true inspiration having built her own successful graphic & print business while raising a son and moving around the country (aka she knew a lot about starting a freelance business). She told me exactly what I needed to do legally and totally made me feel like a rockstar when complimenting my work. Gina said that people needed to see what I was doing and that I could actually make a business out of my different creative passions. It was at that moment that I finally had some future goals that I was stoked about.

Website: www.savro.design

Instagram: @savro_design