Today we’d like to introduce you to Carlos Adán Castro.
Hi Carlos Adán, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
I’ve been making/creating/coming up with things for as long as I can remember.
I was born in Viesca, Coahuila, a very small town in northern Mexico, and moved to San Antonio when I was six. I think moving that young gave me an outsider’s perspective that I’ve carried with me ever since. When I first started school in the U.S., I couldn’t really communicate, so I drew. Then I became almost desperate to learn English, and once I did, I fell in love with language.
I loved the way my family talked, the jokes they told, the way they told them. I read constantly. I carried a pen and paper everywhere. My mom used to get mad at me because I’d leave pens in my pockets and they’d explode in the laundry. I was always writing something, drawing something or making something up in my head.
But I had no idea you could make a living doing any of that.
When I was finishing high school, I didn’t really have a plan. My dad is an electrician, and one day he told me to come with him. I assumed we were going to work. Instead, he took me to a Hispanic advertising agency in San Antonio called Market Vision.
That’s where I met Bonnie Garcia, the owner. I remember seeing pictures of her with Selena and even a handwritten note from Selena thanking her for what she’d done for her and her family. Then I learned Bonnie had gone to the same high school I did and grew up on the South Side of San Antonio, too. Suddenly I was looking at someone who came from where I came from and had built this entire creative career I didn’t even know existed.
She gave me an internship.
I became obsessed. I learned graphic design, started taking classes, and eventually began building a career. It wasn’t a straight line. I became a father young, spent time in Mexico, came back to the U.S. and basically had to start from the bottom. I worked at print shops, begged people to let me design logos, created spec work just to build a portfolio.
Eventually, I co-founded a creative agency in San Antonio called Tribu. Later, I sold my half and went to Lopez Negrete in Houston as a senior copywriter, then Richards/Lerma in Dallas, where I worked on brands like MetroPCS. Since then, I’ve worked with agencies and brands all over the country, and today I’m a creative director working with Denny’s.
But the titles have never mattered to me as much as the work.
I’ve been a designer, copywriter, creative director, filmmaker and whatever else the idea needs me to be. Through all of it, I’ve kept writing. I’ve written short stories, poems and screenplays. I’ve directed short films and music videos. I’m still walking around with notebooks, taking pictures, recording things and making stuff up in my head.
So in a strange way, I don’t think what I do today is that different from what I was doing as a kid. I’ve just figured out how to make a life out of it.
Alright, 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?
Aww hell naaaawww! Though I’ve been fortunate and blessed, it has not been smooth sailings. At. All.
One of the hardest periods was coming back from Mexico when I was young. I had a family to support, the economy was terrible, I didn’t have a degree or the kind of portfolio that would get me into the places I wanted to work, and I was trying to convince people to give me a chance.
So I started wherever I could: I worked at print shops. I designed logos. I made things for myself when nobody was asking me to make anything. I built a portfolio piece by piece.
There have also been periods later in my career that were difficult personally, professionally and creatively. There are years I wouldn’t necessarily want to relive, but I also wouldn’t erase them. They made me tougher, and I think struggle has made me much more appreciative of where I am now.
I’ve always had a lot of faith. Faith in God, absolutely, but also a lot of faith in myself. Not in the sense that I thought everything would magically work out. More that I’ve always believed that if I needed to figure something out, I could. If I kept learning, kept working and kept making things, I’d find a way forward.
I’ve never really had a Plan B when it comes to being creative. Even during the periods when it would’ve been easier to let it go, I couldn’t.
As you know, we’re big fans of you and your work. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about what you do?
I think the simplest way to describe what I do is that I come up with ideas and then help figure out how to make them real.
I’ve worked as a graphic designer, copywriter, creative director and filmmaker, so I don’t draw very hard lines around any of those things. I love language. I love headlines. I love writing scripts. I love film. I love finding the idea underneath a brief and then figuring out the best way to express it.
Something I’ve always challenged myself to do is show up with something.
I don’t like walking into a room empty-handed. Even when the problem is difficult, I want to have ideas on the table so we have somewhere to start. I sometimes call it “finding the gem in the brief.” There’s almost always something interesting hiding in there if you’re curious enough to find it.
I’m also a very collaborative person. I don’t believe being a creative director means sitting above the work and telling everyone else what to do. I still write. I still concept. I still get excited about a good line. As a filmmaker, I feel the same way. My job isn’t to have every answer. It’s to understand the idea deeply enough that everyone involved can bring their own expertise to it and make it better.
One project I still think about was a MetroPCS/UFC shoot I worked on with my creative partner, Lucho Sanchez. We arrived to shoot the campaign we’d sold and suddenly got asked what we were making for social and YouTube. We hadn’t been briefed on any of it. So that night, we sat in the hotel looking at everything we had access to: a piano, a garden, a pool, whatever, and started writing. By the next morning, we’d created and sold through a whole additional batch of ideas, shot them, and some of them ended up performing really well.
I love that story because it’s kind of how I like to work: use what’s around you, don’t panic, trust the people you’re with, and show up with something.
I’m proud of the bigger career moments, of course. I’m proud of the work I’ve done with Denny’s and of going from a freelance writer to helping lead the creative work. I’m proud of the films and music videos I’ve made.
I’m also proud of smaller, more personal projects like SouthSide Sínema, a short film series I started in San Antonio with artist Albert Gonzales. It comes from a very simple place: I love cinema, I love sharing it with people, and I believe there’s value in creating spaces for people to experience art together.
And maybe that’s what I’m most proud of. Sometimes it’s a campaign or a film. Sometimes it’s creating something opportunities for people to experience creativity in a new way. Sometimes it’s simply finishing a short story nobody asked me to write or a screenplay nobody may ever make.
I don’t create only because it’s my career. I create because I don’t really know how not to.
We’d be interested to hear your thoughts on luck and what role, if any, you feel it’s played for you?
I’ve been incredibly lucky.
Me moving from that little town in north central Mexico at a young age was luck. Discovering cinema and literature not too long after was luck. My dad taking me to Market Vision was luck. Meeting Bonnie Garcia was luck. Her deciding to give some kid with no idea what he was doing an internship was luck. Throughout my career, I’ve met people who believed in me, taught me things, recommended me, hired me, challenged me and opened doors for me.
I don’t take any of that for granted.
At the same time, I’ve learned that luck and preparation have a strange relationship. A door can open for you, but you have to be ready to walk through it and deliver on all that is going to be asked of you. Or at least willing to be able to move fast enough to learn all you didn’t know to get there.
Long before anyone was paying me to write, I was filling notebooks. Long before I called myself a creative, I was making things. And between the lucky breaks have been a lot of long nights, rejected ideas, challening jobs, uncertainty and starting over.
So I believe in luck. I believe even more in grace. And I believe in doing the work so that when something does come your way, you’re ready for it.
At the end of the day, I’m still that little boy from Viesca, Coahuila, who got bored easily and realized the biggest playground he had was inside his own head.
Everything I’ve built started there.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://carlosadancastro.myportfolio.com/
- Instagram: @starringasadan
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlosadancastro/
