Meet Brian Barraza of Boulder

Today we’d like to introduce you to Brian Barraza

Hi Brian, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
It stared, as many stories do, with a promise. I’d always been a creative child, mostly drawing or engaging with an abundantly active imagination. I’d run through her backyard immersed in battles with all manner of invisible foes. I had a seemingly endless well of energy that not even joining a summer track team when I was 7 could burn off.

One day when I was 11 my grandmother pulled me aside and asked me to promise that I’d never lose my imagination. She saw that spark and knew how valuable it was. And how easily extinguished.

Being young and eager to please I promised immediately. But as I got older I took it seriously. I kept many sketchbooks, made paintings, and pushed myself out of my comfort zone with creative bursts. In high school I took art classes. In college I balanced my Exercise Science degree from the University of Houston with a Studio Arts minor.

After completing my Master’s degree in Sports Administration I moved to Boulder to pursue professional running. I joined a team and with some of my race winnings I bought an iPad. I had recently started teaching myself how to animate frame by frame and didn’t want to spend another 70 hours drawing on my phone with my finger.

I continued to explore creative avenues, taking freelance projects here and there, working as a graphic designer for my running team at the time. In 2023, I left that team and started my business, Ink & Echoes Creative, to offer my creative services to my community and support my running career.

I continued to take projects and refine my craft, challenging myself to learn web design, book cover design, and logo design. I also challenged myself to more fully embody my creative identity. A big way this showed up for me was through the publication of my first collection of poetry.

I decided that I wanted to put more structure around my business and applied for a Master’s Program at CU for Strategic Communication Design. I’m currently in classes and still competing.

Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
There’s no such thing as a smooth road. We can recontextualize our experience in retrospect, but we’re always grappling with something.

It’s been challenging to balance my athletic aspirations with my creative ones at times. Neither of these domains are known for their financial stability.

Internally I’ve had to navigate my own personal history and the way it impacts how I show up in the world. It’s challenging to be conscious of the apparent gap between where you are and where you want to be. If you even have that north star.

Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
I have a varied skill set that allows me to tackle a wide range of creative projects, but I’m most fired up about using animation to communicate challenging concepts, particularly with regards to wellness.

I’m most known for being able to generate clarity around abstract concepts and distilling them to their essence. This shows up as high level strategy for my design work. I work to grasp the true shape of a thing and support that with design.

What sets me apart from others is the discerning mind I’ve cultivated from over 20 years of experience focused on high performance athletics. When you’re engaged with endurance sports in that way, you tend to learn how energy works and where it’s best spent.

Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
I don’t consider myself to be a big risk taker. I usually buttress any risks with an increase in skills. I find a lot of safety in competence and autonomy.

Some of the biggest risks I’ve taken have been moving across the country to join running teams. The first relocating me from my hometown in El Paso, Texas to my college in Houston. Then later the move to Boulder. The fear and uncertainty in those moves were daunting. Like jumping from a plane and making a parachute on the way down.

But tolerating those types of risks is a skill set in itself. Your ability to handle discomfort is trainable. I’ve been working on that all my life.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://linktr.ee/ink_and_echoes