Meet Cameron Surratt | Art Director

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

Hi Cameron, why did you pursue a creative career?
I’ve always just felt like I had to. I had to make. I had to draw. I had to create. I had always been drawn to making things look good,. Art for art’s sake.

Part of that, for sure, was my mother. I was exposed to a world of creativity that was built up around someone I already admired. From childhood, I was an artist. Drawing scenes from movies I watched, creating characters of my own.

I am an artist, a storyteller, a creator. I want my work to inspire others.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
From childhood, I was an artist. I don’t know if I’ve ever been anything else. My earliest memories are hunched over blank pieces of paper sketching scenes from Star Wars. The pinnacle of artistic achievement is to get your work on the fridge and I had quite a few of my pieces clipped to neon colored magnets.

As I’ve grown up, I’ve kept creating. By high school, I had traded my crayons for a camera. Photography was my calling. Every weekend I was on photoshoots with any and everyone who wanted to. I made pictures of my friends and made friends because of my pictures. In my senior year, I applied to Parsons School of Design in New York.

I was gonna take pictures for a living.

In 2019, I attended Parsons on a near three⁠-quarter-tuition scholarship, majoring in Photography. It was a wonderful experience that I wouldn’t trade for the world. But as life always goes, my plans were not set in stone.

By Christmas, photography didn’t seem to be the best place to end up. The shine of being an editorial photographer wore off. I spent hours talking to my parents about it. How could this dream of mine not be the right way? Nearing march of 2020, things happened⁠—namely a pandemic⁠—and I was on my way back home. No more New York City.

Around that time, I had already started to walk back on my intentions to be a photographer at all. I still loved taking pictures, but I wanted something different. Something bigger. I found my way in a two-year Design and Advertising program at Randolph Community College.

There are those things that find their way back to you. I could see my mom sitting in her desk chair saying “I told you so.” Mothers do know best.

I had done plenty of graphic design work as a creative outlet, but never with the goal of making a living out of it (photography or bust was my mindset). And I never thought about advertising as where I’d end up. But as I learned, the biggest draw for me through all of my schooling was the storytelling of advertising. How do you get someone to care about somehting in five seconds or less? How do you elevate a product on more than its benefits? How do you make an advertisement so much more than a way to sell things? How do you make it art?

I kept coming back to that storytelling aspect. It felt like it was an integral part of what I had always been doing. From those refrigerator drawings to the after-school fashion shoots, I was telling stories.

Such an easy walk to end up in advertising⁠—the art of storytelling.

The past two years have been spent working, I started a wonderful job right out of school at Crobar Creative, an agency in North Carolina. But as these things go, I wanted more. I needed to keep creating, to hone my craft. I began a portfolio program at Denver Ad School in 2023. Still attending, I am continuing to learn, to create, to tell stories. Just yesterday I received news that a project of mine won a pencil at D&AD New Bloods.

I am still learning, still improving. Going a little crazy working full-time and going to school full-time. But I have loved every second of it. I feel like I have found a way.

And all I can do is keep pushing forward.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
I live in a small town in North Carolina called Asheboro. It’s quaint, has so much charm, and is in such a convenient spot to get to bigger cities easily.

I would suggest anyone start their day off at The Table, a farmhouse-style eatery with some amazing breakfast food and the best coffee in town. I’m biased since I used to work there in high school. But it deserves a visit.

For a day trip go visit the North Carolina Zoo, just on the outskirts of the city, it is one of the biggest natural habitat zoos in the world.

Asheboro itself is a great place to spend your time, but the more lively activity happens in the surrounding area.

If you’ve got a little more time, head outside of town next-door to Greensboro. There is a pizza place called Sticks & Stones that’ll change your life.

Post-pizza you’re gonna need a night cap. Not alcohol, but cheesecake. Downtown is Alex’s Cheesecakes, you can’t miss it.

Throughout the week, there are so many points of interest you’d need to fit in. From hiking trails like Hanging Rock to museums like the NC Museum of Art in Charlotte or the Science Museum in Raleigh.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
So many great people have helped me thought all of it. But mainly I want to shout out my parents. First, my mother, for being the one to introduce me to art and design. My father for getting me to recognize that sometimes even dreams need a little tough love.

Website: https://cameronsurratt.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cameronsurratt/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wcameronsurratt/

Youtube: https://youtube.com/@cameronsurratt?si=CtydTY_ywAtbh4OE