Demo persona

Leo Marchetti — Visual artist with a psychology degree

A working illustrator and muralist with a bachelor's in psychology. Makes a patchwork living from commissions and workshops, and wants steadier work that still uses how he thinks.

  • Goal Discover potential jobs
  • Role context Open exploration (no target role)
  • Interview style Exploratory CXO conversation

Leo shared a self-description and had an open, roughly 35-turn conversation about how he works and thinks — with no specific target role, to surface which directions actually fit him.

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Evidence this persona provided

Copy-pastable — drop these into the normal chat / analyze flow if you want to run the pipeline yourself.

Cover letter

Portfolio

Simulated interview transcript (70 turns)
Hi Leo, glad you're here. There's no right answer today — I just want to understand how you work. When you're at your best, what are you usually doing?
At my best I'm taking something vague and making it legible. A client comes with a feeling — hopeful but not naive — and I turn it into an image people actually read the way it was meant. That translation is the part of me that never switches off.
What's the most satisfying moment in that process?
When a stranger looks at a mural and gets it without me explaining a thing. If I have to caption it, I failed. The silent nod of recognition from someone I've never met is the whole reward for me.
You trained in psychology and then went into art. How do those two actually meet day to day?
They're the same job for me. Psychology taught me to ask what someone is really responding to underneath what they say. Composition is just applying that with color and space — how the eye moves, what a symbol means to that specific group.
Can you give me an example where the psychology clearly did the heavy lifting?
In a workshop for teenagers, half the room went silent when I asked them to draw 'home'. I realized it was loaded for some of them, so I switched the prompt to 'a place you feel invisible in a good way'. Suddenly everyone drew. Reading that shutdown was the skill, not the art.
Tell me about a commission where the brief was especially unclear.
A neighborhood group wanted a mural that 'represented everyone' but couldn't agree what that meant, and there was real tension between older and younger residents. It was less an art problem and more a mediation problem.
So how did you approach it?
I ran two listening sessions and just collected images and words people offered, instead of pitching my idea. I noticed both groups kept mentioning the same river and the same festival, even while disagreeing on everything else.
And that shaped the work?
I built the whole design around those shared anchors. It got approved unanimously, which almost never happens with a mixed committee. The drawing was maybe thirty percent of the work; finding the common thread underneath the conflict was the rest.
How do you handle feedback that you think is wrong?
I try to hear what's under it. When a client says 'I don't like the blue', they usually mean it feels colder than they wanted, not literally the hue. I dig for the feeling behind the note, then solve that. Arguing about the blue itself goes nowhere.
When you're learning a new tool or medium, how do you go about it?
I learn by needing it. A client wanted a short animation, so I found the three things I actually needed in the software and figured them out on the real project, breaking it until it worked. Give me a concrete reason and a deadline and I pick up most tools fast.
What's something you tried to learn that didn't stick?
Anything I studied 'in case' I'd need it someday. I once tried to learn a 3D program with no project attached and it evaporated in a week. Without a real problem pulling me through, technical learning just slides off me.
What parts of your work drain you?
The invoicing, chasing payments, and constantly re-selling myself to the next client. The freelance treadmill means I'm never more than a month from an empty calendar, and that low background anxiety eats the creative energy I'd rather spend making things.
Any kind of creative work you actively dislike?
Purely decorative 'just make it pretty' jobs with no idea behind them. I can do them, but they feel hollow. I want the work to be trying to do something to the viewer, even if it's subtle. Decoration without intent bores me.
You want steadier work but not to lose how you think. What are you afraid a normal job would cost you?
Becoming a pair of hands executing someone's fully-formed idea, where the interesting thinking is done before it reaches me. I'd hate to lose being trusted with the ambiguity — being the person who gets the fuzzy problem, not the finished spec.
Does the job title matter to you?
Honestly not much. If a role lets me keep translating messy human goals into something clear and usable, I don't care if it's called design, research, or facilitation. The label matters far less than whether I'm still doing that translation.
When you collaborate on a project, what role do you naturally take?
I become the person who names what the group is actually trying to say. People talk past each other, so I'll sketch the idea quickly so we're all pointing at the same thing. That visual often reveals we disagreed without knowing it.
Do you tend to lead those groups?
Not loudly. I'm rarely the one running the meeting, but I'm the one who quietly makes the discussion concrete enough to move. People relax once there's something on the table to react to instead of abstract debate.
Tell me about a time you changed your own mind about a piece.
I was attached to a dark, moody concept for a youth center mural. But watching kids in the space, they gravitated to bright corners and avoided the shadows. I let the space and their behavior overrule my taste and reworked it lighter. It was better for it.
How do you deal with a blank page or a creative block?
I go back to the people, not the page. I re-read the interviews or go sit in the actual location. The block usually means I don't understand the problem well enough yet, not that I'm out of ideas. Understanding unlocks the making.
What do people consistently come to you for?
To make something abstract or emotional finally make sense visually. Friends and clients bring me the 'I can't explain what I mean' problems. I'm the person who can sit with a vague feeling and hand back something concrete that captures it.
Where do you see AI touching creative work, and how do you feel about it?
It's flooding the 'make it pretty quickly' end, which is the part I care least about, so I'm not panicked. The generating is getting cheap. What it can't do is sit in a tense community meeting and feel that the river is the thing everyone secretly shares.
So how would you work alongside it?
I'd lean into the parts that need me in the room with people, reading what's unsaid, and use the tools to speed up execution once I know what needs to exist. The understanding stays human; the rendering can be assisted.
What would you want to keep learning if you found the right role?
More structured research methods and more digital and data skills. I do a rough version of user research by instinct; I'd love to do it properly. I like the idea of pairing my intuition about people with real method behind it.
Is there a domain or cause you'd love your work to serve?
Anything around mental health or how people navigate hard transitions — it's where my psychology background and my art actually converge. Making difficult inner experiences legible to others feels like the most 'me' possible use of both halves.
What does money need to do for you, realistically?
Enough stability that I'm not re-selling myself every month and can think past the next invoice. I'm not chasing wealth; I'm chasing the mental space that steadiness buys, so I can do deeper work instead of constant hustle.
When you're fully self-directed on a project, how do you actually structure your time?
I front-load the understanding — interviews, sitting in the space, gathering references — before I let myself make anything. Then I sketch fast and loose. My worst work happens when I rush to the drawing because I'm anxious; the discipline is trusting the slow start.
How do you handle a hard deadline on creative work?
I lower the resolution, not the thinking. If time is short I'll still do the listening, but I'll commit to a simpler execution rather than skip understanding the problem. A simple idea that's right beats an elaborate one that misses. Deadlines force clarity, honestly.
Tell me about a time you misread a room or an audience.
I ran a workshop assuming a corporate team wanted playful, loose exercises. They were anxious and wanted structure, and my looseness made it worse. I had to pivot mid-session to something concrete. I'd projected what I'd enjoy onto them instead of reading who was actually there.
How do you handle rejection of your work?
I separate my worth from the piece, which took years. A rejected concept usually means I misunderstood the brief or the audience, not that I'm untalented. I treat it as information about the gap, go back to the people, and it stings less every time.
Tell me about a time you took initiative nobody asked for.
During a mural project I noticed the local kids had no way to feel ownership of it, so unprompted I ran a small session letting them add a section. Nobody paid me for it, but it turned the mural from mine into theirs, and the community protected it after.
What do people misunderstand about you?
That because I'm an artist I must be flaky or purely intuitive. Actually I'm methodical — I do real research before I make anything. The psychology background means there's a lot of structured thinking behind work that looks spontaneous. The looseness is earned, not careless.
Is there a value you won't compromise on?
I won't make work that manipulates people against their own interest, even if it pays. I know enough psychology to push emotional buttons cheaply, and I refuse to. The whole point for me is helping people see or feel something true, not exploiting them.
What does great collaboration feel like to you?
When a group stops talking past each other because there's finally something visual to point at, and they build on it together. The best moments are when my sketch becomes their idea and they run with it. I love being the one who made the conversation concrete.
The freelance life is isolating. How does that affect you?
It's the hardest part. I do my best thinking around other people, and alone in a studio I can spiral. Part of why I want steadier work is simply to be on a team — to have people to think out loud with instead of only my own head.
What's a skill you're deliberately trying to build right now?
Structured facilitation — running a room with real method rather than pure instinct. I improvise well, but I want the frameworks so I can do it reliably at bigger scale. I'm reading up on workshop design and testing it on my own sessions to see what holds.
If you looked back in two years and felt you'd landed somewhere right, what would that look like?
Steady income, and a role where people bring me messy human problems and trust me to make them clear — through images, workshops, whatever fits. I'd be on a team instead of alone in a studio, still learning, and using both halves of me somewhere they're actually valued.