Ad Age is marking Pride Month 2023 with our Honoring Creative Excellence package, in which LGBTQ+ creators revisit some of their favorite projects. (Read the introduction here.) Today, our guest editor Sandy Greenberg turns the spotlight to freelance creative director Ezequiel Consoli. Here, Consoli writes about the making of “Inside & Outwards,” a PSA about mental health on which he served as co-creator and creative director.

I write a lot in my free time. During the pandemic, writing very quickly became an outlet for me. I had just moved into my first studio alone, and what usually for a New Yorker is considered a luxury (living alone) became a discomfort. Everyone was forced to be alone in some way or another. So I started writing about being alone … which forced me to learn little by little to gain value on who I was and what I had to offer to myself. I had to keep showing up every day for myself.

From that came “Inside & Outwards,” a PSA about mental health that was meant to be a celebratory piece for everyone who was forced to learn to appreciate and value themselves during those alone times.

It started as a collaboration between many creatives and artists because there was no budget to begin with, and somehow it grew into having Sarah Jessica Parker, Sufjan Stevens and a lot of dancers from the New York City Ballet. The piece was gifted to the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) to raise awareness and money once it was finished, and because of how impactful and relatable it was, we ended up getting an Emmy … which, if I’m being honest, I still can’t believe is something I get to say out loud.

I have always been very passionate and driven in this industry, but this was one of my personal pieces of work. No agencies … no bosses … just my creative freedom, and a bunch of talented creatives who were just as desperate as I was to make something worth watching.

I grew up in Argentina, and I remember always watching every single award show thinking how cool it must be to hold those recognitions when it was for something you felt passionate about.

Mental health and being honest and open about my emotions are at the very forefront of my values—probably because my mom raised me to believe that being emotional is actually a superpower if you learn how to be honest. It’s a universal language, and by far the most spoken one.

I had to exercise this superpower at a really young age when I was growing up in a community that wasn’t very liberal and had to let people know about my sexuality. My emotional awareness definitely comes from my early years of having to discover myself, and I am grateful for it.

Because of it, today my creative work can resonate with people on a human level. Either for a big brand or not, I get to make insightful, honest work. That’s how “Inside & Outwards” was born. This project changed my life and my career. After getting that Emmy, I chose to go on my own and start EC Gay Creative, and it’s been the best two years of my career so far.