My middle school required all the students to carry an “agenda” with them.. Sort of a homework calendar with schedules. I was constantly doodling Nike logos and band names in there. Decorating the cover, etc. My mom said “You should be a graphic designer!” and so I did.
Really fell in love with it in high school thanks to album covers. I was way into music, punk rock specifically, and that aesthetic just made me want to learn. I pirated a copy of Photoshop and started experimenting.
I take a client’s (company, CD, brand, etc) raw ideas and realize them for a specific medium. That’s all the job is. My specific style (wen it applies) is something I call “Dusty Neo-Macabre Wabi Sabi.” I like to leave things just shy of finished. Graphic Design deals almost wholly in ephemera, so I like to keep that in mind.
So many students now are so work focused, they forget that communication and personality management is 80%+ of the job. I look for designers who can talk about their work, sell it to the client, listen to the clients needs, and really work with them on a solution. Collaborators. Email etiquette. Anyone can learn to use a grid, but can you translate a feeling into words and image?
Learn to code, learn to code, learn to code. Except I’m old, and if I told my 16 year old self to learn to code he would just be like “what is code?” - But seriously, I wish I’d had the foresight to be really deep-dive into digital.
1. It’s just a job, not who you are.
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