Design

My love for design came easy and early, but I didn’t know what to call it.

The school system of my childhood wasn’t overflowing with design mentors, to say the least. Thankfully, I found myself naturally gravitating towards design. I was fascinated with symbolism, logos, album covers, type, and started designing with the few resources I had. I experimented by making band flyer collages and logos. After high school I learned this craft had a name – graphic art.

In my first year of college I started a clothing company and was investing my extra time into learning screen printing and website creation. These design sessions would last late into the night, and I found myself strangely exhilarated. It was during this period that I had the first epiphany of possibly making a living with this newfound passion. The next day I walked into the university’s art building, found the graphic art professor, showed him my work, and was admitted into the program on the spot.

Within a year I landed a design job at a large manufacturer with product in retail stores worldwide. There, I was able to learn from the senior designers, incessantly asking questions about the software and processes, and began building a skill set and portfolio using real-world experience in typography, design, packaging, pre-press, studio photography, art direction, and more. While my fellow students were creating a small handful of school projects, I was in the depths of stressful commercial production processes, working with overseas vendors, and seeing my completed handiwork on store shelves. The hours were brutal (alongside school), but it was a critical and fruitful period in my design education.

My design journey has continued to evolve. A combination of hard work, education, and luck continues to provide invaluable experience in a wide variety of fields like UX, print, digital, marketing, photography, and 3D design (all of which I have found to be rewarding).

I always look forward to where my design travels lead me.