First Draft

The easiest way to understand me is to take a look into my everyday life. Most days I wake up at 8am and get into the WOUB Public Media office by 9 where I am hired as an on staff designer.  After work I eat lunch while I read a group of daily design blogs that I check every day to keep current on any new trends and for inspiration. My creativity continues as I go to my design class. As you might suspect design is the one thing I involve myself with daily and I absolutely love it. I love it so much that  it is hard for me to imagine but all this never happened had I not believed in myself.

            My journey into design start sophomore year of high school when I took a class called “Graphics and Communications.” My reasoning for taking this class was because it was an easy A. The topic of the class was just learning the ins and outs of Photoshop, which I had already known so I expected to breeze through this class. Which is what me and everyone else in the class did. What I did not expect was for me to find a passion designing with photoshop. I spent probably way too much time on the simple projects but I loved doing it so I didn’t mind. When it came time for my Junior Year I still had no idea what I wanted to do in college so I took a class called “Visual Communication I.” I knew it would be more in-depth than the other class since it was labeled as an art class and that made me both excited and nervous at the same time. I was the only person in the class that wasn’t in regular art and they obviously have all known each other for a while which made me the odd man out. Another thing that made me the odd man out was my ability to draw. This was never a problem for me before but now that I heard we had to draw in the first day of class I was ready to drop it. Looking back on it I’m kind disappointed/embarrassed at myself for even thinking about dropping out once I had a small setback. However I can’t go back in time and change my story so after school that day I went to talk to the teacher about dropping the class. What I didn’t know was this conversation was going to be one of the first one-on-one conversations with someone who I now consider a mentor and a huge influence on my life. The teacher’s name is Mr. Beutsche and when I told him I have to drop the class he just laughed at me and said “How about you show me what you can do before telling me what you can’t.” Which admittedly sounds like a line from a bad Disney Channel Movie but cross my heart that is what he said to me. After a couple weeks it came time for our first project critique. For anyone who hasn’t taken an art class, a critique is basically putting your work in front of all your peers and they say what is good about it and what is bad. My first critique’s comments mostly were in the “bad” category, which absolutely obliterated my confidence in this class. The project was to design a personal logo for yourself and I would show it in this blog but I don’t think I even saved it. I remember leaving the class pissed off at myself once again for even thinking I could do this class, and now I was going to be stuck in it for a whole semester. The embarrassment of the critique pushed me forward for the next project because I was determined not to go through that experience again. The second project was to design a CD cover for a specific song and right from the start I was trying my hardest. I spent much more time than anyone else sketching out my idea due to me starting over and over trying to get results with my dismal drawing skills. When it came to designing it on the computer everything just fell into place. I think it was because I spent so much time drawing it that I had a clear image in my head, which is the point of sketching but I didn’t know that at the time. At the time of my second critique everything was different. No longer was I receiving criticism but rather praise. It was the best feeling in the world and I wanted more of it. My second critique was the start of a roller coaster year for me. By the end of my junior I had an A in both Viscom I&II, and  won two city-wide design competitions all without being able to draw. I found myself blazing my own path and started to create my own aesthetic and way of doing things.