The Next Generation

The other day an email came into my inbox from a freshman at the local university. They had questions about my studies, my career, and why I wanted to be a desire. It is about passion. Telling this student reminded me about why I wanted to be where I am.

How do you spend your time? Email, Adobe Creative Suite, Doodling, managing printers, preparing files for flash, web, and print,  and dealing with clients and publications.

A typical day? Checking my email and take care of projects based on urgency and deadlines.

How did you choose this career? When I first entered school I was undecided and took basic courses required for every student, but I had taken an intro to design course and it changed my college career completely. In this class I created books, digital patterns and illustrations, and I was able to realize that I had been doing "graphic design" activities my whole life. I used to layout, illustrate, and work with color on my Christmas Letter to Santa, I developed my own websites in high school, and I always carried a sketch book with me. It is more than a career; I am passionate about what I do.

 What are your favorite thing to do?  I find I am always looking for the new project or a challenge, something that helps me stretch my creative muscles. When I have a project I haven't worked on before or a new client, that creates something for me to learn. You are never done learning in this career, because it is person-based. People likes, dislikes and how they interact with brands or products changes with internet, social media, and personal growth. I like working on logos because it can combine some of my favorite skills: iconography and typography. I am able to put a lot of work and creativity behind each logo.

"Family Dinner" by Me  |  An original screenprint

Choosing a career in college can be based on a lot of things, and most likely you will change your mind. But if you choose a career that you have passion for it will be easier to go to work everyday, even when you don't bring hope as much "bacon" as you would like.

Getting the Right Kind of Attention

Sometimes working on ad can be like teenage girl applying makeup. Clients can be prone to fall into the more is more category. "That type needs to bigger, bolder, more brighter, wider, and more content, and don't forget the!!!!!!!" You want your clients to be able to trust what you are doing as a designer, but sometimes they don't believe you can sell their sale with clean type and striking simple copy rather than all bold large and very full ads. Honestly all this busy-ness creates distraction from the sale more than anything else.

Especially when you provide a quality product to your customers, you should be willing to look for quality design as well. One one to get clutter off the page is to drive people towards your website or social media account. You can provide full details of the sale or product in digital rather than in a printed. Of course the most important information should be visible and stand out, such as the sale name, date, and time. Percentages and amount can be useful to grab the consumer's attention. And this information should use a variety of sizes and weights to draw attention to what is most important. If everything is large it is hard for the consumer to distinguish between information.

Be careful on any graphics you use to enhance the ad. The graphics should be fitting in quality to you product and help attract the right customer. It could be photos of your product or photos of how you want your customer to feel about their 'purchase'. Or graphics that fit the style of your intended customer. But if the graphics take away from your message or make the ad too busy it is not doing you any good and it should be removed or possibly simplified. Sometimes the photo or illustration can have too many elements that draw too much attention to themselves.