3 major questions in my graphic design career

Hey y’all 

There have been so many ups and downs in my design career and its sometimes hard to even track how this stuff all happened.

When I try to think back on moments or lessons ive learned as a graphic designer I usually draw a blank

What helps though is when y’all ask me questions so here it goes.

1. When did you know you wanted to become a graphic designer? 

For me, the main passion for graphic design and digital art was sparked during a class I had in high school called Visual Communication.

Shoutout to the teacher Mr. Murray for showing me what this silly little thing called “graphic design” even was and giving me something to do that actually interested me in highschool.

In that class, i learned a little about a lot.

I learned some Photoshop, how to kinda use adobe illsutrator and even got an intro into screenprinting and making clothes.

That class inspired me to even start my own clothing brand in high school called Depravity. The designs weren’t really that cool looking back on it and hella angsty but hey it was pretty fun being one of the only kids who started a clothing brand in your town.

After high school, I knew this was something I wanted to keep pursuing so I applied as that major when I went to college at CSU Chico.

Unfortunately, i let the pressures of capitalism get the best of me and a voice kept ringing in my head “What if you don’t make enough money doing this?”

So when I first got to school i actually switched my major to business.

that dind’t last long though…

before I even took my first class I said “fuck that”, and switched back to graphic design, and committed to that career even if it made less money.

These days I learned that you can make a lucrative career out of something you love and you don’t have to compromise just for more money.

If you do what you love the money will follow

When I was thinking back on my life i realized though that my passion for design and creating actually started even earlier than high school.

I was never that super artistic kid who you would catch drawing in class or anything like that, however, I did always have a passion for creating and customizing things.

Even when I look back to myself as a kid playing WWE and sports video games on my PlayStation, I would spend more time creating custom characters, uniforms, logos, entrance music, etc. than playing the actual game.

My friends would be like “Hurry up bro we want to play”

but even my young mind knew the presentation and design of things was not only important but a fun part of the process.

2. What is your proudest moment as a designer?

I was having a really hard time narrowing it down to just one so I’ll give you a few.

For starters, a recent accomplishment that was super rewarding and fun was this “Hardcore Alphabet” redesign series that I did.

I redesigned some of my favorite hardcore albums for each letter of the alphabet.

It wasnt real client work or anything but it did help me practice some of my design/layout skills, deepen my love for hardcore music, and connect with some awesome designers, artists, and people in bands online.

The second one is when I got a billboard put up in Los Angeles with my design on it.

I always dreamed of getting to create things and have the world see them like that.

While working at this company Art of Sport I had the opportunity to design a billboard that would go up in Hollywood.

It wasnt the most insane design whatsoever but it was such a cool feeling to be driving around with my partner Erika in Hollywood one day and stumble upon that billboard I designed.

The last one is getting hired as a freelancer by the agency I used to work at for about 5x the pay.

I used to work at this agency in LA that made movie posters and while I was there I was a junior designer making only like $17/hr and working my ass off.

I eventually quit that job and one day about a year down the road the company wanted to bring me onto a project as a freelancer.

I quoted them about what I would make in 3 weeks while working there for only a couple days of work as a freelancer.

That was a great full-circle moment and gave me a lot of confidence when first starting out in my freelance journey.

3. One thing you wish you knew earlier?

This applies to both life and design.

Not everything is going to like you or like what you do.

But guess what… that’s perfectly fine.

Be yourself and don’t worry about what the people who don’t fuck with you think because quite honestly no matter what you do they probably have their minds made up.

The same reason people in your life love you or love your work is the same reason people are going to dislike you.

It’s out of your control and at the end of the day all you can do is keep being YOU

This is not an excuse to not grow or become a better person as you age, but don’t let the opinions of others ever change the best parts of you for the worse.

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I hope some of that resonated with you!
In honor of hitting 100k subscribers on YouTube, I did a big Q&A, so if you want to see some more questions answered then check out my latest video!

Much love and talk soon ✌️

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Cool stuff to check out

• dope portfolio

• cool permission bot Struthless made

• Starting a new IG page for my Design Studio

• cool stuff from Dan Barkle

• been having this album on repeat

• Fav Design of the week below

  

  Insane work by Jean Pierre and Umru

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Life as a graphic designer & content creator (Q&A

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