Full Circle Moment
The importance of graphic design mentors
Hey friends
Hope you are living well and enjoying this beautiful springtime.
Got a DM from a designer I’ve looked up to for a while and it got me thinking a lot about inspiration and my career progression, so less talk about it.
The circle of inspiration
Above is the message and I’m sure he wouldn’t mind me sharing, it’s from none other than Dewey Saunders.
If you aren’t familiar, Dewey is most known for his amazing collage work and got down on album art for artists like Anderson Paak, turnstile, future, and more.
He was one of my biggest inspirations during my time in college and helped spark my interest in a more analog design world.
That spark helped me fall in love with hand-cut collages, texture in my design work, and overall bringing a more human or organic-like quality to my design practice approach.
Dewey has always been a great advocate for the design community and actually came over to my apartment in Hollywood to record a podcast when I was just starting out in my content creation journey.
Since then we both have continued to grow our artistic and design practices Individually. With that the last year or so I’ve noticed him showing love on my artwork more and more.
It feels great to get love and recognition for the work you produce, but we all know it hits even harder when it’s from someone you think is mad talented or has good taste.
To go from emulating a collage style that Dewey has grown famous for (see my collage from 2018 below)
To getting a message like this is amazing and it is one of the rare times I get to actually sit back
Reflect
And feel proud of myself.
It shows that if you keep at something the progression not only shows in your work but in real time to the people around you.
Hearing that Dewey learns new things from me or can get inspired from my work, is an amazing full-circle experience considering all I gained from his art.
I think it’s so important to have design heroes and mentors to look up to in the world of graphic design.
Not only will you be constantly inspired but you can see frameworks for how to succeed in the oftentimes unclear and confusing world of art.
And hey
Maybe just maybe
Your mentors will turn into your colleagues and friends one day like they have for me.
I hope I can inspire some of y’all in the way Dewey and many other talented designers have for me.
Much love, Jesse.
Cool stuff to check out
Fav Design of the week below
Weekly Wrap Up
I designed a hardcore album for every letter of the alphabet
Cover art concepts from the archive
Thanks for reading!
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