Were in college. Many people still don’t know what they want to do with their lives, and I’m here with the same idea for the past 8 years. This is how it all started:
When I was little, people would ask what I wanted to be when I grew up and I would say, “I want to be an inventor!” I have always been creative and innovative! I would make concactions to roll tissues down from my bunk bed when I was sick and a multitude of other efficient devices. Were talking between the ages of 5-10 years old! I loved making things.
By age 12… don’t judge me… or do actually… I don’t care. Anyways, in 6th grade is when I made a myspace, and I began coding my own profile! I’d spend hours and hours and all night redesigning my profile, learning html code on my own, and making the best profile out of all my friends. I’d even offer to code my friends profiles during periods where I was satisfied with my own.
Middle school: I was awarded as one of the top students in my computer classes, and I helped with the graphics in our yearbook. This is also when I began to design my own album artwork for bands that I imported onto my iPod from CD’s my friends would burn for me. Again, I’d spend hours designing the album artwork just so I could have it on my iPod. This wasn’t for praise, it was just a pure joy (which btw I was only using paint at this point).
High school: This is where my graphic design sky rocketed! I designed t-shirts for practically everything. Was in yearbook again, also focusing on photography as well. Helped with Day Without Hate graphics. Got involved with an International, Student Lead service organization where I served creatively club level for one year and on the district board for two years. I first transformed their online presence with web design, then moved to the executive board as the head of public relations committee and did print materials, changed the newspaper to a full color magazine, other marketing, at least 5 t-shirts for big events, convention handbooks, pins, and everything else. This opportunity not only gave me a way to be a servant leader using graphic design, but it allowed me to overcome my shyness and fear of public speaking. I had to get elected to serve my position at the biggest district event of the year, and from there went on to teach workshops to kiwanians about social media and newsletters and other design/marketing things. Being in this organization (Key Club) is what allowed me to gain the confidence to preform slam poetry at my high school graduation. I also held my own art show and got one of my pieces into a gallery downtown right before graduation which I think is worth mentioning.
Transitioning: I was eager to get involved with campaign for kindness and helped with designs related to this cause of ending bullying. I love doing graphic design for things I’m passionate about and my reach is only going further. Another thing I did was get an internship with Boomerang Marketing while still a senior in High School. I learned so much. I feel as though I have knowledge above many other college students and even graduates when it comes to the production process of design and the real world. For that I am very grateful and I think about the things I learned there all the time. Something I should mention here is that I took all the graphic design classes offered at my school to properly learn the adobe programs, which has helped tremendously when considering efficiency.
College: Already vastly ahead of my peers, I was very frustrated at CSU with the lack of challenge. The program is lame. They have only 5 specific graphic design classes and the rest of the classes in your degree are general art classes. Were talking 2 typography classed, 2 illustration classes, and one intro to GD class. WOW. How do they expect students to be prepared for the real world with no legit graphic design experience? One or two classes are not enough to gain good portfolio work. I have had several volunteer and internship experiences as a college freshman to know that and build my portfolio already. This year, I started off doing more district level serving in the same position of the organization I was last year, only for the college level. I quit shortly after to focus on my job and for a few other reasons. My job was another graphic design position at CSU. I can tell you I have gained so much professional development and portfolio pieces, friendship, and more. This job was my saving grace at CSU. It was the only thing keeping me sane as I couldn’t do ANY graphic design in the program here.
I’m just too impatient to wait 2-3 years into college to actually do graphic design. It’s a waste. It’s a complete waste. Everyone says the university route is better because you get a “full rounded” education… but that’s not necessarily true. If you’re an art major at a university you take painting, sculpture, drawing…. all these things that are irrelevant to your future profession if you are in fact serious about graphic design. You don’t need to sculpt… You won’t need science… Granted, there are some life skills and random knowledge you will gain that I’m sure no one will regret learning, but overall I believe you are better off getting an in-depth experience in your actual professional field. And it’s not like you don’t get any random knowledge at an art school. You still take the humanities and all of that. You just start exercising your skills a LOT sooner. Rather than waiting 3 years to take on the surface classes like typography, which will be just a minor thing any designer will use in most jobs, you take specific courses for package design, prototyping, layout, etc… things people don’t even think about… you learn in depth at an Art School.
I’m very excited to be going to RMCAD in just a few weeks, and the fact my schedule is as awesome as it is while I’m still a freshman? Heck yes. I’m already loving life. P.S. I got so excited I designed my own schedule, the one they gave me was a lot of boring text believe it or not. They also have it set up to where I will only be in 3 classes at a time; two on campus and one online, with their 8-week and 16-week courses.
There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that this is what I want to invest my career energy into: Graphic Design to influence my society in a significantly sizable and positive way. I’m an artist, and I’ve always been one as you now know. This is my passion. This is not just the easy way out for me. This is my future, and I have and will use it to change the world.
Miranda's Manual 