“be yourself, everybody else is already taken.”
I graduated from Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD) with a BFA in Graphic Design. I have always been drawn towards the arts and design ever since I was little.
Growing up, I moved around a lot due to my father being in the military. Every couple of years my family and I would pack up our belongings and we would move across the country. Since we moved around a lot, my mother introduced me to scrapbooking. We would collect movie tickets, polaroid pictures, national park maps, anything we could find from our cross county trips or places we lived at. My mom and I would decorate these pages with stickers, colorful construction papers, and any other items we could glue to the page. This is where my love for design started.
When I was in high school, I honestly did not know what I was going to do for college. Every week I was going to karate class, teaching karate classes at a local Boys & Girls Club, and I was coming up on my tenth year of playing the viola. At school, I was taking AP Art and AP English classes. Did I want to be an athlete? A teacher? A musician? An artist? I didn’t know. I ended up going to a local college, Valdosta State University (VSU), with an Undecided Major. A year in, I knew I wanted to become an art major. I started loading up my schedule with studio and art history classes. When I took my first Graphic Design class (which was actually called Digital Art 101), I knew that THIS is what I wanted to do! I remember creating my first logos, photoshopped images, and coded a VERY simple website for a local restaurant. I remember loving every second of this class. But this was the only class they had for Graphic Design…and I wanted to continue expanding my knowledge.
After doing some research and applying, I was accepted to SCAD Atlanta for Graphic Design. The three years I was there was like a designing marathon. The professors there pushed us to think outside of the box, then outside of THAT box! I’m thankful for my professors for pushing my fellow students and I, because they made us the designers that we are today.
SCAD was full of challenges, but I met a lot of great friends while I was there. During school, we would be giving each other feedback during the long nights to the early hours of the morning. Today, we still give each other feedback on freelance works, item designs for their shops, or their wedding invites!
Graphic Design will always hold a special place in my heart but I have many other loves in my life! I love watching animated series/movies, reading novels, manga, and online web comics. I love playing co-op video games with my dad and cooking with my mom. In the past couple of years, I have discovered a new found love for cosplaying and using skills I learned from my time at SCAD towards this new hobby.