Why am I a Designer?
Early Life
I have always had the itch to draw and think of making the world a better place. As a kid, I tried to design cars, buildings, and anything in between that was carbon neutral without really understanding climate change or other environmental problems. It was a feeling of wanting to make the world a better place.
As I got into high school, I knew I wanted to do something with design, but I didn’t know if it was an architecture route or something else. My first thought was a car designer, then an architect, and game designer before getting accepted into the visual arts school at Maryville University.
Picking the Right Path
I was conflicted for many semesters, which involved encounters with students of many different levels of skill and determination. I thought that I was not the best student in the field by a long shot, but I knew that it was the right place for me. In school, when such a variety of talents surrounds you, it gets challenging.
Many semesters came where I had to keep asking myself if this were the place I would be successful and produce professional-level work eventually. Many students encounter this, but none more so than fine arts. We get judged on our skills rather than our ability to get a degree. At the end of my 2nd year, I switched my path to what I felt would be better.
I became an interactive designer similar to a game designer. Still, it changed my course work to include more interactive utility in web development and UI/UX design rather than game theory and animation.
Turning Dreams into Reality
Now that graduation is coming up quickly, I have to choose what career to start. I am leaning into a few areas with UX/UI design, accessibility design, and type design, all within my skill set.
I would love to work for a medium to the big company at least to start because, realistically, it will give me an insight into how companies function at a corporate level and how the division of labor gets orchestrated at a large scale. Overall, as long as I can make a product that helps create a strong positive impact in the world, I will feel accomplished.
