In many ways, I never found design, rather it found me. Of course, growing up I had no idea design even existed! Eventually I discovered what laid at the intersection of my interests had a name, and it was interactive design.

The Childhood Artist

I was always considered one of the “class artists,” (AKA - “the one volunteered to create the art during group projects.”) I’m thankful for those who complimented my (poor) art then because they drove me to pursue it further.

However, I’ve never been much of a fine artist, and looking back with hindsight, I see traces that led me specifically towards a career in the realm of graphic design.

For example, while sitting in church I’d often illustrate sermons in my notes. I could have drawn anything, but I really enjoyed the challenge of communicating a given message through visuals.

Additionally, when writing papers for school, I probably spent about as much time picking the right font, adding dropcaps, and colorful borders as I did actually writing the paper. 12pt Times New Roman was just too boring for me!

Building My First Websites

I remember two distinct instances of creating websites early on.

• Creating a website for a neighborhood newspaper my friends and I concoted. (Of course we only published one edition before running out of news!)

• Creating a place to share the games I was programming in BASIC

Both were made with free website builder tools and cheesy templates, but the thrill of launching something into the world that anybody could experience was incredible.

Learning to hand-code in Notepad

In fifth grade I had the chance to take an elective class that taught the basics of HTML. After that class I became very interested in learning how to code websites.

I spent hours reading tutorials online and trying to make my own stuff. It was extremely cringy in the beginning (custom animated cursors, scrolling text, the whole nine-yards!) but it was mine, and over time I learned more and more and began to improve.

Learning Design

I enjoyed the technical aspect of creating websites, but I also wanted them to look great, and I knew they weren’t hitting the mark. That’s when I decided to dive headfirst into learning design.

I devoured resources on visual fundamentals, learned why things looked good or bad, and eventually learned that design was far more than just the visual aspect, but included strategy and the experience.

From there I was hooked. I learned more and more about what it means to work in the web design industry as an interactive designer and branched out to learn about traditional graphic design as well. This led me to majoring in Visual Communication Design in college to study how to create compelling designs for both print and digital environments more in-depth.

Onward!

Ultimately I feel like design is simply the perfect discipline for me as it is both creative and logical. Interactive design especially fits me because it combines strategy (in the form of research, analytics, and UX), aesthetics (in the form of UI design), and technical craft (in the form of front-end development). There’s simply nothing better that I could imagine myself doing!