We All Started Designing Somewhere, What’s Your Story?
Posted on January 15th, 2010 in Design
Today I started a little post series on my personal blog called “Flashback Friday“. While reminiscing of the old times I had with friends and family I immediately was driven to think about how I got started in the design world.
What sparked the interest? What made me decide, hmm I think I want to design for a living? I’ve seen some interesting posts around the web about designer’s first projects. Do you remember how and why you got into design?
Here’s where I started
I was able to scavenge through a bunch of old boxes and dig up some of the earliest designs I have on record. They aren’t digital since I didn’t use photoshop until 2002, but these are from a notebook I had in 8th grade (1999). I was determined to start my own clothing line so I would spend all day (in class) doodling fictitious logos & names.
I thought they were pretty funny but pretty cool to still have. As you can tell I didn’t get too good of grades in high school since it appears most of my time was spent doodling.
So what about you
So I ask you, what were some of your first designs? What spakred in interest in design for you? I would love to hear your stories. Maybe you’ve already made a post on this subject. Feel free to share your link!
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9 Responses to
We All Started Designing Somewhere, What’s Your Story?
Aaron Irizarry
January 18th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Yeah so I was in a brutal fast action thrash metal band, and we needed design stuff… so i went got a computer, hacked some programs, and started messing around… once that actually worked a bit, I started designing all of our shirts, flyers, and then our website, and the record label’s website.
Then it hit me… I can do this for like a job or something when we aren’t melting faces… So I dove in… did some schooling (kind of a waste) and some how ended up right here, right now… Not sure if I have any of those old band flyers or shirts…
I have learned a lot…. and have a lot to learn.
~ Aaron I
Vin Thomas
January 18th, 2010 at 3:56 pm
It’s funny how many of started out by trying to design something for our bands…
I started messing around with WYSIWYG editors about 7 years ago. I was trying to build a site for my music. I went through about 15 site revisions in a year. Upgrading each time I learned more about design and coding.
When I initially got Photoshop I was frustrated because I couldn’t figure out how to draw a line. I was using the pen tool and it kept throwing these strange angles all over the place.
I eventually took some online courses through lynda.com. It was a good starting point. Then I experimented a ton.
Speaking of music…want a free CD? http://vinthomas.com/music
Kyle Richardson
January 18th, 2010 at 4:03 pm
Nice post! It’s fun to look back and reflect on how far you have come. I always had an interest in drawing, usually cartoons and caricatures. It wasn’t until late high school that I thought about mixing my passion for drawing with the technical abilities of a computer. I began to draw and color using Photoshop. I have found that my drawing skill comes in handy when designing website, because everything in its purest form starts as a line.
-Kyle
Amara Poolswasdi
January 18th, 2010 at 4:04 pm
I got my design head start at the age of 11 in middle school. My teacher nominated me for a yearbook staff position and they took me in! From there I started mimicking my favorite magazines (Esquire, Westways) and I took up photography as a hobby. When I was 13 I started dabbling in HTML & CSS…the rest is history!!
Amara Poolswasdi
Studio Principal, Unicorn Press
amara@unicornpress.net
http://www.unicornpress.net
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are small matters compared to what lies within us.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Casey Hald
January 18th, 2010 at 4:27 pm
It really started when I was a kid. My Dad used to collect old Thor comic books, and I naturally wanted to do comics for a living. Throughout High School I barely got by because I wouldn’t much attention to the class, but would rather draw and sketch whatever was in my head at the time.
After barely graduating school, a buddy of mine got me interested in doing web design work. I went to a junior college studying fine art and advanced drawing, and found out I make more money doing logos and websites for different companies. And now that is the majority of the work I do.
I still am a comic book and concept art nerd, but focus more on web work.
Casey Hald
http://www.sunfalldesigns.com
sunfalldesigns@gmail.com
David Y
January 18th, 2010 at 8:20 pm
I started somewhere around middle school, my passion for design actually started in the tech field, pulling apart computers and fixing them by the time I was out of middle school I was into design hard. Took every class I could at the time for design and experimented on my own.
While in High school things really began to take off and while I was active on various forums I would participate in what they called at that time “gfx or sig design contests”, from this various people would contact me to design things for them but the big shocker was a sewing shop over in France contacted me to do a logo for them and from there I realized that this is what I enjoy doing the most.
Still in High school I took a class in web development and literally spent hours pulling apart free templates and learning the code, and then trying out my hand at building my own.
Over time I’ve learned a lot, met quite a few mentors and did my best to help out as much as I was helped when I first started.
Cre8ive Commando
February 17th, 2010 at 3:39 pm
I think I started out in primary school doing school projects and assignments. I’d get the research and writing out of the way quickly so I could concentrate on blowing the teacher away with the design and graphics. It seemed to work most of the time, I don’t even think they read the assignment. Those were the good old days :-)
Jeremy Davis
February 25th, 2010 at 11:15 am
It was my senior year of college and we(all computer science majors) had been tasked with developing a web application for our final project. We all knew how to do the back-end work, but no one knew how to design. So since I was bored with back-end programming anyways, I decided that I was going to do all the front-end design/development.
Now pretty much all I do is front-end stuff and I’m loving it.
Rondell Paul
March 8th, 2010 at 8:08 am
I started back in high school. Me and a classmate designed a website for our school, not knowing ANYTHING about Photoshop or Dreamweaver, we just dove right in! I never used a Mac before, but the school had a G4 in the art room and that’s where it all began.