How I Decided to Become a Designer
Today I wanted to get a little bit personal with you. Many of you may not know my story of becoming a designer, but I thought it would be fun to share how I got here! It was a long and windy road, so strap yourself in for the ride. We’re going to go way back and start the journey in childhood.
My Creative Journey
I did not grow up thinking I was creative. I did try a bunch of creative things, as any child does, but I sucked at them. Drawing, painting, crafts and the like. I really wasn’t good at them. At the time I had such a narrow view of creativity and I thought that because I was bad at these things it meant I wasn’t a creative person.
Creativity was also not something that was valued in my family. My mom had tried her best to push me into creative paths by playing the piano and teaching me how to cook, but once she passed those paths were no longer nurtured. My dad did not value creativity or see how it could help me in becoming a successful adult. Because of this, I spent most of my life thinking I had no creative talent.
Falling in Love with the Internet
My journey with the internet started in middle school, at about 12 years old. I had just moved across the country from Virginia to California and I was interested in using the internet as a way to stay in touch with my friends back east. My dad wasn’t opposed to this and let me use our family computer to my heart's content. That’s how I discovered AIM, Xanga, Neopets and eventually MySpace.
MySpace Introduced Me to Design
It was through MySpace that I first became acquainted with HTML and CSS. I loved it so so much. I was 100% that kid that changed their profile layout constantly. I had so much fun playing around with code. I really got a kick out of producing new layouts for my profile and creating unique designs all with a little bit of coding knowledge. It seemed like magic, like I was creating something out of nothing. It was one of the first times in my life (other than playing the piano) where I felt creative. It was the first time I got in touch with that part of myself and I relished it.
Given that I was only 12 years old, I had no idea that this was something that I could eventually turn into a career. So much so that when MySpace officially died when I was in high school, I completely forgot about code. I honestly thought at the time that it was something specifically tied to MySpace. I didn’t think there was anything substantial I could do with it over time. It was just a fun hobby I had developed as a result of being on the internet at that time that had suddenly become obsolete...or so I thought.
A Huge Detour
Growing up, I was a very tightly wound student. I was focused on getting straight As and achieving something with my life. I didn’t know what I would achieve, but I was determined to achieve it. Does that not make sense to you? Me either. But it did make sense to me as a teenager.
I was focused on success for a very specific reason: I wanted to create a better life for myself. This was due to my mom’s suicide which occurred when I was 10. It was at that moment that I realized that life isn’t fair. You don’t get to live a good life just because in this world. It can be a cruel and unfair place. But I wasn’t going to let the reality of that stop me. So, with that said, I was determined to succeed, however on my own terms.
My College Experience
When I was a senior in high school, I was so far removed from myself that I honestly had no clue what I wanted to do with my life. Pick a college let alone a major? I was paralyzed with choice and indecision.
Ultimately I decided to become a Human Biology major and get a Bachelor of Science at UCSD. Why? Simply because I had some good biology teachers in high school. I’m not knocking them at all, they really were fantastic instructors. That being said, if I had thought a little bit more about what I wanted, cared about, and was good at, and less about what others wanted from me, I probably wouldn’t have majored in Biology. But, I digress, I did. I thought I was going to become a research scientist and change the world through scientific discoveries.
That quickly changed once I got an internship at a biology lab. This was right when I graduated high school, the summer before I started college. It was an amazing opportunity and I was super excited about it. But once I started, that quickly changed. Working in a lab was dull, boring, and very isolating. The work itself was uninspiring to me. It was then that I realized that I was pursuing a career path that wasn’t right for me.
Did I change majors though? No.
A Note to My Younger Self: If I could go back in time and tell myself anything, it would be to change my major in college. To this day, I still cannot figure out why I forced myself to pursue a degree that I had no interest in pursuing as a career. Instead of allowing myself the space to shift my goals and focus in college, I tried to mold myself to the major I had chosen. I felt a sense of prestige at the time pursuing a degree that was “hard.” Well, my wallet is still mad at me for that choice. I so wish I had tried other majors instead and hadn’t been so hard on myself. Who knows, maybe I would have ended up in a totally different place today!
The Post-Graduation Blues
As you can probably imagine, I was pretty lost when I graduated from college. At first, I thought maybe I would go to grad school and become a holistic nutritionist. That idea died when I realized how much it cost and that I would have to retake Organic Chemistry. Then I thought maybe I could find a job in a research lab until I figured it out. Nope, all the jobs I was seeing required a masters degree or higher. I ended up finding a job at a high school as a science intern, but it wasn’t something that I could see myself doing long-term. I was lost, I was stuck and I had no idea what to do.
Discovering Myself for the First Time
It was during this slump that I first discovered the practice of yoga. I was seeing some friends post about it on social media and I was intrigued. I found a studio in my area that was doing a 10 classes for $10 deal, and the rest is history. My life was forever changed after my first class.
The practice of yoga opened me up to a part of myself that I had never known existed. It opened me up to myself. I spent so many years after my mom died hiding inside myself. I did this for sheer survival, and yoga opened me up and made this clear to me. I was forever changed and I knew I couldn’t go back.
It was about 6 months from the moment I started practicing yoga that my life completely changed. In that time I got out of a toxic relationship that I had been stuck in for years, I did a yoga teacher training to deepen this practice that had opened me up to the joy in life, and I quit my job at the high school to start working at my local yoga studio. Talk about shifts and changes!
Working for a Small Business
Working at my local yoga studio was an illuminating experience for me. It opened me up to the world of small business and showed me what small businesses really need to make it on a day-to-day basis. My tasks at the studio started off very small, but within a month of being there ramped up significantly. Remember when I mentioned that I was an ambitious straight-A student? My passion to succeed came out when I got this job because I was so freaking excited to be on their team.
Within a few months, I went from working at the front desk to managing the studio’s social media presence. This was around 2015 when people were just starting to realize that having a Facebook and Instagram profile was beneficial for your business. I also started creating flyers for the studio and helping with random design tasks like creating workbooks for the studio’s teacher training programs. (Side note: I was making these all in Canva back then and OMG, I cringe at this now. 😂) Eventually, I was so good at doing these digital tasks that my manager thought to have me start updating the studio’s website. That’s when I found out what web design was and that I wanted to be a web designer.
Making my Dreams a Reality
Prior to working at my yoga studio, I had no idea that people actually designed websites for small businesses. I didn’t realize that people used HTML and CSS, just like I had back when I used MySpace, to create real pages on the internet. This realization blew my mind, and I knew I had to pursue it as a career. Deep inside me I knew I would be good at this, and I knew it was the right path for me because I was really passionate about it.
Going Back To School
Ultimately, I decided I needed to go back to school to learn design foundations so that I could become a web designer. Although I could google my way through HTML and CSS, I knew I lacked the foundations to do it for paying clients. I also wanted to learn how to use design software like Photoshop, so that’s what I did. I found a program at my local community college and got a certificate in Web Development and Design in 2017.
What about Branding though?
Branding is one of those things that found me by accident. It was all because of web design that I became a brand designer. Have you ever tried to make a website without a color palette in place, without a logo, and without a font system to work with? Well, I did and I have and it was the worst.
My first few website projects were all disasters because there was no branding in place prior to us working together. It led to so much indecision on the part of the client and so much work for me because of that indecision. It was a nightmare. So for that reason, and after a bit of googling, I discovered what brand design was and started to learn about it and charge for that as a part of my services.
Conclusion
The reason I wanted to share my story today was to showcase that life is messy. It’s not always straightforward and it’s definitely not always fair. I could have saved myself so much trouble if I had just been less hard on myself in college and found design there. But, no, my trauma had another plan for me. I had to learn in my own messy way. I don’t regret any of it, but I do think things could have been way easier for me if I had just given myself some grace. I do that now, and hope that by sharing my story you do as well.
READY TO TAKE YOUR BRAND OR WEBSITE TO THE NEXT LEVEL? REACH OUT SO WE CAN CONSULT ON YOUR PROJECT TODAY.
Take care and talk soon,
Alex
