Last year I had just started my Senior year of high school and I was looking for an internship because it was and still is a requirement to have an internship twice a week. Anyway, started asking around if anyone was friends with or knew any graphic designers that I could possible work with. I ended up asking my neighbor who lives across the street and she said no. To give a little more context I was looking to work with a graphic designer that year because I had started getting into graphic design my junior year and wanted to work with a professional to see if it was something I wanted to pursue in college.
After she said no she offered me the opportunity to illustrate a children’s book that she wrote back in her early college days. That’s when I had this urge to say yes even if I had never don’t character design before. In middle school I tried to get into that more cartoony/ manga style art but it never clicked for me so I pretty much started from zero knowledge of how I was even going to start.
My high school was very insistent on the Design Thinking method which is a 5 step system that helps with prototyping and managing bigger projects. So with that knowledge began doing some research and practiced character design just by copying what I saw online and be more comfortable with this style of drawing.
In the end, I Illustrated an entire children’s book from scratch using very little knowledge and experience at only 18 years. Unfortunately, it is not published but I have it saved and ready on my computer whenever my neighbor has the time to put it out into the world. This experience was amazing because I did work alongside a graphic designer who was a great help through the whole process and I am proud of myself for saying yes to an opportunity even if I didn’t know I could pull it off.
Below is the cover of the book in InDesign.
