Month: October 2022

By Justin Bernardy

For this week’s blog post, we have been tasked with speaking about a personal life experience that fits the theme of just saying ‘yes’. A time where we dove head first into a new experience, despite our apparent readiness to do so. I was glad to hear that this was our topic, as it hits quite close to home to me. I left everything I knew as recently as June to come here and start over, chasing my dreams as an artist and potential graphic designer.

This May, I officially separated from the Air Force, where I was stationed in Florida and all of my friends for the last 5 years live. I was not happy in the military; I was not passionate about my career or my future. Sure, I loved the job security, I loved the friends I made, and I felt I had a purpose. However, I was not doing what I love, and I didn’t feel fulfilled. After several long talks with one of my closest friends, who continuously encouraged me to do what would make me HAPPY, and not just what felt safe, I landed on the decision to leave the military and start school.

With only five months left in my enlistment, I had to decide WHERE I wanted to be, and what school I would go to, and if I couldn’t, then I would have to re-enlist. I had virtually no idea of what Washington was like, except for a three day visit to Seattle the previous year, however, that was enough for me to know it was where I wanted to be. I spent every day researching to find the right school, a job, and a place to live. Five months probably sounds like a lot of time to accomplish all of that, but it was probably one of the greatest challenges of my life considering I was working full time across the country. I started applying for jobs and apartments left and right and honestly it felt like I wouldn’t make it, but somehow I did. Next was the hardest part, which was finding a school and getting accepted. Eventually I came across the Seattle Central program, and multiple sources suggested it was an acclaimed program. I applied, and with luck, I was accepted. I was terrified to make this move, and frankly I’m still afraid. However, I haven’t looked back and I’ve been happier and more optimistic about my future than ever.

By Justin Bernardy

Before starting the graphic design program at Seattle Central, I had no real idea of what I would like to do after all was said and done. I had no real idea of what the workflow would be like, what my day-to-day would consist of, or the skills I might need. I only knew that I wasn’t half bad as an artist, and that I would like to do something with my creativity. Frankly, I am still not entirely certain of what I want to do, but it gets a little less foggy each day.(except for the actual weather, which in stark contrast, gets FOGGIER by the day). I am actually quite surprised by the truth of it all, as I am finding things such as coding to be most enjoyable and rewarding, which leads into my next point.

Last Friday, we had the opportunity to speak with and listen to Joe Hallock, who is the principal design director at Microsoft. He explained different career paths related to design, and placed them on a spectrum of audience in relation to information density. I find that virtually all of my interests fall between broad audience/high information density and specific audience/high information density. Career fields such as game designer, web developer, UI/UX designer and medical illustrator all appeal to me and fall into those categories. I think there are several positives, a few negatives, and quite a lot of subjective grey areas specific to this end of the spectrum. Firstly, the workload is generally high, and the work itself is challenging. Some, might find the challenge appealing, myself included. There is a huge element of creative problem solving inherent with most design fields, which is also enjoyable and rewarding. On that same coin, however, these things are only enjoyable when everything is flowing properly. Typically, deadlines are involved, and when you have to fight tooth and nail to make a deadline, it can certainly be disheartening, and exhausting. All of this aside, I can say that the designers I have met seem fulfilled in their work, despite the challenges presented by it, and that motivates me to keep pushing forward.

By Justin Bernardy

Our most recent guest speaker, Paolo Tossolini, took a very interesting creative approach to his work. The concepts of “mashups” and “prototyping” in particular were mentioned quite often. In Tossolini’s words, ‘prototyping’ is the act of experimenting with new technology and tools to develop new solutions. A facet of prototyping is the ‘mash-up’., which includes factors such as relevance and timely application. These two concepts together inspired my project.

We were tasked with creating a literal mashup using 3 mediums to describe our current experience in our respective programs. After much thought, I decided to do a piece which effectively illustrated ‘prototyping’ as well. The idea of this piece is to illustrate that we, the students, are essentially prototypes of who we will become in time. To convey that, I started with a charcoal drawing of my hand, and then moved to digital, and finally an actual photo. Once finished, I combined all three to form one hand. The idea is that the charcoal represents us in our least developed stage, the digital medium adds a bit more, representing our intermediate phase, and the photo of the actual hand is representative of the final product.