What age were you...
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- dMullins0
About 15-16. I was working part-time in high school at a local TV station doing on-air text-based graphics for their TV-based news alert system that ran on local stations (the shitty ones that tell you when the next Christmas tree pick-up is). There was this Asian guy, Twan, working a few rooms away and always working late on something. He was doing motion graphics in something called Aladdin Systems' Razor or such, and one day I popped over to talk to him about what he was doing. He explained to me all about motion graphics, and I took an interest to it. He told me to tinker around with Photoshop first to see how interested I was in the technical side of things. He gave me a copy of Photoshop 5.0, which had shitty licensing control back in the day (use a hack file to crack the source, and then just set your computer's date back to 1915 and it worked). So I installed it on the computer at work and made a few shitty graphics and really liked how easy it was to do some "creative stuff." Then the company I was working (Cablevision) for got bought out by Adelphia Cable, and everyone got big bonus checks. I had only been there about 8 months, but I somehow got a $2000 check as well. I spent it all on a then-new Compaq tower, a personal phone line in my bedroom with six months of service, six months of AOL service, and the rest is history. Spent the next two years making shitty posters and flyers emulating tDR and getting better at Flash. Went to college, learned about design as a trade skill, and kept improving from there.
- I wish I could find Twan now on LinkedIn or something and thank him, but I never caught his last name.dMullins
- monospaced0
As soon as I could—meaning age 2 and up—I was writing on stuff. I then graduated to carving into things, and in the 2nd grade I created our class letterhead. Around this time the elementary school got a Mac lab of SE/30s and within a couple of weeks I was teaching other kids how to draw with shapes and layers in what I think was HyperCard. I was then fascinated with all the fonts and styles I had access to on computers, and through highschool and college I just kept up with graphics, testing my skills on projects and class videos. By the time I was studying to be a lawyer in college, I landed a design job on campus and fell in love with the career. I guess you could say I realized it when the Mac was invented.
- ohhhhhsnap0
I had created the webpages for the Dean of my department at a University in Westchester (NY). Loved creating websites. I left when I realized that going to school for CIS was not what I wanted to do but what I was told to do.
I took an advertising course at Lehman College, after drawing, sketching and creating HTML for years. Thought I'd merge the 2 (art and computers)... here I am, 16 years later.
- 19ohhhhhsnap
- inner city kid. we'd never heard of such a thing.ohhhhhsnap
- BaskerviIle0
I was always into drawing, painting, art etc.
When I was 10 I designed the programme/leaflet for our school play.
My mum used to make posters, tickets etc for her local choir, so we always had lettraset rubdown sheets lying around. She taught me how to letterspace as a kid, weirdly.In art classes as a teenager I got more into graphic design, especially since I was into a lot of music so album covers were a bit inspiration. Stuff like Spiritualized's Ladies & gentlemen... etc.
I also studied maths and physics at school and was all set to do Architecture until I realised that I didn't really like the idea of a 7 year degree. So I did graphic design, which I think I was more into at about 17, even though I didn't really know exactly what it was.
I still draw, paint etc, but I see graphic design as the respectable, commercial arm of the arts. Something you can tell you parents you do, which they may view as almost a proper job
- orrinward20
When I was about 5 or 6 I wanted to be a Lego designer.
When I started secondary school I started wanting to be more maths/sciencey because that's the talent I was praised for at school.
At about 15 I realised it wasn't what I wanted and I started to spend a lot of my time mucking about in Photoshop and reading about design. By A-levels I ended up dropping one of them (my school insisted on 5) so I could have more time for early freelance work. Album covers and websites for local bands. Logos for local businesses etc.
My school wasn't happy because "If you change you mind you won't have the right qualifications to change field". Those album covers and websites did pay for most of my degree in advance...
- 23kon0
Pretty much from when I could scribble.
My dad is a graphic designer and was creative director for a big firm him and friends started a few years after art college when i popped out.
Used to spend school holidays hanging out in the studio and helping photographer take shots for ads and packaging, used to go on tv advert shoots, in studios for voiceovers and sit with my dad in the evenings when he was working into the night at the dining room table getting stuff finished for a deadline.
- antimotion0
I believe graphic design is just another form of art. From childhood, I was always intrigued by the artistic visual presence of things. My parents took me to many films and encouraged creativity in subtle but nourishing ways. They weren't artists themselves and I think they couldn't understand fully an artist's way of thinking to the full extent, but non the less, allowed creative freedom and expression.
Later in life, getting into action figures and comics lead to information design - how one communicates with imagery and text to convey a message.
In the very early 90's I was heavily into techno - I loved the parties / clubs - but at the same time, I was collecting Rave flyers. They blew my fuckin mind (along with other things)... I came to the realization that these little pieces of paper were a powerful key that brought hundreds, sometimes thousands of people together utilizing visual communication.
I think that was the true point of clarification - but in the end, I still try to treat each individual project as a piece of art, no matter the current title of medium outlet.
- you were very lucky antimotion to have the encouragement of your folks. that last sentence there... brilliant.ohhhhhsnap
- Josev0
11th grade. I wanted to be an architect and won several awards for my work as a high schooler (at state levels). At an award ceremony dinner the local AIA chapter head told me that it wasn't the best profession to go into at the moment. I asked my HS art teacher what she thought and she said "you should be a graphic designer". I didnt even know what a graphic designer was but decided that was my future. Stupid bitch.
- Peter0
still unsure
- BrokenHD0
I was 18, just outta high school and at the tail end of a summer internship at USC School of Engineering, gettin psychedelic with photoshop and alien skin. #memories
- see_thru0
13.5 - 14...
I was really into cutaway drawings etc...I had double period art at school and the teacher introduced me to information graphics. I then got into symbol / icon design...I started looking for and collecting classic book covers....then there was the whole Face thing...
I was hooked...
....he was also one of the few people who knew of and heartily encouraged my graffiti artist alter ego.
....sorry , feeling very nostalgic...
- tOki0
16.
I had all the typical signs as a child - an unexplained interest in drawing characters, a strong sense of colour and so forth. As I got older my creativity spread into all the expected areas - music, photography, writing etc. In junior high I found a strong affinity with pop art & commercial imagery, so when others were making pots I enjoyed tracing or recreating logos..
It was when I started playing around with the various bits of software though that I realised it was something I really enjoyed doing. So by the time I finished high school at 18, I was working for clients, and have been going ever since.
- monNom0
Around 10 or so I got big into drawing logos and skate-art. I'd get like a Thrasher mag, and just copy the designs/illustration I saw in there. At that time, I didn't really perceive that a designer was on the other end making those. I always though a 'graphic designer' was somebody who did lame DTP stuff for newspapers and bake-sale flyers. It didn't seem creative to me at all.
Later, after school and pursuing classical animation (and realizing how lame and uncreative that can be), I sort of stumbled into web work and got hooked.
- set0
I wanted to design cartoon characters from very young. By about 13 or 14 I knew I wanted to be a designer when I left school. I was freelancing at 16.
- marychain0
If I had it all over to do again....I'm thinking airline pilot
Travel..stewardesses...boozing it up in strange airport lounges
- kona0
really young, although, i don't think i fully realized what it meant until i was much older. one of my first memories was of my parents painting the walls of my room white, giving me a bunch of paint saying "go nuts". i'd paint whatever for about a year then they'd take photos and paint it white again for me to start over.
when i was 12 i began designing furniture for my uncles wood shop. in middle school i designed our schools logo after i won some b.s. "art" contest 3 years in a row. i was hired by our school and just about every small shop in our town to design/paint their logo onto something or another.
in high school all i wanted to be was a comic book artist. in college i went to the wrong orientation class and was turned on by "new media" . 15 years later i have a shit portfolio and am a cd. so, that's about right.
when i go back to my hometown (rarely btw) i'll sometimes run into a friends parent's that i went to school with. they'll say "please tell me you're still doing your art..." and i'll smile and say yes and they seem so happy that i'm still doing it.
- don't know why i typed all of that. i'm extra bored today on a call with a bunch of i.t. nerds.kona
- cannonball19780
I never picked design as what I want to do. I picked it as the best out of all the options available to me.
- autoflavour0
im a designer?
