Name: Connor Bacon

Graduation Year: 2017

Job Title:Digital Media Manager

Organization: Vanderbilt University

Describe your design journey: I graduated with a degree in design, but took a hard pivot towards the world of photography and videography. Mainly focused around these disciplines, I learned some front end web design and webflow development that I carry with me into freelance gigs in the present day.

After about 5 years of freelance and working alongside a local advertising agency, I decided to branch out into the world of higher education here in Nashville, TN, heading up their video production for the Office of Digital Education.

What are some of the responsibilities of your current position? I am responsible for managing a production team centered around creating digital content for Vanderbilt’s online education directive. My responsibilities span from pre-production to production to post production and everything in between.

What is your favorite part about your position? My favorite part about my current position is the flexibility it allows for and the leadership doors that have opened for me. I am able to work closely with my team to produce high quality video productions and marketing materials.

How did the Design Program prepare you for your current position? The Design Program prepared me for this role by instilling design thinking into how I interact with the world. I am able to break processes down and design them to better suit the needs of my team and our clients. I still handle some graphic design on my day to day, and freelance on the side, however the thinking is what really has shaped the way I approach my work.

What was most memorable to you about your experiences in the design program? Most memorable were the people I was able to learn and grow alongside, as well as the faculty that helped shape the program and interactions within it. Being at Eastern allowed me to explore creativity and my capabilities with support and encouragement from my peers.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering pursuing a design degree? My advice for someone who is considering pursuing a design degree is to do it. The value that it brings to your worldview is extremely useful in negotiating the professional world, as well as many other aspects of life after school. Don’t worry so much about the tools, as they change and shift over time. Leverage design principles to shape the way you see the world.

Name: Tony Kuchar

Graduation Year: 2014

Job Title: Merchandise Designer

Organization: Fangamer.com

Describe your design journey: Started by designing merch for my silly little bands in high school. Now I design merch for silly little video games

What are some of the responsibilities of your current position? Overseeing the entire merch production process of my projects: concept, sketch, final design, approvals, speccing for production, reviewing production samples, adjusting specs and resampling, final production, marketing, launching, and every so often even shipping!

Communication: with fellow designers and artists, with licensors, with game developers, with prepress departments, with merch producers, with manufacturers, etc.

What is your favorite part about your position? The creative freedom I’m allotted. Generally speaking, if I have an idea for a piece of merch, and I can determine there is a decent demand for it among fans, I’m given the reins and means to make it happen. This allows me to always be trying new mediums, new styles, new types of design, and the ability to collaborate with a variety of other designers and artists.

How did the Design Program prepare you for your current position? Not that fun of an answer but… Deadlines. School provides a great opportunity to practice being creative within a set timeframe. Another helpful aspect of school was having to work within specific guidelines and boundaries. Every project or job is restricted in some way, either conceptually or physically; school offers a taste of what’s to come in a professional setting. Lastly, school is great at exposing you to critique and constructive criticism. In the workforce, your designs will be evaluated and approved by parties that are outside of your influence. Being able to parse feedback and adjust your approach is a vital skill. Additionally, participating in group critiques also helps you learn how to communicate why you do or don’t like something, why it works or doesn’t work, and most importantly, how to provide helpful and practical suggestions for how to refine or better focus a design.

What was most memorable to you about your experiences in the design program? The community! School allows you to immerse yourself in design and for me, the best part of that was being surrounded by other people that were just as interested in design as me. Outside of the professional realm, where else are you really going to find a group of people that are down to have an hour long discussion about fonts?

What advice would you give to someone who is considering pursuing a design degree? Make sure it’s really something you want to do. Like any career, but especially in design, to be successful you need to be passionate about the work. If you aren’t interested in thinking about design like, I guess all the time really, then it might not be for you. I can’t turn my designer brain off. I’m in the grocery store thinking “Dang, that’s a sick font on that ramen cup. What is that? I have to find that font when I get home.. Design will just become part of your day to day life: make sure that’s something you want.

Name: Makenzie Ley

Graduated: Fall 2018

Job Title: Color Design Associate

Organization: Nike

Describe your design journey: My design journey started with drawing. I’ve always loved doodling for friends and family since a very young age. In 7th grade, I taught myself web design, competed in design related events in FBLA from 8-12th grade, and volunteered as a web designer my senior year. After a year at community college, I applied to EWU to major in VCD and worked at the art gallery (now defunct) doing design + promotional work. I was accepted into the BFA program for my senior year and also interned at Seven2 that summer. After graduating, I interned at Nike before being hired full time in February 2020 (incredible timing) and have been there ever since, moving across different teams but staying under the umbrella of design.

What are some of the responsibilities of your current position? Color design and theory (including understanding of color achievability and digital color), creating long term color palettes/concepts/narratives, graphic and production design, trend research, building presentations, etc.

What is your favorite part about your position? The talent Nike attracts is endlessly inspiring! It’s a privilege to work with such a diverse group of creative minds. Not to mention that work we touch and the brand as a whole has a global impact.

How did the Design Program prepare you for your current position? Comfort with a variety of Adobe products (Photoshop! Illustrator! InDesign! A little After Effects!) and design thinking.

What was most memorable to you about your experiences in the design program? I loved being involved with Design Club! Getting to connect with folks in the program and other clubs through design was invaluable, plus just super fun.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering pursuing a design degree? Just college courses are not enough, and contradictory, just YouTube isn’t either! Discover your design niche—whatever it is you’re passionate about within the broad world of design—and really use it! Not only will it help you stand out from the crowd, but you’ll stay saner in the process.

Name: Joshua Thomas

Graduation Year: 2019

Job Title: Freelance Designer

Organization: Lejit Design

Describe your design journey. I started Lejit Designs my last year at Eastern to give myself the opportunity to scratch that creative itch a lot of us have no doubt also felt. It’s been a crazy few years, but Lejit Designs has grown into much more than I ever thought it could be.

What are some of the responsibilities of your current position? Design strategy and consultation; branding; graphic design; illustration; packaging design; print projects; UX; UI; business operations

What is your favorite part about your position? The freedom and the breadth of project types I get to work on.

How did the Design Program prepare you for your current position? The Design Program gave me all of the tools I needed to start my journey, and my mentors within the Design Program gave me a lot of insights that helped me avoid common pitfalls. I don’t think I’d have been as successful as quickly if it weren’t for the program.

What was most memorable to you about your experiences in the Design Program? I loved my professors; they instilled in me an appreciation for craft that I don’t think I would have gotten otherwise.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering pursuing a design degree? While I don’t think they are required, programs like the one at Eastern can provide such vital experience that you won’t get outside of the program. They will push you to be a better designer in ways that you most likely won’t do yourself. So if you are someone that needs to be challenged and wants to be the most effective designer you can be, then this is the program for you.

Find peace and purpose in the design program. Open to something new, challenging, and eye-opening? Eastern is a launchpad for unthought possibilities. In the design program, you’ll be encouraged to make and learn from mistakes—many, many mistakes. The challenge: get uncomfortable and discover opportunities that make life interesting.

In this video, Visual Communication Design student Ellen Picken shares why she enjoys graphic design.

Name: Jaime Sparr

Graduation Year: 2012

Job Title: Senior Product Designer

Organization: Change.org

Describe your design journey. I was lucky enough to be connected with a great design internship and contract role during my senior year at EWU, thanks to Mindy. After graduating, I moved to the Bay Area for an internship that let me do a mix of visual and product design, and from there I’ve been able to continue to work and grow as a product designer!

What are some of the responsibilities of your current position? I do a TON of user interviews and synthesis of the findings. We use generative user research to inform our product process–specifically, it’s my job to talk to users, figure out what their pain points are, and then work with our product team to figure out which pain points are the most common or the most important to solve for our business. Once we’ve prioritized what we want to solve, we work together to ideate on solutions, and I get to go execute on designing the UI and UX of those solutions!

What is your favorite part about your position? I love talking to users; I get to work with petition starters on Change.org and they are some of the most inspiring, hard working people. And my whole job is to be their advocate and ensure that we’re building things that will serve them, and come up with product solutions and designs to do just that. I love the problem solving, and I love that I get to problem solve for people trying to make change in the world.

How did the Design Program prepare you for your current position? The Design Program definitely taught me the importance of and how to effectively problem-solve, as well as the ethics of how we problem solve and the responsibility we have as designers. It also instilled a love and appreciation of design in me. I’ve always loved art, but better understanding the history and fundamentals of design gave me a much deeper appreciation than I had prior to the program.

What was most memorable to you about your experiences in the design program? Definitely the program community! I loved being in a smaller group with other design students and having this shared experience of going through a pretty intense and rigorous study program that all culminated with the final show of our work. I still have the work from my senior project!

What advice would you give to someone who is considering pursuing a design degree? My little sister just went through the program too, so I’ve been giving a lot of advice on this!

I’m coming at it from a product design angle–I’m a big believer that product designers come in “flavors.” There are so many possible skills we can have. In addition to the sort standard design skill set, we can also code, illustrate, animate, interview users, and more.

Figure out what you might be! For example, if you write amazing code, you can afford to not be great at visual design or user research–maybe you’re more of a technical designer and you work on internal tools for a team. Or maybe you’re not ‘amazing’ at one or two things. Maybe you do a little of everything and you’re a generalist.

Just try and get sense of where your hills and valleys are. What do you like and what are you good at? That way you’ll know what kind of work you want to do, where you want to grow, and what kind of designer you are.

Name: Dakota Berg

Graduation Year: 2016

Job Title: Lead Designer

Organization: SportsCastr

Describe your design journey.
My design journey started in middle school when I met a local graphic designer and first found Photoshop. I spent a few years learning and exploring, and eventually I picked up a few random freelance jobs around town. I ended up going to the University of Washington in Seattle my first year of college. After that, I transferred back to Eastern Washington University to finish out my Bachelor’s degree. During college, I did a design internship at BHW1 and worked as a full-time designer on staff at Klündt Hosmer. I also was a designer for the EWU Bookstore and a PLUS Facilitator for a few web design courses. I had a variety of freelance clients during college and after graduating, which eventually led me to my current position at SportsCastr. I worked remotely from Spokane for the first two years before relocating to New York City and I’ve been in the city for two years now.

What are some of the responsibilities of your current position?
I do all of the internal design work for SportsCastr and FanChain. Some of my job responsibilities include branding, web design, app design, web development, strategy, product management, new feature development, marketing strategy, marketing and social media materials, merchandise design, data visualization, presentation decks, client-branded assets, investor materials, quarterly reports and more. There are a few contract designers that I also art direct, including illustrators and animators.

What is your favorite part about your position?
The variety of the work that I get to do under the SportsCastr brand keeps things interesting, from things for SportsCastr products, to things for our cryptocurrency suite, FanChain, to things for our partners. My favorite aspect is working on the core products, SportsCastr.com and the SportsCastr iOS App.

How did the design program prepare you for your current position?
One of the best skills I learned in the program at EWU was problem solving and simply learning how to figure things out on the fly. Understanding that going into the profession not knowing everything is important, but knowing that you can figure anything out is the most important aspect. Also, learning how to code has been one of the most valuable skills I’ve been able to apply, stepping in to help problem solve or building out complete sections or features myself.

What was most memorable to you about your experiences in the design program?
The relationships I formed with some of my fellow students and professors in the program have been some of my favorite relationships I have still to do this day. Going into the design program, I knew that branding was an area that I was already interested in, but one of the more memorable moments I have from the program was when I first started to understand the magic of blending the skills of design and web development.

What advice would you give to someone who is considering pursuing a design degree?
Hone your design skills and build your portfolio outside of school. Always have side projects. One of the most helpful things I did was build a big portfolio of work before, during and after college, which allowed me to be highly selective of what projects appeared in my portfolio. Also work on talking through your design decisions and being able to explain how you arrived where you did and why it’s the best solution for the problem. If you know how to sell yourself and you have a solid portfolio, you won’t have any issues finding opportunities.

Design alumna Melissa Diaz sits down with CareerExplore NW to describe what she does as an art director. Diaz describes some of the crucial skills she learned at EWU.

“It’s really important for me to be involved and bring out my heritage.” Design major Melissa MeltingTallow shares how the program has helped give her work a voice.

“I want to sell something they can believe in.” Design major Chelsea Taylor describes how the program has helped her discover what she wants to do.