It’s amazing to see how this definition transforms more and more as I progress through my career. Initially, graphic design was simply an escape into my creativity, an expansion of my craft. My first love for the arts was drawing and painting, but I found graphic design to be more challenging and enjoyable. So I was immediately magnetized toward the field. I’m a bit of an introvert, a little conservative so to speak. In that sense, graphic design is my alter ego. It gives me a chance to touch people in ways that I could not in everyday life. I could give a more technical definition, like seeing design as a problem and using technologies and materials to develop a solution. However, graphic design holds a much more life-like quality in that for me, it is about my passion for the people. I have a strong interest in making a difference, more importantly, a positive difference. Graphic design gives me an avenue to do that. Not only that, it gives me an opportunity to further build on and positively utilize my God-given talents, WHILE making a profitable living. To me, graphic design means going to work and never feeling like I got out of bed. Ok. That was a slight exaggeration…but I LOVE IT!

If asked this question when I first delved into the field, I would not have had a clue how to put it in words. If asked this last quarter, I would have said it is about practicing the fourth order. Now, looking back at everything I have done and learned thus far, I realize that graphic design is about the journey. It is about the things I love to do, the things I dread, the things that challenge me, those long periods of frustration, the thousands of balled up sketches, and the beautiful end product. It is those things that make the experience of being a designer more meaningful and appreciated.