I never intended to be a graphic designer. It was never really on my radar, until the year I decided to pursue my Bachelor's in Graphic Design. But I will say, I've been doing graphic design since I was in middle school and didn't even know it. At Omaha Nation Public School, the middle school decided to start a newsletter. I wanted to be apart of it, but I didn't like the writing, so I ended up taking over the layout design from my teacher Ms. Seieroe. I really loved doing it and really enjoyed the process. Then fast forward to 2014, I was preparing for my graduation for my AAS in Professional Photography, and thought it was easy enough to design my graduation invitation. Since 2014 I designed maybe one other invitation.
Skip to November 2018, I wanted to complete my education with a Bachelor's Degree, because of internal pressure from my older siblings, unbeknownst to them. They all have Bachelor's Degrees and I felt like I needed one too and just for my father to say, "All my children have an education."
Anyhoots, back on track, I started my classes and I was thrown into junior year of Graphic Design. I had to teach myself everything, I knew nothing about Adobe Illustrator or Adobe InDesign. I really struggled and honestly had no idea what I got myself into. Here is one of my first designs, without any type of introduction classes. My Heilsa Stationary set.
Yeahhh.... It was meh, here's another one for shits and giggles. My OMA Daycamp poster series.
It's so horrribblleee!!! LOL.
Anyhoots, I somehow managed to graduate and was on the dean's list a few times. When I was preparing for graduation, I decided to create my own graduation invitation, again (like, how hard could it be?).
During school I applied for an internship at HoChunk Inc. and was placed at Blue Earth Marketing. At the end of the internship I was offered a position as a receptionist and to transition to a graphic designer when I graduated. I was sad that it didn't happen like I hoped it was going to, but I was offered a position with HoChunk Renaissance.
Currently, I have been in my position for a year. I'm very happy and very blessed to be apart of an amazing team. I love going to work everyday, I love working with my Tribe, and I love learning the Language and the Culture. I honestly could not have a better career. Here are some of my latest work that I did for HoChunk Renaissance, it's also shown on our Facebook Page.
We did a poster series for our HoChunk Values, I took photos of our models and incorporated them into my design. I loved that project, because I was able to incorporate my photography skills into it. The HoChunk Moons is a new digital series that will be added to our Facebook page on each New Moon of the month. There's more information about it in the calendar project below. The calendar was my most difficult project, but the most exciting one. We ordered 300 of them and I was a nervous wreck seeing how they were going to be printed out. I seriously was having nightmares.
I was relieved that it looked good, I had a couple of mistakes, but it just means next year's calendar will be better.
So that is the story of how the graphic design life chose me and I honestly love it.
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