The first computer I remember using was a massive Dell monitor with an even larger tower underneath the desk.
The first t-shirt I ever designed.
A large banner, hand-painted for my sorority
My mobile office set-up! Complete with my external hard drive, wacom tablet, and of course the charging cord.
And now I am in my iPad era. Not too sure where I am headed from here.
The images above represent various points throughout my journey of becoming who I am today. As a child, I would spend hours playing around on that Dell monitor in the basement. I found Barbie Dress-up games on the internet and explored Paint apps. I think my curiosity about computers helped me to understand and become proficient with them from an early age.
In high school, my close friends often joked that I was 'Tech Savvy Abby,' since I was always able to help them with their phones, laptops, programs, etc. I ended up taking a marketing elective 3 semesters in a row because I loved getting to use the computers we had in the classroom, and helping my peers when they got stuck. I also got involved with DECA through this class and participated in a t-shirt design competition each semester. Above, is a rough sketch of my winning design, which was essentially the DECA logo and my high school's logo stacked on top of each other. I loved seeing my classmates wearing this t-shirt!
Towards the end of high school, I got really into hand-lettering and calligraphy. I was constantly filling up notebooks with scribbles and random phrases as I practiced. When I got to college and joined a sorority (go Kappa Delta!), I found that my practice had paid off. I got to paint our Bid Day banners in 2017 as well as a slew of other projects that required an artistic touch. I quickly became known as the 'artsy friend' and I loved it! I had never considered myself very artistic or creative until I joined Kappa Delta.
An older member of the sorority saw my passion for design and suggested I apply for an internship at the company she worked at. This internship turned out to be a huge turning point for me and from that point on I considered myself a graphic designer. I downloaded every Adobe program I could fit into my little MacBook and then ended up buying an external hard drive to store all of my 'half-finished-but-maybe-someday.ai' files that were piling up.
Not long after, I purchased my Wacom tablet, second-hand and a generation or two old. Switching from using only a trackpad to a stylus was a huge learning curve but it excited me more than it frustrated me. I learned so much from watching other artists on YouTube and Instagram with their tablets and I knew that if I kept at it, I might get to their level someday. Watching YouTube tutorials, SkillShare lessons, and Instagram videos have become a part of my daily routine at this point, so I was thrilled to receive an iPad Pro as a Christmas/Graduation present in December.
Since getting an iPad, Procreate has become my new lifeline and I am creating something new every single day on that app. I feel as if I have really been flexing my creative muscles with this program. I have become a firm believer that creativity is a learned skill that one must exercise to become good at. Artists like Lauren Hom and Stephan Kunz have definitely inspired me and shown me the truth in that.
I am now at a point where I am hoping to be hired in a full-time position in which I can put all of this creative energy to use. I love my part-time position with the university and would be delighted to find something comparable in the Seattle area or any city really!