What Is Graphic Design?
Student Life Section Editor A. Rudolph’s mom is a graphic designer and she shared some of her work with us!
December 13, 2019
There are some students at Green Level that have already planned out their future. However, most of our young high schoolers don’t have a clue on what they want to do, much less what job they want to have. The Gator’s Eye will be running a series of articles about different career opportunities with interviews with real people in those professions.
This article is about the job of a graphic designer. Graphic designers create images digitally or by hand that are made to captivate consumers. Graphic design can be found in advertisements, book covers, magazines, etc. We interviewed Michal Rudolph, a graphic designer for 18 years. Rudolph said, “I have always enjoyed art, but I didn’t consider graphic design until a college English professor of mine had us take several assessments to determine our personalities and strengths. He then had us find the most common professions that people similar to you pursued, and I found out that my personality was good for a graphic designer.”
Rudolph is a freelance graphic designer, which means that she is hired by clients to create different kinds of visuals and illustrations for different things. Rudolph uses computer software to put their ideas into a beautiful image for their use. “I probably enjoy designing more than creating. An artist creates something from scratch, while a designer still gets to be creative but instead you take your client’s thoughts and arrange them in a pleasant way that communicates their point clearly.”
Rudolph majored in communications with an emphasis on graphic design in college. She believes that communication is a very important quality to have when you’re a graphic designer. “As a graphic designer, one of your chief goals is communicating your clients thoughts. You can have pretty or cool material, but if it doesn’t communicate well then it doesn’t help your client.” Graphic designers want to create what their client wants to show through an image, and you can’t do that if you don’t understand how to communicate that through your art.
If any of this sounds interesting to you, Rudolph told us about some colleges that have good art majors. She said that NC State has a very good art program, but if you’re looking to go out of state, Columbia College of Chicago is amazing. “Columbia College in Chicago is very good for people in the arts and also trains you to learn how to become your own freelancer.” You want to make sure that you can learn how to work on your own and use your own ideas with the help of your client.
Keep checking The Gators Eye for more updates on different jobs and careers.
