- Hi, I'm Jamie, and this is a day
in the life of a graphic designer.
I'm a freelance designer, and I work mostly in print,
so that includes things like posters and zines.
That's mostly what I do.
Typically, in the morning, my day will start
by looking at my calendar just to make sure I have
an idea of kind of what the meetings are,
if I'm gonna have time to work, or if I'm gonna have to focus
on sort of getting prepped for those sort
of conversations I need to have.
I'm working with a client right now,
we're working on a zine, so I'm gonna take a look
at that. I also am probably gonna review
a couple posters that I have going out
and that sort of thing.
So, I'm self-taught, which means that I had to do
a lot of research on my own.
But there's videos and articles,
and there's people I knew who were doing it,
and I would ask them questions and get a lot of answers.
But to be completely honest,
the main thing was just trying stuff out.
So, I'm just gonna use Photoshop right now,
basically just make a quick art board here.
What do I do to prepare? It depends on the client.
So, I think it might be helpful just to have
a little bit of a frame of reference here
'cause I'm just trying to pull some stuff for moods,
like colors and directions and tones.
Sometimes you hit these walls
[laughing] where you're, like,
"Okay, that's not really going anywhere.
Maybe there's something else I can reference and see."
You know, I might do this if I just wanna, like, not have
the limitations of the computer. And then take something
like this maybe back into the computer
and either recreate it or create something else.
This you can't do on the computer.
[laughing] I mean, you can,
but you can't use your finger to do it just quite this way.
Yeah, so I'm about to jump on a call with a client.
We've been having ongoing stuff for a while,
so this is just one of our regular meetings.
So, I would say some skills you probably need to have
to talk to clients would be great communication,
being specific is always helpful,
actively listening, and probably the most important
is interpreting what they're saying
and reading between the lines.
So, I just finished up with lunch.
I have a meeting that I'm gonna be starting
pretty soon with a new client.
We're trying to take some poetry
and see if we can sort of, like, make a visualization of that.
So, that's kind of where we're starting.
When you're first trying to get a client on board
for the first time, it can be a little challenging.
I think you have to be very creative.
You kind of have to have some
sense of the person's, like, visual experience,
kind of learn as you go
how receptive or not somebody is.
One of the things I was thinking a little bit
about was what the book could look like.
I just wanted to have a starting conversation
about what that could even look like.
[Jamie narrating] But I think the biggest thing
I learned, 'cause I remember when I was starting out,
I thought that some of the work I was doing
was not worth somebody paying for.
So, it's really, I think,
a lot about how you value yourself as well.
You have an expertise, and it's okay,
you know, to value that. I think sometimes
that can be hard and challenging for people of color
or people who identify as women because, like, you're...
culturally maybe not raised to see it in that way,
but I think that it's okay.
And if people say no, that's maybe not
the right person for you.
I'm working on this project.
I'm kind of designing what some tote bags
would look like. So, I'm just...
kind of, you know, I have some images I'm sourcing
that I can use, you know, for free.
I'm gonna kind of pull parts and things out of it
and then sort of test them a little bit in this mock-up.
Some of the programs that I ended up
having to teach myself, originally it was Photoshop,
though now I've also learned to use Figma.
I know a little bit of Illustrator,
but not too much.
And believe it or not,
I also use Google Docs quite a bit.
I mean, there's a lot of programs, so sometimes
it can be kind of hard to be an expert on everything,
but I think it's okay to learn it as you go, too.
I like doing the design a lot. It's very relaxing.
It's one of my favorite parts, might be my favorite part.
You're creating and solving a problem at the same time
and sort of feeling things through a little bit.
What is actually kind of a really helpful thing
to have as a designer is a holistic sense
of how things sort of work.
Like, I do a lot of gardening. One of the things
that I've understood about this is there's a lot of patterns.
There's a lot of color. There's a lot of repetition
and movement that I can mimic in the designs
that I do and actually inform a lot.
So, I reach out to things that are very much beyond
just the designing itself,
and that really helps shape what it is that is creative.
I mean, it feels like it's coming
from that place anyway.
That feeling of being in flow is very powerful.
One of the things I like to do at the end of the day
is just double-check emails, make sure I didn't miss anybody.
'Cause you also have to kind of balance
your design work with making sure you, like,
are responding to people and, like,
doing the business-y side of things.
I think being curious is very important
as a graphic designer.
Asking questions is really helpful.
It's guided me to all kinds of different places,
and I've been able to make all kinds
of different connections.
It pushes me a lot, you know. It makes me gravitate
in a way towards things that I normally
wouldn't be interested in or know anything about.
Thanks for watching!
Oh, oh, and please be sure to give us a like
and subscribe to our channel.
We'll see you next time. [beep]
(director) - Amazing.
Let's do it just one more time. Real TikTok energy
on this one. - Okay.
[crew member laughs] I don't have TikTok.
[laughing]
[beep] Thanks for listening.
Thanks for watching.
Yeah... [laughing]