SENIOR PROJECT INTERVIEW 1/31/2020 1

Claire: ​So, the first question is what is your current position or job title?

Alli: ​Okay, I am a graphic designer at Feather Light Graphics.

Claire: ​Okay, what was kind of the path that you took to get to your career as far as previous
jobs or internships and things like that?

Alli: ​ o I did four years of schooling at UMD, and then in between those school years I had
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an internship at a t-shirt design company in Kasson, Minnesota. Then after I graduated
from college I applied to this job, and this is the first job I’ve had after college.

Claire: ​Cool! How did you know that this was the correct path for you?

Alli: ​I guess I found that out my senior year of high school. I knew I always wanted to do
something with art so I looked around for what kind of jobs involved art and I found
graphic design, and UMD was one of the better schools that had a graphic design
program. I applied to that and I actually really enjoyed doing it because it involved art but
also gets you in a job that can make some money.

Claire: ​Haha, yeah. So what was your education background like your major or whatever in
college?

Alli: ​So I majored in design and then I minored in fine arts.

Claire: ​What kind of classes did you take with a fine arts minor?

Alli: ​ o fine arts required me to take all the basic classes of like drawing, sculpture, painting,
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and fundamentals of art. Then for a minor you can pick a specific one like I picked
painting so I went forward with painting one, painting two, painting three and specialized
in painting, but it doesn’t matter which one you specialize in it will still count towards your
minor.

Claire: ​What is the best part of your job?

Alli: ​ ith this job specifically it is that I get to design for a wide variety of people, like I’m not
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just doing a certain kind of design or a certain kind of business. I get to do banners for
schools. I get to make decals for other companies and then we do wraps for like people
with monster energy drink, FOX nascar like the variety of design I get to do.

Claire: ​Yeah. What is the worst part of your job?

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Alli: ​The worst part is having to accept when a client doesn’t like your design, but they want
something that you think doesn’t necessarily go well with what they are doing. I don’t
know, that’s kind of hard to explain. So like you know what would help them with their
project or with their business or whatever design they are wanting, but they are wanting
something totally different that might not look very nice or professional, but you have to
do what they want because they’re the ones that are paying the money.

Claire: ​Yeah. Umm, have you ever thought about switching careers?

Alli: ​Umm, I have not thought about switching careers. I’ve only been here for like over a year
and a half.

Claire: ​Yeah. Describe what a typical day in your job is like.

Alli: ​ kay, so I get here at about 8 o’clock and I check emails, and then go to our schedule
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and I have a list of what I need to get done in the order of due dates or when they need
it. So, I’ll start designing on the programs that I have which is the Adobe Suite, and then
once I have the designs ready I’ll send clients emails telling them that it’s either
completed or it’s like approved so that they can approve the design or they can make
changes if they want to. So I spend most of my day kind of with email and phone calls to
clients asking them like what they want different, or if they like it, or setting up the
designs to be printed. So kind of back and forth most of the day.

Claire: ​Cool. What characteristics do you have that you think are most helpful with your job?

Alli: ​I would say communication is probably like the most important one. Communication with
your coworkers and with your clients. Having the skills to work the programs and
knowing where everything is is pretty important. And then probably using the skills of
what you learn in your college classes of what kind of colors go together, like what it
looks like on the is not how it’s going to print out so you have to kind of know your printer
and kind of know how the colors turn out compared to how they look on the screen.

Claire: ​Yeah I never thought about that. Umm, What do you think would be a good way to start
out in this career as far as college and internships, like what do you think would be good
core steps to take?

Alli: I​ know that college is different for everyone and people are really good at learning a lot
in classrooms, but for me hands down it was the internships and the experience. That
like.. I probably learned way more in the summers that I had the internship than I did
throughout my whole college career because there’s something different about like
thinking about doing something and actually doing something. And then getting involved
with like real clients because in college they’ll give you all these fake clients, like oh this
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girl would like this poster and she wants this and this and then you kind of make it up but
not for a real client. You don’t get to work with anyone it’s just kind of all in your head but
umm working with real people gives you a lot of experience.

Claire: ​Cool! I think that’s all, so thank you!