PAST: WHAT LED THESE DESIGNERS TO GRAPHIC DESIGN?
Pursuing graphic design seemed to be a gradual process for everyone. Having a graphic designer for a father, Jo saw this career path as the norm. “I would see my parents working on things, and I never questioned graphic design as a source of income because they were able to raise me.”
Type design, on the other hand, wasn’t as easy. It took Jo a while to realize that designers are behind typefaces, too. “I always just thought, They’re part of the computer. It’s such a stupid notion, now that I think about it. So, when I started learning more about type design, that’s when the interest started to grow.”
Ram’s passion was spurred by spite. When he joined his college newspaper, he wasn’t pleased with the publication’s layout. “I was like, ‘This looks like ass. I could do better,’ even though I didn’t have any proper graphic design education.” After getting reprimanded for sneakily trying to change the magazine’s layout as a photo editor, he eventually became the newsroom’s designer, armed with the knowledge from a magazine class he was simultaneously taking. “That was the first thing I ever designed: a whole magazine. No knowledge. I didn’t even know how to use (Adobe) InDesign. I went in there out of pure spite, and wanting to do it. Then I kept doing it and now I do it for fun.”
Jena’s journey to graphic design was fun, too, but also eye-opening. As the pandemic coincided with her six-month break before college, a lot of revelations came to her once she decided to upload her art online. One lesson was to shed her preconceived notions of art and surrender to the process. “I wanted to stop pressuring myself. There was a time when I just sat with my laptop and was like, ‘Okay. What do we feel like saying today?’ And that was it. I just worked with whatever I had. Whatever came up.”
Jas knew art was her calling since primary school, but she was stuck in the rigorous and competitive Singaporean education system that boxed her into an engineering degree. “I was learning, while in another course, that design could be applied in different places and was like, ‘Why didn’t I think of this earlier?’” After much deliberation, her parents’ blessing, and curating a portfolio out of thin air, Jas bit the bullet and successfully transferred to the LASALLE College of the Arts in Singapore. “That was the start. The defining point. I was like, ‘There’s actually so much I can do with design.’”