Yousuf Ali
Made in Photoshop, the graphic shows student Yousuf Ali in front of a blurred collage of his pasts work. In the accompanying column, Ali traces his his path to find his future career. "Getting to design articles and graphics, watching them come to life, and seeing people reading and learning from them is what inspires me to keep pushing and going forward," Ali said. "There's just something so rewarding about seeing a piece of work you put so much time and love into become a focal point that impacts others."
Becoming a graphic designer is a dream come true. Since freshman year, I’ve been working my way up, trying to get more experience and knowledge in the hope to one day make something big. Eagle Nation Times is now the place I get to put all my hard work to use and show off what I can do. Getting to design articles and graphics, watching them come to life, and seeing people reading and learning from them is what inspires me to keep pushing and going forward. There’s just something so rewarding about seeing a piece of work you put so much time and love into become a focal point that impacts others.
I’ve always known art was my passion ever since I was a kid. Whether that was painting, drawing, or even making things out of cardboard, I’ve always enjoyed expressing my creativity, so I knew that whatever job I wanted, it would be related to this passion. This is where I ran into the challenge of choosing a career. Since jobs in the field of art aren’t the most stable and the pay is scarce, I had to find something suitable for me. That’s when I first considered graphic design as an option. People often scroll past movie posters and logos without ever thinking about the creative minds behind them. That’s what inspired me to become a graphic designer: to create visuals that make people pause and appreciate the vision behind them.
I first tested the waters of graphic design by taking the Digital Art and Animation class in my freshman year. This was a great starting point where I could learn the fundamentals of digital design. Through this class, I intensively learned important tools, like image editing in Photoshop and creating vector art in Illustrator. By the end of the year, I even earned a certification in visual design using Photoshop. This further motivated me to progress down this path and made me want to take Graphic Design I my sophomore year. Here, I learned how to edit and make layouts in InDesign, a publishing program used to create layouts for print and digital media. After many projects and placing honorable mention in a recipe book design competition, I earned my second certification, a print & digital media publication using InDesign.
Everything I’ve done has led to where I am now. It’s all been worth it, and now I make something every day that is seen by so many people, whether that’s graphic elements for our site, cover images for articles or contributing to our school magazine. I’m always ready to make something new and fresh. Next year, I aspire to become Eagle Nation Times’ editor-in-chief to bring this exciting and eventful chapter to a meaningful conclusion.