How our future generation became a lesson in creativity today

As I walked down the hall to the 3rd grade classroom of Mrs. Munoz, I remembered when I was an elementary student, full of curiosity and wonder (and little knowledge of what I wanted to be when I grew up). Sure, I had my fair share of fun in art class, loved to doodle on anything, and especially enjoyed photography, but I had no idea a career as a Graphic Designer even existed, let alone one that would lead me to where I am now in my professional life.

As a UI/UX Designer at Concierge Auctions, I work on a lot of our digital designs, from wireframes to web and mobile design, along with email design. I started out my career in the field as a Graphic Designer. I transitioned into a UI/UX role as I became more involved with web design projects and fell in love with all things digital.

Recently, I had the opportunity to discuss Graphic Design at Ortega Elementary School for Career Day. It was such an amazing experience to meet the students and give them an insight into becoming a Graphic Designer.

The morning of, I showed up to the school with a few minutes to spare. After getting to meet the other presenters, I soon realized how diverse and impressive this group of people were: a banker, a Zumba instructor, a scientist, a team of firefighters, and even a K-9 Unit. (How am I supposed to compete with that?)

I began by asking the students to put their hands in the air, and then to put them down if they didn’t like drawing, photography, computers, or having fun. Needless to say, almost all their hands were still up in the air. This should be fun!

For my presentation, I covered the basics: what is Graphic Design, where is it, why is it important, and how the students can get into Graphic Design. To get their minds working and thinking about it as a shortcut in visual language, I had a series of logos lined up for them to decipher hidden messages. As soon as the FedEx logo and the Bronx Zoo logos appeared on the screen, arms shot up into the air (with some even shouting out the hidden messages within them). This was a really fun activity for the kids. The teachers in the classroom who were equally as surprised with the hidden messages. It was amazing to see the kids in thought, walking up to the board and pointing out elements that weren’t even intended for the logo design. Once I revealed the hidden messages from the negative space of the logos, you could hear “Oooooh” and “Ahhhh, I get it!” around the room.

At the end of the talk, I had them do a design activity. What better way for them to get interested than to create their own emoji? As a side note, I still can’t get over how many students had their own cell phones in 3rd grade. It was refreshing to see what they came up with. They took the markers and colored pencils and started drawing the most hilarious and interesting emojis — with absolutely no fear of messing up. I’m fairly confident that we have a few future graphic designers from class of 2030.

As I walked around the room, watching the students draw and describe their emojis to me, I felt a sense of inspiration. I’ve always heard the advice to keep hold of your childlike creativity and sense of curiousness, especially for us in a creative field, but sometimes it takes a unicorn and rainbow poop to remind you of just that.