Turns out, being a Supreme connoisseur does not provide me with health insurance.
So here I am pursuing my backup career.
After graduating from SMU in May 2018 (creative advertising major; graphic design minor), I packed up, said goodbye to Dallas, decided I was going to miss living in a city that started with “D,” drove 18 hours north, and said hello to Detroit, Michigan… and to real winter. REAL real winter.
I consider myself a jack-of-all creative hybrid, so when I’m not ghostwriting tweets or curating the perfect Instagram caption/emoji combo, you can find me at my side hustle [read: full-time job] as a Jr Art Director with Commonwealth//McCann. “Real People. Not Actors.” Yeah, we’re those Chevy people. And for all you skeptics out there, I can officially inform you that the people in those spots—by law—are not scripted.
And then, if you stick with this sentence fragment, you’ll learn that I decided cities starting with “D” weren’t actually the draw—that I had gone all-in on a ridiculous hyperbole that just made for mediocre comedic relief in one sentence of my bio. So, I returned to Dallas, ecstatic to pay Texas rent, tell everyone I knew there “Yeah, I’ve been there before,” and actually discover the creative landscape. Oh, and the carrot dangled in front of me during the 18-hour return trip was the position of art director for JBW—the diamond watch brand in Dallas and, as I came to learn, the world.
After some additional agency experience, I decided it was time to make what is known in the creative industry as the “New York leap” (disclaimer: I have never actually heard anyone call it that). The city of the brightest lights—aka digital billboards—had called my name since school, so back up north I headed, this time for a city with a little more pizza and a little less snow. So now, settled into my NYC closet apartment and fueled by dollar slices and Blue Bottle coffee, I begin the next phase of my professional journey with my sights set on what work the creative capital of the world has to offer.
Believe it or not, I’m a real person too, and aside from the breeze of cross-country moving, life hands me all the busyness I need. To combat this, I adhere to a minimalist work aesthetic whenever possible. I will try to avoid design clichés here, suffice to say the more white space, the better. You know what, the space can be any color. What’s important is that there’s more of it.
Taking a brief departure from the fun I do for work, I want to touch on the work I do for fun. When I’m not staring at my computer, I’m probably asleep. When I’m not staring at Illustrator or Photoshop or a blank notepad, I’m probably doing music or running my satirical fashion account. During time off, I can be caught daydreaming with the latest streetwear blogs open on my phone, or playing with music for my side gig as a DJ.
My hobbies, in large part, are a reason that I consider my career path to be so personally fulfilling. I’m fortunate enough that these interests bleed into the creativity I do for a living, something I think too many people don’t get to say. This privilege that creativity bestows upon me is something I do not take lightly, and is precisely what drives my desire to create.