Career Goals: The Triple "P"

One Year Goal:

For the first year after graduation, I want to be engaged in the local Kansas City Design Community. I want to continue learning throughout my life so I would like to touch base and experience all disciplines of creative thinking and mediums. I want to initially start off as a junior designer in a local boutique studio such as Whiskey or Willoughby. Being very engaged in the AIGA as a communications officer for our schools chapter, I have had wonderful networking opportunities to contact various studios and put my name in their email lists and address books; whether it be obtaining studio tours, general information, or networking and collaborating in the planning of AIGA events, I have been able to touch base with someone in each studio that I want to be with. Along with my first year, I want to be recognized in a design annual from one of our major creative publications (How, Print, Com Arts). Working as an intern with Reactor Design Studio, I have been exposed to various avenues of publicity and how perseverance can put your name on the everyones map. So through the wonderful opportunity of interning with the Programming Director of the AIGA and being a communications officer in the AIGA, I think my networking and modular path is well on its way.


Three Year Goal:

At three years I want my collaboration and circulation throughout the community to be very eclectic. As stated previously, I want to touch base with various creative disciplines and learn exotic ways of thinking. The day in my life when I stop learning, is the day I stop learning to live. I think I would like to switch to an ad/marketing firm after 3 or 4 years to see a more engaging form of sales design. So far I am partial to the idea of becoming a senior designer for firms like Barkley, Br, and Ogilvy & Mather, learning from an etymology and anthropological stance of how our mediascaped culture works. Also, illustration and narrative stories have always intrigued me whether its in film, music, or books. Story telling is something I’ve always admired, so selling it in an interesting advertising manner would be very exciting for me. I think being more involved in other entities like Ad clubs, Art & Copy clubs, and continuing in the AIGA will get me there.


Reflection:

I’ve never thought before about what inspires me, what I like, and how I can align that with career goals, even if they seem a bit of a stretch from graphic design. My love for music, narrative and story telling, and traveling has always been a side ambition that ran congruently with my career. After our discussion, I’ve realized that it can become a part of my career goals. I’m slowly finding out how modular my path can be, but also seeing how defined and focused it can get at the same time.

Five Year Goal:

I’ve been a nomad my entire life, and with the exception of my home and birthplace of hawaii, I’ve never lived in the same place for more than 4 years. I love traveling and hopping from city-to-city and experiencing different cultures, my nomadic lifestyle has stopped becoming a burden, and has transformed into a passionate lifestyle of being constantly in movement. I want to find a design studio that can offer either transferring to different national and international branches, or being with a reputable enough company that will offer me the opportunity to travel to unfamiliar territory where I can continue to learn different cultures and experience exotic conceptual skills. Whether that be an ad firm like Proctor and Gamble, or a local/international firm like VML that constantly has photo-shoots, clients, and vendors internationally to work in tandem. I think starting out with local opportunities such as VML and the reputable connections that KCAI students have with their employed staff is a good start. Also wanting to become an AIGA board member will create broader networking opportunities to contact other chapters, and national/international programming opportunities.

Beyond Five:

I’m not sure if teaching academically is within my future, but I have always entertained the idea of starting up my own firm.


Summary:

Junior Design at Boutique Studio (Willoughby, Whiskey, etc).
Represented in Design Annual Publication (How, Print, Com Arts, etc).
Senior Designer/Associate Art Director with an Ad Firm (Barkley, O&M).
Continue to learn through different conceptual disciplines.
Board Member of the AIGA.
Travel and Senior Design or Art Director with International Company.
Learn a new language to facilitate international endeavors.
Meld interests and career together (music, travel, narrative)
Maybe start up my own studio.

How:

Optimism, dedication.
Creating a “wow” portfolio, and build a resume and identity that jumps off the page.
Continue to broaden, strengthen, and utilize my AIGA networking opportunities.
Apply to everyone and get my name out.
Branch out beyond graphic design, ad clubs, architecture, industrial design.
Research Studios, regional markets that provide travel opprtunities.
Take a foreign language class.
Renew my Pass Port