mello121
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mello121: Friends
mello121: Activity
Personal
- About Me:
- I have been in the graphics field, in one form or another, for 22 years. I have always had a love of type, though. From the time I learned to write, my earliest childhood drawings all prominently feature words. My high school notebooks were covered in different styles of type. They looked like a typography assignment. I'd make signs for my walls and letter personal signs for others. I found that I have a good eye for spatial relationships and composition.
My first job was as a sign painter for a printer. Hand-lettering truck doors etc. before computers, plotters and vinyl took over. I also made negatives, did the stripping and burned plates for printing. The company wanted me to learn to run the printing press, which I did, and that ended up getting me my next job for a photographer who had his own small in-house print shop.
I designed all the corporate identity and promotions items for the photograher. Typesetting was still done on the old IBM style CompSets, and you would have to cut and wax down your layouts and make line negatives, tray develop the negs, strip in flats for plates. Computers still were not that popular but I decided to invest in a Mac for myself and began doing all my work on that. It was a godsend! My first programs were Freehand 4 and Photoshop 2.5.
I am self-taught, though there really was no place to go to learn these programs back then. I took to them very easily being that I was used to doing it all by hand, the computer was a tool that made it so much faster. You could spend way more time concentrating on the design. I knew what I wanted to do, I just need to figure out how to make the programs do it. I attended drawing and a couple of software classes. In the software classes, though, I was way ahead of what they were teaching.
I really didn't enjoy the actually running of the press so when I was offered a job by a local commercial printer as their lead graphic designer, I jumped at it. They were aware of my work because I took my more complex designs to them to make negatives. I have been there over 13 years. I am also responsible for pre-press and plate output. I found that I love troubleshooting files and figuring out problems that occur in the outputting process. You can create some amazing stuff on screen, but if you can't get it out of the computer it's not worth much in my industry. I can make anything work, but I want to know why it didn't work. Each program has its own issues.
After creating some rather extensive education pamphlets and other promotional items for the local technical school, they asked if I would be interested in teaching a Graphic Design course, but since I myself didn't have a degree that never came to fruition.
Now there are so many choices for education in Graphic Design and various colleges, technical schools, etc. that offer degree programs. My advice to anyone starting out would be, get the piece of paper (degree). The job market is tight and recruiters, with so many applicants, sometimes just weed out anyone without formal education. Your work doesn't even get seen... so get the degree.
I love what I do. I'm lucky. If I won the lottery and didn't need to work to live, I would design for non-profits and the like, that can't afford to have quality work done just to keep doing what I am doing. - Hobbies:
- Reading, Eating Out, Pets, Computer Nerd
- Favorite Movies:
- Seventh Sign
- Favorite TV Shows:
- Dexter, CSI-Las Vegas
- Favorite Music:
- 3IB (Third Eye Blind), Candlebox, RHCP, Placebo
jennierrenee
about 1 month ago
6688 comments
I just wanted to say Hi. Jennifer
explicitdreams89
5 months ago
2566 comments
Love your music!
explicitdreams89
5 months ago
2566 comments
How are you doing?
bohemian1
5 months ago
1120 comments
Thanks for the add. Your work is excellent!
brokencolor
5 months ago
4114 comments
Thanks for the add. You have strong work.
transforming
6 months ago
348 comments
Nice Portfolio!