Fanshawe Success Stories: Graphic Design

CREDIT: FSU PUBLICATIONS AND COMMUNICATIONS DEPARTMENT
Interrobang sat down with two working graphic designers to learn more about their experience in the Graphic Design program at Fanshawe College.

This week on our YouTube channel, Interrobang interviewed two working graphic designers who are students or alumni from the Graphic Design program at Fanshawe.

The Graphic Design program (GRD1) is a three-year diploma program in the School of Design with a co-op component that teaches students how to communicate ideas in multimedia. Students will experience a combination of theory, history and industry best practices.

Gary Hopkins is a graphic designer at the Fanshawe Student Union (FSU) and entering his third year as a Graphic Design student at the college.

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“Originally I was a business student here at Fanshawe,” Hopkins said. “I finished that and I realized that I enjoy the business program here but I wanted to explore the creative side of things so I landed on Graphic Design. I just like the way it’s kind of a meld between business and arts so I get to be creative on a daily basis but I also get to focus on things like marketing. It’s the best of both worlds for me.”

Hopkins designs posters for the FSU and is hoping to join a graphic design firm in London in the future.

“I really enjoy taking people’s ideas, because a lot of people have great ideas and it’s not necessarily the designer’s job all the time to come up with ideas, and I love letting people execute on their ideas,” Hopkins said. “So if you have a great idea but you can’t execute it on the computer, you come to us.”

Briana Brissett is also a graphic designer at the FSU and a third-year Graphic Design student.

“I had already tried out college, I came straight out of high school, and it was important for me to find something that I was going to love and I could also have growth in,” Brissett said. “Definitely getting into art and technology, mixing those two together was one of the main reasons.”

A graphic design career is a flexible career as graduates fill positions like product designers, website designers, branding designers, print designers, publishing designers, environmental designers, animation designers and more in-house positions. For example, a growing number of graphic designers work in multimedia applications like motion graphics.

“Anyone looking to spark their creativity and find out what they want to do in the technology space, in the art space or business, I feel like graphic design works for a lot of different areas. And you can use it to have fun as well, it’s education.”

Click here to learn more about Fanshawe’s Graphic Design program.