Various products I have worked on in the last 28 years through my career as a graphic designer.
Good day everyone. I thought I would talk about how I got started at being a creative. When I was young I always loved music, art, dance along with many other things that were creative but I didn’t get into being a graphic designer until I got married and was looking for a job. I started off at a newspaper that did things the old fashioned way with paste up boards and cut out letters, borders and other graphics. That was a fun job because the newspaper had to do with horses and I love horses.
From there I moved to designing kits for a housing development. I did the layout for the housing specs to purchase a home, the layout of the home and any and all materials that people needed to decide if they wish to buy the home from this developer. This too was a pretty cool job because I got to see the houses they built at the time which were for retirees.
I took a break from this type of work to have a baby girl that is now 24 years old. Once she was two years old I got a job at a game company, Westwood Studios (which was bought by Virgin Games and eventually Electronic Arts), and that was a pretty awesome job. I worked with the producers of the games to create marketing materials to promote the game along with game boxes, manuals and anything else they wanted to include for gamers. I did a newsletter for the company that we sent out to those that signed up from the games purchased.
I moved on to a printing company that did several of there own tourist magazines for the Las Vegas area as well as took on other magazines to be printed. I handled preflight of those magazines to check them for problems before we created the films for the printer. Eventually the company designed a magazine from scratch for Nevada Woman and I got to be part of that team. It was high pressure with deadlines but also a lot of fun.
In 1995 I decided I could do this type of work on my own and created my design company. I took on various small jobs for a while so that I could spend more time at home with my daughter until she went to school. We then moved to Pahrump, NV and I did the stay at home wife, mother role until 2000.
I had the opportunity to be a part of creating a magazine for tourist in Las Vegas called Vegas Visitor. That magazine was produced weekly and I was able to work that around being a wife and mother. In 2001 the same publisher decided to take over a magazine called Trip Sheet Magazine, which is a transportation publication for those that drive taxi’s, limos and shuttle buses in Las Vegas. This publication was a monthly one and so I was doing five magazines a month all from my home. We utilized email, phone calls and regular mail to get things back and forth. It was a busy time but it was also a fun time. I felt energized by producing so many publications each month. Eventually, the Vegas Visitor publication was dropped because it wasn’t producing enough revenue, which left me with the one publication that I still work on monthly even today.
While working as a graphic designer I also began taking photographs more as a hobby and to experiment with my camera when advertisers needed something for an ad. I got the opportunity to video half a dozen weddings and take the photographs for two of them. I enjoyed that because I was creating memories for others on that special day. Video editing turned out to be a lot of fun and something that wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be. I now dabble with that from time to time but no longer do wedding videos. I decided photography was more my thing and now focus on the things I love, which are my daughter, pets, wild life, flowers and landscapes.
My husband and mother-in-law are both artists and due to that I opened a gallery in 2006 in Pahrump. We had 800 sq ft of space but I managed to construct walls and an arrangement that allowed us to have over 200 pieces of artwork from local artists as well as my husband and mother-in-law in the gallery. Due to unforeseen circumstances with the building we had to close just a year later. Then the economy took a hit and it was not something the town could support so I did not reopen it elsewhere.
Another great opportunity presented itself when I was asked to write a column in the magazine I was working on. That turned into two columns each month and I have been writing in the publication for a couple years now. Guess I can say I’m published. Writing for the magazine made me realize I enjoyed writing along with my photography. I’m now working on a couple books around my other obligations.
These are just the highlights to my life. All of these baby steps have guided me to where I am today. Now I have my own photography site and images to share with others that I hope will inspire and bless each person. 2015 promises to be a more productive year with new photographs available to be purchased and the books I am writing completed and published.
I could say I was lucky to fall into such great jobs to develop my creative side, but I like to think God had a hand in conducting my life to where it needed to be. Thank you for reading! Have a Blessed Day!
