Starting any new job is as exciting as is nerve-wracking. If you forgot (or are compartmentalizing that chapter), let me assist by setting the scene… Around the coffee machines, you’ll hear unfamiliar names spoken with respect — borderline reverence. Acronyms will be quickly recited as if they’re being merely invented…

Undervaluing your work will hurt more than it will shield you — Presenting your design work is an opportunity to share and convince an audience of the rigor of your thinking and the application of your ideas. Whether it’s informal, with team members gathered around your desk, or formal, with company executives around a polished conference table, a presentation is your time…

Feeling defensive towards feedback can be a natural response. Work you’ve put hours into is being criticized by people who don’t have your same level of context or project knowledge. It’s easy to take this feedback personally (they don’t like me, so of course they’re tearing up my work) but…

During my first semester of design school, I became transfixed with the textbook Branded Identity. Turning its pages, I repeatedly saw the names Ivan Chermayeff, Tom Geismar and Sagi Haviv: the creative trio behind Chermayeff, Geismar & Haviv (CGH), a New York based design firm behind some of the world’s…

I like feedback. Maybe it’s because in design school, I was encouraged to depend on critique to develop my projects. I feel more comfortable knowing exactly where I stand with someone, opposed to being trapped in an ambiguous fog of indecision and “I guess”-es. How else are you supposed to…

A Reflection on the Design Process for Kent State University’s Class of 2017 Visual Communication Design Senior Show I think that most design students in our program have at least once thought ahead to the branding of their senior show. The show represents the graduating BFA class (bachelor of fine…