Alumni Profile: Dustin Wood |
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Hometown: La Harpe, IL How does it feel to be a professional designer: I feel like a celebrity in a way. It's always fun to tell people what I do, and what projects I've worked on. It's a cool feeling to see someone's eyes light up when they tell you that they've seen that project before. How do you like your job: After working at a wide range of places, I have found that I like the smaller firms much better. Its more personal, and you have more of a say in what goes into the design. When I was working at Borders corporate headquarters as an interactive designer, I was one of 1200 employees. And I only knew 10 of them by name. When finished with a project, 7 different people internally had to approve the design. And if this was a design for an exclusive partnership with Borders, it had to go through several approval stages with them too. I've worked at an advertising firm of about 20 employees, a large corporation with an in-house creative staff of about 60, and now am working at a small design firm of 6 people. I like the stuff I get to work on now. It's not too repetitive. In one day I could be working on coding a website, laying out print ads, and editing a video. Stuff like that keeps me more engaged and connected to the whole design process, as opposed to doing the same thing day after day. How did you get this job: I had been working for an adverting agency
called Communica, Inc. What are you doing for fun? I have started my own e-commerce store called Hanger3.com. This
has been a fun project so far. I started with the idea of trying to
come up with a unique product that no one else is selling. It was
challenging, and ended up being very rewarding. With the first year of
the site being live, I was published on several major blogs, featured
in Real Simple magazine, shown on the CBS Early Show, and was
published in HOW Design Magazine What was the most exciting project you've worked on since graduation: It was a campaign for an all-boy Catholic school at Communica. I had previously done a direct mail piece with a grunge theme that they really liked. To my surprise, they wanted a whole campaign revolved around this style, because their previous conservative and clean-cut campaign just wasn't getting the attention of potential future students. So being the only staff designer at this time, I was put in charge of the whole design concept. I had to create a 20-page 8.5 x 11 brochure, several direct mail postcards, a 30-second TV spot, and a 10-second cinema slide. Unknown to my previous employer, I was using this as a major portfolio piece to help me find a new job. I would work on it all day at work, and then take it home to work on it some more. The campaign was a total success. After the first postcard was sent out, the phones were ringing off the hook at the school. Students then started collecting all the different postcards to hang in their lockers. And the client wanted more. They came up with the budget to do even more pieces than they had previously asked for. But by that time, I was already on my way to Borders. The whole project was a great learning experience. I also picked up After Effects as a new skill. And the best part was, I paid $10 to go see a movie, just to see my cinema slide play. Best feeling ever...so far. What were some of the most important things you learned while at Parkland: That you cannot learn everything from school. Parkland gives you the foundation that you need, but you need to take ownership of your own education. And I did not realize that when I first started. In the beginning, I did the minimum that was required, never expanded on anything, and never looked at new resources. But then it hit me, and I started figuring things out on my own. I would finish most of the in-class exercises ahead of time, so that I can learn something new that wasn't going to be taught. Don't expect that just by being in the design program, you're going to be an award-winning designer. You need to outdo yourself everyday.
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(Champaign IL)
along with classmate and fellow
Parkland Alumni Barry Abrams (