Welcome to TalkGraphics Anna

I graduated in 1967 from Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles (now in Pasadena, a suburb of Los Angeles) in 1967 with a major in advertising design. I worked for 15 years as an advertising art director and then had my own graphic design company in San Francisco for 12 years.

Art Center back then was jokingly referred to as an "art factory" as the primary focus was on a professional education taught by people who actually worked in the industry. It was intense training and only one in 15 students who started graduated.

The excellent reputation of the school was such that I had two job offers before I graduated.

On the other hand, when I met my wife after I had been in the business for about 4 years, she asked how she could get into advertising. I said to go through magazines, find ads that were not very good and make them better. She did this and after a month or so had put together a student portfolio of ads she had rewritten with head lines, copy, and rough layouts. I sent her to a few people I knew and she got hired as a junior copywriter in a major national ad agency in Los Angeles. She also worked in the business for about 10 years and then we formed our design company together.

I was hired to work on Datsun (today Nissan) right after I finished my military service and I worked on that account at a smallish ad agency that had grown with the account. It was so much fun to not only get paid for doing what I really loved doing, but also not to have to stay up every night until one or two in the morning doing homework for the next days classes.

My advice is always do more than is expected or asked for in the assignment. If your instructor says do 3 designs do 12 designs. More is always better because it gives you more to chose from when you turn in your assignment. Learn from what the best people in the industry are doing and try to match their creativity and design excellence.