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A self-taught graphic designer’s year-long creative marathon.

I began designing at 8 years old, armed with nothing but time, free design software, and a library of YouTube tutorials. I’ve used my design skills to enhance deliverables for school, work, and extracurriculars. While I love bringing my creative spirit to any project, I wanted to invest more time in the honing of my craft.

I’m recently completed the Design 365 challenge (inspired by Janine Heinrichs). For this project, I designed a print-ready poster every single day in 2024. This project was a celebration of consistency in creativity and an affirmation of the belief that true artistic growth comes from embracing the joy of design — even on days when inspiration feels elusive.

Skills at Play

➜ Graphic Design

➜ Layout

➜ Typography

➜ Color theory

➜ Illustration

➜ Copywriting

Tools of the Trade

➜ Adobe Photoshop

➜ Adobe Illustrator

Timeline

➜ 365 days

Collaborators

➜ Solo

The Art of Everyday

12.31.2024

12.30.2024

12.28.2024

12.27.2024

12.22.2024

12.19.2024

12.17.2024

12.15.2024

12.14.2024

12.13.2024

12.08.2024

12.07.2024

12.06.2024

12.05.2024

12.04.2024

12.03.2024

12.02.2024

11.27.2024

11.23.2024

11.22.2024

11.19.2024

11.13.2024

10.12.2024

09.28.2024

09.20.2024

A Look Behind the Scenes...

Step 1

I'd been wanting to work on my layout skills, so I started this design off by creating a grid.

Step 3

The first section I focused on was the album/artist name. I tried several different fonts before landing on this pairing.

During this step, I pay attention to each typeface's tone or "personality." Do they make sense together or are they clashing? Do they feel in harmony with the subject of the design?

I picked a super bold, asymmetrical sans serif for the title because Aminé's music is bold and quirky with slick production. For his name, I chose a handwriting font to add a personal touch (emulating a signature). I skewed it to break up the blockiness of the title and the rest of the design, adding some visual interest.

Step 4

I started trying out pictures of Aminé for the "hero" image. I wanted something bold, but this picture didn't quite work. I planned to arrange the tracklisting to nestle around him (see the red oval placeholder?), but there was too much variation on the side of this picture for that idea to work properly. It would look messy rather than intentional and distribute the white space in an awkward manner.

Step 9

Woodlawn Park is a park in Portland (where Aminé is from). I found a picture of the park's sign and tried to incorporate that to fix the font issues I was having.

I didn't hate the text lockup itself, but I didn't think it matched the tone of the song or worked well with the rest of the poster. As much as I loved the idea of using the font park's sign, I knew that the vast majority of people who would see this poster would never notice the reference. I didn't think sacrificing the design's tone was worth the easter egg in this case.

Step 10

Sometimes good design is knowing when to change your approach. I switched the lyrics and all of a sudden, things really started coming together.

I was able to pull in fonts from the rest of the poster to really tie things together while keeping the tone of the song I was quoting.

A good rule of thumb with design is to limit your fonts to 2-4 per design. Of course, part of the fun of any creative pursuit is knowing when to break the rules -- this just wasn't the time to do so.