The designer I am today

Somewhere in my childhood and youth, the seeds were planted that made me the designer I am today

I grew up in a cultured home, with foreign education and manners. Diasporic habits, a bit Polish. My parents, my four sisters, and I, the youngest of the bunch, were born in America. Some of us in the US, some in Mexico, and we immigrated to Israel in the seventies when I was 8, for purely Zionist reasons.

At home, we were taught to love and appreciate art, aesthetics, classical music, literature, and creation.

During elementary school, I loved to draw (what child doesn't?) and create. I loved coloring books with colored pencils with endless patience and a tendency to "stay within the lines."

In middle school, I loved copying models from fashion magazines into my sketchbook. I especially remember the asymmetrical eighties haircuts and the crazy hair colors that caught my attention, as well as the ability to "makeup" the illustrated models' faces with colored pencils however I saw fit.

That is When It Clicked

As a quiet, good, and introverted girl, it took an unplanned situation for us all to realize that I had a talent for drawing.

This situation happened during a family visit to Mexico, about ten years after we moved to Israel. We were sitting in my grandmother's living room. Out of a lack of interest in the adults' conversation or just pure boredom, I took a notepad and a pen that was next to the phone, sat on the floor in front of my grandmother, and without anyone noticing, I simply drew her.

I drew her on a small note meant for messages, 8 by 8 cm, using a ballpoint pen.

Without intending to, the drawing came out very realistic. I surprised even myself. I was so excited. A feeling of butterflies in my stomach and immense satisfaction crept into my mind, heart, and my entire body.

Blushing, I showed the note to my parents, and I surprised and moved them too. That was the moment when, with their encouragement and support, we decided that this potential must be realized!

The Seeds of the Designer I Am Today

A few weeks later, I was already enrolled in an art class at the studio of a patient of my father's. Like clockwork, I took the bus after school, twice a week, from north Tel Aviv to Raanana, listening to Terence Trent D'Arby's cassette on my Walkman over and over again, all the way to Gabi and Hanita Ben Zano's studio.

There, in that small, family run studio, the seed was planted that grew into the designer I am today.

"I discovered the love for creation that comes from within, the satisfaction that is hard to describe in words when I looked at the poster board or canvas at the end of the class and felt truly, deeply proud that these were my drawings!"

There, in Gabi and Hanita's studio, that same feeling of satisfaction and excitement I felt in my grandmother's living room in Mexico repeated itself. I discovered the love for creation that comes from within, the satisfaction that is hard to describe in words when I looked at the poster board or canvas at the end of the class and felt truly, deeply proud that these were my drawings!

Graphics?

In Gabi and Hanita's studio, I heard for the first time a concept I didn't know: "Graphics."

It was Hanita, a wonderful painter, from whom I learned to observe with my eye, translate to my hand, and sketch objects and compositions in various techniques, which ignited in me over and over again that same great sense of satisfaction from my creation.

"In the classes where we painted realistic, clear paintings, I celebrated. In the classes where we painted abstract paintings, I agonized and suffered."

One conversation that I remember well opened up an intriguing and amazing world that drew me in with enthusiasm. In that conversation, Hanita told me something along the lines of, "I think studying graphics would suit you..."

Graphics? I repeated the word in my head. What is graphics? As an introverted and very shy teenage girl, I didn't ask what it was, but I kept the word in the right drawer in my mind.

In 12th grade, I signed up for painting classes at the Tel Aviv Museum, and there, slowly, that drawer in my mind opened, and I understood what Hanita meant and why graphics could be a perfect fit for me.

In the classes where we painted realistic, clear paintings, I celebrated. In the classes where we painted abstract paintings, I agonized and suffered.

Let me be in control with a pencil, charcoal, or colored pencils, and I am in seventh heaven! Let me flow with oil or acrylic paints with a brush, and I am lost.

Give me a concept, give me clear symbols to use, give me a clear message to convey! Give me meaning to things, let me do graphic design. Studying Graphic Design Suits Me!

Graphics is an umbrella term for all arts based on drawing a shape: writing, drafting, sketching, painting, printing, carving, engraving, and more. That is what I was drawn to, that is what I loved, and I decided to turn it into a profession.

In the army, I served close to home and in shifts, which allowed me to work for two full years in my free time on preparing a graphic design portfolio. One on one, with the guidance of a designer who was a teacher at Gabi and Hanita's studio, I built a portfolio. With it, I went to various design schools in Israel to try and get accepted into design studies right after my discharge from the army (I came from a home with Polish tendencies, remember, there is no time to waste).

And so it was. Three months after my discharge from the IDF, I started studying graphic design at "Vital". There, during a "Techniques" class, I returned to the small note with the ballpoint pen sketch of my grandmother and recreated it, this time using a carving and printing technique the teacher called "linocut."

Design is a way of life, a point of view

Towards the end of my studies at "Vital", I worked my first job as a graphic designer at the "Hadashot" newspaper. There, I learned and sharpened my layout skills, composition building, love for letters and typography, image processing, and color selection. Upon graduating, I started working as a graphic designer in a small design studio in Tel Aviv.

After two years in the studio, which was another school for my personal development as a designer, I packed my bags, and together with my partner Etai, we flew to New York. There, during four wonderful years, I completed a master's degree in visual communication design and worked as a freelance graphic designer in amazing places and agencies that made it completely clear to me that I had caught the design bug.

Paul Rand, a great American designer, once said: "Design is a way of life, a point of view." He was right about every single word.