Christian Alejandre

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Design Interests

How Design Sparked My Interest
Since I was about twelve years old I’ve had a love for graphic design, even though I hadn’t truly realized it at that point. I had always taken an interest in the process behind my favorite album covers and movie posters and wondered what it’d be like to do something like that myself. As I started to grow up, I became active in blogs and forums online and noticed that some people used those places as their outlets for their own fan-made designs for their favorite singers and bands. It was cool to see a fan’s vision of an album cover I had known and loved, as well as the feedback other people would give them, so I figured I would try. I started out on Microsoft paint (which was obviously a tragedy), eventually grew up to a program called GIMP, and then discovered Photoshop. During a talk with my guidance counselor my freshman year of high school, I mentioned my passion for design when she asked about what I was thinking about doing after getting out of high school (I know, a weird question to ask so early). From there, she recommended that I join a vocational program where I would take design classes for 3 hours a day, and my regular academics the other half of the day. I partook in that program from sophomore to senior year and it was probably the best decision I’ve made in my life so far. The class expose me to so many new things and techniques. It was an eye-opener for me at first, because the whole first year was all the basics (drawing, painting, etc.) and no computer whatsoever which I wasn’t used to. Through the class, I entered and won various state-wide competitions and designed the yearbook cover for my school my senior year. All of these things really helped me grow not only as a designer, but as a person as well. I was taught to not take things to heart because not everybody is going to love everything you do, and that criticism is only there to help you, not to bring you down. On the other side of that, though, It truly does feel fantastic to get recognition for doing something that you love. Overall, the class really reinforced my passion for the field, and also helped me confirm that it was definitely what I wanted to pursue in college.

Advertising Design
The field of design that I’m most interested in is advertising design, mostly because that’s what I’ve had the most experience in. Advertising Design is the integration of type and image to strengthen a concept and portray a message. We see examples of this everywhere we look, whether it’s in stores, on a billboard, on a poster in the student center, etc. I like this field because I think it’s cool to see the various ways artists portray their messages to the public, and I would love to get some of my own out there one day.

Package Design
Another field I’ve taken an interest in is package design. I was able to touch upon this field in my high school design class, where I was given a random item that I had to design a package for. My item was a bulldog clip, and I decided I wanted it to look like the roughest, toughest bulldog clip around (because of the name), so my packaging portrayed a cage with danger signs around it promoting it’s “toughness”. I thought it was pretty nifty at the time. That’s the thing about package design that I like – if you want to sell a product, the design surrounding it needs to be “nifty” or have a sort of “wow factor” to grab the consumer’s attention. That in itself comes as a fun challenge to me.