the graphic design school blog

Jacob is a Graphic Design stu­dent, an inspir­a­tion to all stu­dents as a mover and a shaker in the design industry. Jacob’s inter­view is a must read for those won­der­ing how to make the most out of your design stud­ies while still studying.

We asked some hard hit­ting ques­tions (not really) to one of our fav graphic design stu­dents. This boy’s got spunk!

Author: Simone Giorgi for The Graphic Design School
In between tutor­ing stu­dents in The Graphic Design School’s Online Course and writ­ing courses, we thought that we would whip up this little blog entry simply for your view­ing pleasure…Ahhh no sleep for the wicked! Enjoy!

Wel­come to The Graphic Design School Blog. Tell us a little bit about your­self. A brief bio…

Hi, my name is Jacob Cass I am self-employed as a graphic designer, spe­cial­ising in the fields of cor­por­ate iden­tity (logo) design (above pic­tured with Wolda logo design awards “Best of Con­tin­ent” and “Best of Nation”), web design, print design and brand­ing with the major­ity of my time spent design­ing and imple­ment­ing mar­ket­ing pro­mo­tions for small busi­nesses such as logos, web­sites, bro­chures, let­ter­head, busi­ness cards and more.

I am 21 years old and I am Major­ing in Graphic Design. I am based in New­castle, Sydney, Aus­tralia. I won my first freel­ance design job at the age of 16. Since then I have never turned back…

My life is design, I love it and I sur­round myself in it every day.

We are a blog for begin­ners and graphic design stu­dents. Can you share with us the most enjoy­able moment, sub­ject or les­son that you had while studying?

Well, tech­nic­ally I am still a stu­dent, how­ever, of what I have done so far I would have to say that typo­graphy was my most enjoy­able class… It was the most chal­len­ging and also the most eye open­ing. So much of design is made up of type so it is essen­tial to study this as an on going pro­cess… Know­ledge equals power.

How did that moment, sub­ject or les­son shape what you do now?

Well like I said, so much of design is based on typo­graphy so the know­ledge of it really improved a lot of my designs. Upon look­ing back on my earlier designs I real­ise just how… unpol­ished they were. This reminds me of the Joshua tree story found in Robin Wil­li­ams book Non Design­ers Type Book:

Once upon a time, Robin received a tree identi­fy­ing book where you could match a tree up with its name by look­ing at its pic­ture. Robin decided to go out and identify the trees in the neigh­bour­hood. Before she went out, she read through part of the book. The first tree in the book was the Joshua tree because it only took two clues to identify it. Now the Joshua tree is a really weird-looking tree and she looked at that pic­ture and said to her­self “Oh, we don’t have that kind of tree in North­ern Cali­for­nia. That is a weird-looking tree. I would know if I saw that tree, and I’ve never seen one before.”

So she took the book and went out­side. Her par­ents lived in a cul-de-sac of six homes. Four of those homes had Joshua trees in the front yard. She had lived in that house for thir­teen years, and she had never seen a Joshua tree.

She took a walk around the block — at least 80 per­cent of the homes had Joshua trees in the front yards. And she had sworn she had never seen one before!

The moral of the story? Once Robin was con­scious of the tree, once she could name it, she saw could see it every­where. Which is exactly my point. Once you can name some­thing, you’re con­scious of it. You have power over it. You own it. You’re in control.

Describe your style of graphic design in a few words. What kind of advice would you give stu­dents who wish to excel in this style?

I don’t have a style or I don’t try to any­way. I adapt all of my pro­jects to the needs of the brief, which more often than not, requires a dif­fer­ent approach each time. How­ever, in say­ing this, I sup­pose in my I go more for a simple, concept based approach… I believe less is more (in most cases).

Do you use hand drawn tech­niques to help you develop a design. How import­ant is this in your pro­cess as a Graphic designer?

Nearly all of my designs start off with a sketch, or before that, a mind map. This gets all of my ideas onto paper and works great for me because I hon­estly have the memory of a fish. I have one idea, then two seconds later, I’ve already moved onto a totally new idea so yeah sketch­ing is com­puls­ory for me but every­one works in dif­fer­ent ways but remem­ber this… there are no bad ideas, just bad decisions.

Do you keep an ideas journal? If so can we have a sneaky peek?

I used to use just plain paper, but just recently I bought a Mole­skine to track my ideas but no sneak peek for you… you wouldn’t be able to read or under­stand it any­way (I’ve been told I write in another language).

What are your favor­ite web­sites at the moment?

Gmail, Face­book and shame­fully, my own web­site — http://justcreativedesign.com/. I love the dis­cus­sions from the com­munity left in the com­ments area — it really helps me learn as a designer. There are so many tal­en­ted indi­vidu­als out there, it helps to learn off them!

Who are your 5 all time favour­ite graphic designers?

I don’t have any… like I said above, there are so many tal­en­ted design­ers out there — it wouldn’t be fair to list just 5.

What typefaces do you use the most in your designs?

I actu­ally don’t really have a favour­ite and upon look­ing at my designs, I real­ise that I’ve used quite a lot of dif­fer­ent typefaces in my time… But recently I’ve come to like Gill Sans, it’s just so ver­sat­ile and it goes so well with so many other typefaces.

What about your job do you find the most rewarding?

Doing what I love and get­ting paid for it.

A moment to brag… who are your most pres­ti­gi­ous clients?

Pres­ti­gi­ous is a very sub­ject­ive word… I treat all cli­ents on the same level whether they be a local small busi­ness or a huge multi national but if you are after some big name drops how about Wal­greens (America’s largest phar­macy fran­chise), Tup­per­ware, Lay­ers Magazine or the huge book pub­lisher, John Wiley & Sons?

Where do you see your career in five years?

I haven’t had any exper­i­ence at a design stu­dio yet so I guess I see myself work­ing at a small design stu­dio in Sydney some time soon… while freel­an­cing on the side. One day I will open my own studio.

What advice would you give to graphic design stu­dents around the world. About shap­ing a great portfolio?

This is by far the most com­mon ques­tion I get asked so I wrote an art­icle about it with advice from other design­ers too… Advice for graphic design students.

A ques­tion on everybody’s mind… Billy Elliot feels on fire when he dances … how do you feel when you are designing?

Not prob­ably the answer you are after but to tell you the truth, prob­ably pretty cramped from being on the com­puter so long!

Thanks for tak­ing the time to share your exper­i­ences with us… any fam­ous last words?

Keep it real. Get out and enjoy your­self! — Never give up!

Also a big thank you for the oppor­tun­ity to be fea­tured in this inter­view — I hope you’ve enjoyed reading!

If you would like to learn more about Jacob you can visit him on his largely suc­cess­ful blog and website

Just Cre­at­ive Design.
On Just Cre­at­ive Design you will find his per­sonal graphic design port­fo­lio as well as the graphic design blog which provides free graphic design tips, art­icles & resources on all sub­jects of design, ran­ging from, but not lim­ited to; print design, logo design, web design, brand­ing, typo­graphy, advert­ising & more. Jacob also admin­is­ters the web­sites Logo Of The Day and Logo Designer Blog.

Thanks Jacob!