While gaining firsthand experience, she gets offered a job!
Adria Quon
GD 498 • Summer 2023
Graphic Designer
I’m Adria Quon, a recent graduate from the UFV GDD program. I spent the my final semester at UFV taking a practicum course, where I had the opportunity to test and practice my design knowledge and skills in a real job position.
From May 2023 to August 2023, I worked as a graphic designer for Cogcentric, a local company that programs and designs online learning sites to help businesses train their employees. I worked remotely for the entirety of the summer where I attended weekly online meetings with my team from the comforts of my office at home. My tasks consisted of icon design, motion graphics, and web design that would be used across Cogcentric’s learning sites. By the end of my practicum, I accomplished designing a cohesive set of default icons, various gifs to engage learners as they train online, and layout concepts for the learning sites, including a flashcard counter, matching, sorting, and grouping games, and a quiz and
menu layout.
The most challenging part of this practicum was that no other designers were working on this project. As a beginner in my field, I was concerned about my responsibilities as the sole designer. However, my managers understood the basics of design, so they could provide solid guidance and constructive criticism for my work. Through the experience of self-directing, I gained confidence in making design decisions by myself and guiding others to the best design solutions for them.
A second challenge of this experience was designing for real clients; Cogcentric designs their learning sites to be customizable for their clients, and it was hard to accept that our clients had the power to change my original web layouts. However, in a way, it was refreshing to let go of perfectionism and helpful to realize that putting a design out in the world can be changed by anyone who perceives it.
A highlight of my practicum was accomplishing Cogcentric’s vision for their learning sites; for example, my team members had expressed that they had wanted motion graphics for their learning sites for a while. Although I wasn’t super confident with my skills in Adobe AfterEffects, I decided to start with designing a gif of a cannon exploding confetti. My team members’ faces lit up with smiles when I presented the animation, and it was so rewarding to see their excitement when they realized I could design motion graphics.
My biggest takeaway was gaining more knowledge about marketing to clients and getting hands-on experience working as an in-house graphic designer for a company. I am also pleased to say that Cogcentric asked to hire me this fall as a full-time in-house designer! This opportunity is so reassuring for me as a new designer.
I look forward to spending more time honing my personal design process and discovering my best approach to a project. Overall, I am grateful for this practicum experience, and I’m graduating from UFV feeling confident and enthusiastic to jump into the design world!
Adria has a BFA degree with double extended minors in VA & GDD
