ILLUSTRATION BY LIZ BIGHAM

Wednesday, March 27, 2019 // The Statement 

My 
first 
experience 
with 
graphic design was in seventh 
grade, recklessly using Adobe 
Photoshop to cut out blurry pho-
tos of volleyball players for my 
middle school newspaper. In my 
ninth grade journalism class, my 
first Adobe Illustrator assign-
ment consisted of inserting a 
picture of Nick Jonas and splat-
tering paint and blades of grass 
around him. Now here I am today, 
building on the skills I first started 
developing in seventh grade, as a 
designer for The Michigan Daily.
I truly thought my journalism 
career was going to end after 
high school. After years of being 
an editor for my high school’s 
weekly newspaper, I was worn 
out from dealing with the control-
ling high school administration 
and late Monday nights at school. 
However, when I got to college, I 
felt myself yearning for the chaos 
of the newsroom. My retirement 
from journalism lasted a mere 
four months because, by the end 
of September, I applied and was 
accepted as a layout designer for 
The Daily.
I chose to continue with the 
design 
aspect 
of 
journalism 
because it is what I know and 
like best. During high school, I 
can shamelessly admit I devot-
ed most of my efforts towards 
improving my paper’s design as 
opposed to the writing. A news-
paper with strong design differ-
entiates itself from others and 
leads people to read the stories 
inside.
When I say I am on The Michi-

gan Daily staff, people assume I 
must be a writer. After clarifying 
I am on The Daily’s design sec-
tion and getting an excited reac-
tion, I feel like people look at me 
differently. They assume I am 
artistic. Although I am a graphic 
designer, I can say without hesi-
tation that I have never consid-
ered myself an artist. I think that 
is why I didn’t give up on journal-
ism when coming to college — I 
wanted to continue to call myself 
a designer, a label I would never 
hold if I never practiced graphic 
design. It brings me such confi-
dence to be associated with an 
identity that consists of such cre-
ative, unique and inspiring indi-
viduals.
Most of the graphic design I 
do is layout. When I come in to 
design on Tuesdays, I first get a 
sense of the stories, photos and 
graphics I will be working with 
for the issue. Most of my time is 
spent brainstorming how I plan 
to arrange the elements in an 
organized and interesting way. 
After that, it is all about execu-
tion. I don’t think of myself as cre-
ating, but rather presenting other 
people’s art. This is why I don’t 
consider myself an artist. Artists 
start from scratch and use their 
creativity to create something 
expressive. For me, I am given 
other people’s work — usually 
articles — and display their writ-
ing in an appealing way. I feel an 
obligation to do everything in my 
power to make sure their writing 
is read and appreciated by those 
who pick up the newspaper.

A layout designer’s work can 
easily go unnoticed because we 
don’t get an explicit credit next to 
the work we do, unlike writers and 
illustrators. There is a lot of effort 
behinds the scenes. So much 
skill and diligence comes with 
knowing how to utilize Adobe’s 
software as well as coming up 
with a variance of design styles 
to complement each story. The 
work never gets boring. I have 
been doing this for more than five 
years and still learn more about 
graphic design every time I open 
up an Adobe product.
Sometimes when the design 
section is in urgent need of an 
illustration, my editors will ask, 
“I know you are on layout, but 
do you make illustrations?” and I 
quickly say no. Contrary to what 
I tell them, I do create my own 
graphics — very rarely. I don’t 
lie because I don’t want to make 
one, but because my graphics are 
not good enough to be published 
in The Daily. Like I said earlier, I 
am not an artist and am not good 
at starting from scratch. Portraits 
are the one exception of art I can 
do because it is remaking what is 
already there, which usually con-
sists of me tracing over a picture 
of a celebrity I get from the inter-
net. I simply transform a photo 
into a graphic without anything 
new being created.
The illustration above was the 
first graphic I ever made that 
wasn’t meant for a publication. I 
remember seeing a photo of the 
model and actress Cara Delev-
ingne on Instagram and immedi-

ately thinking I wanted to attempt 
to recreate the photo on Illustra-
tor. After using yet another fake 
email to get a free trial of Adobe 
and watching hours of Youtube 
tutorials on how to properly con-
tour skin tones, draw eyelashes 
and mimic bushy eyebrows, I had 
my design complete. I never did 
anything with it besides show-
ing a couple of friends. I didn’t 
even save it on my computer. A 
screenshot on my phone is the 
only evidence of the graphic I 
spent weeks on.
As the slight blurriness of the 
graphic shows, I did not really 
care about keeping the graphic 
because I did not plan on doing 
anything with it. I didn’t think it 
was particularly good. However, 
it is a great representation of my 
progression as a designer and 
is now being printed on a news-
paper distributed all around Ann 
Arbor. I am self-conscious just 
thinking about it. I still don’t think 
it’s good.
Regardless of how hard I can 
be on myself, I am extremely 
grateful to my younger self for 
sticking with graphic design. 
Having an eye for what is visually 
appealing is such a gift that can 
be utilized in all aspects of life. 
Most importantly, being a graph-
ic designer has introduced me to 
a group of like-minded individu-
als with the same interests as 
me. There is nothing I love more 
than bouncing ideas off other 
designers and talking about our 
favorite fonts. I could talk about 
fonts all day.

IN DESIGN: 
embracing the 
identity of a 
designer

BY LIZ BIGHAM, 
STATEMENT DESIGNER

3B

