Jessy Castillo

I started my freelance design business a couple of years ago but recently felt like I had hit a wall in terms of skill development and creative thinking, and it showed. I was struggling to figure out how to elevate my craft, positioning, and even backend management. Though I had watched numerous online tutorials, read tons of articles, and doom-scrolled through who knows how many reels, I still didn't feel like I'd found the resources and community I was looking for. The Graphic Design Course felt like an all-in-one wonderland: an online community and cohort of fellow students, a truly robust curriculum, and so many resources on how to revamp my entire process.

I learned about myself in the business section of the course. It was so illuminating! I built my freelance practice through a very stitched-together process, picking up what I had learned from friends and tutorials online, and it was working decently enough. Once I completed the Business section of the course, however, I felt so inspired and empowered to completely redo my entire backend infrastructure, from how I price out work to how I project manage everything. It was the reset I needed, and the tools provided by the course made this housekeeping feel way less overwhelming.

I really enjoyed the branding assignments and getting to build out identities for dream projects. They allowed me to be more imaginative, playful, and daring without the weight of presenting to a real-life client, and they helped me better identify what types of projects and industries I do want to take on as a designer. Receiving feedback from the teachers (tysm Mindy and Sarah!) and my cohort also helped me see gaps I'd been missing in my own work and how to ask better questions internally as I build out concepts. I walked away wanting to do so many more spec projects as a way to sketch out ideas and build up my skill sets.

My advice for anyone thinking of taking the course is to use two screens (if you have them, like an iPad + laptop or similar combo)! One for the videos and one for doing the exercises. This helped me SO much with being able to watch and work at the same time without sacrificing workspace real estate. Also, definitely connect with other students in your cohort or who are actively working on the course. It helped so much to see what other folks were designing and learn from their thought and creative processes. We formed a micro community, and I'm truly grateful for the folks I met during this course!

The recruiter call and portfolio review process has been everything! Knowing what to share in a portfolio, what details recruiters are looking for, and how to better tell the story of each project in an efficient and engaging way is so instrumental. I now have a portfolio I'm proud of and a clearer idea of how to position myself when sharing my work, either as a studio taking on clients or as an independent designer looking for in-house opportunities.