Candace Urquiza is a graphic designer based in the D.C. metro area. She has an Associate degree in Animation from Delaware College of Art and Design and a Bachelor’s degree in Design from Maryland Institute College of Art. She currently works for the Virginia-based toy company ThinkFun.
You can follow her work at candace-urquiza.net
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
In the beginning, at DCAD [Delaware College of Art and Design], I was doing animation. Animating–it’s just redrawing the same thing over and over again. It got really tedious and boring, and I was slowly losing interest. I love to draw, but not like that.
In my second year, I lived with six other people, and sometimes we would be working in different areas, and we'd see each other's projects and talk about them. One of those people was a graphic designer. She was working on a project, and the prompt was to create package design for chocolate. I thought to myself, “That's so cool.” What was even cooler was that you could put anything you want on it, you put your branding on it, put your name–market yourself. As an artist, that's amazing. That's how you get into people's hands.
That was my moment. I started dabbling in what I thought was graphic design, which wasn't really graphic design. I was an animator trying to be a graphic designer at the time. I’d take a piece of cardboard, a box from a case of soda or something, and cut it up, add pieces and illustrations. That was my intro to design–just having fun, you know?
Yes. That's where design and product development merged for me. That's what I'm doing now. Product managers and developers actually come up with the construction of the thing, and the designer is supposed to apply graphics that function.
I am always trying to design for a function or reason, not just pushing things around. I want to make it look pretty, you know, but everything should serve a purpose. Why are you placing this here? Why are you putting this there?
Studying animation and illustration, there is a balance that you learn. If you're scanning over a piece your eye follows a certain pattern, follows the shapes and composition. This is very similar to design, just translated to a different language. The concepts are the same. It's massaging your design or your illustration to fit, whether something's too much, or whether you want to push something back or pull something forward.
“Everything [in design] should serve a purpose. Why are you placing this here? Why are you putting this there?”
Yeah. With my personal stuff, I'll ask my husband, like, does this look stupid? What does this look like to you? It's good to ask non-designers because they're the ones that are going to be looking at your stuff. If the only issue is, you know, this should be a little to the left–if the things that you’re nitpicking are things only another designer will pick up then you're fine.
Professionally, I do like to get feedback from my coworkers, especially if it's a larger project. I like to get their opinions as seasoned designers, because there's things that they will see that they have come through and within their own experience that I have never considered.
I really appreciate having an art director to help guide me. If I'm told, “Do whatever you want,” that’s just too much pressure. My director makes me think about things that I didn't consider or pushes me in a certain direction. He starts talking about an idea, and I'm like, “Oh my gosh, I can see it in my head, and I love it!” I get motivated, and I can really dive into it.
My tendency is to go big. Go whole-hog, go crazy. Then somebody will offer critique, tell you, “Hey, that’s a little horsey,” and you can pull it back. But it’s always going to be harder to push it further than to pull it back.
[Laughs] Definitely the former. I had to work up some confidence.
You get your first new job, right, and you don't want to mess it up. You want to appear a certain way; you don’t want to be too much. But the more that you work, the more you learn. You win some battles and lose some wars and, ideally, you gain confidence either way. Because you can learn from the failures, and you should definitely celebrate the victories.
“My philosophy is to go big. Go whole-hog, go crazy… It’s always going to be harder to push it further than to pull it back.”
Oh, gosh. That’s a big question.
I suppose–and it sounds so cliché, but it’s true–have fun. Don’t hold yourself back. In school, my design was different from other people's. At a traditional art institution, they train you to try to be a “New York City” graphic designer. They know other types of design exist, but they're very partial to one. They’re preparing you to go to New York, California, the big cities where designers live, so they’re teaching students a particular feeling and aesthetic. Everything is very corporate, very minimal. I can't tell you a designer at my school that was creating game-style artwork. It was all “high-brow” design, so I just fell into that. I always thought that I had to be a “New York City” designer.
Then, as I found the things I actually like–I realized, you know what, I really freakin’ love video games! I like playing board games! I love that big bold artwork. And I stopped holding myself back from doing what I love. I found this really cool job doing this thing that I never thought I would get to do, and it launched my whole career.
As opposed to getting into something just because you feel like that's what designers do, and that’s the norm–do the weird thing. Even if it's not what other people may understand, even if you think it's like not going to be the popular thing. If it makes you happy, and you like it in your portfolio: that's what should matter.
