Yesterday I was 18 and preparing to deliver one of the commencement speeches at my high school graduation.
Yesterday I was 18 and cried through my whole speech.
I had the honor of creating a decal for one of my favorite graduates as we prepare to come together to celebrate this time in his life. I haven't known KD too long, but I feel like he's been part of my family for longer, and not just him--his whole family, and vice versa.
When I was a senior in high school, purchasing your graduation announcements from Jostens was still a thing, coming up with class colors, a motto, and a flower were still 'a thing.' Are those 'things' that still 'a thing?' -or- was that just 'a small town thing?' Someone help me out on this one. (seriously)
...anyway--when I graduated it was not as cool as it is now. NOW people plan their parties around their friends' parties, there are more options than the traditional Jostens announcements, and graduates have branched out from just cake. KD is doing milk and cookies and the decals are going on the bags--I mean--C O M E O N--how cool is this idea? For my graduation party, I went with the usual cake, and liked it. I love cake.
When I was approached about this, I immediately had an idea, and brought it to life. The first step was to find a photo of KD with his portrait just right, once I did that, I took to my handy #pentool in #AdobeIllustrator and began outlining the whole portrait, then his face, and finally his glasses. I had intentions of continuing on, but before I could finish, I might have posted a sneak peek on my Instagram and he liked it so much, we left it as it was. I added the year--because he's a senior, and that's an obligatory detail. KD is one of the most talented people I've met, so color was important. In all my Illustrator projects I use different colors for different layers to keep myself organized, but this time the color choices actually became more of a dual-purpose since the "sneak peek" ended up being the final product.
All the congratulations to the 2018 graduates. My words of wisdom--always do your best, always follow your heart, be kind to others, laughter always helps.