By: Jessica Fernandez
A select group of senior and junior-level DTC majors were invited to take up a new professional development opportunity visiting design firms in Portland, Oregon. Aida Must, Eman Ahmed, Austin Wetzel, Lain Bundalian, and Mariah Johnson took a trip from November 2nd – November 4th to learn more about these creative professional firms.
Professors June Sanders & Jacob Riddle accompanied these students and provided tours with multiple design, game, and animation firms. Some of the firms visited were Fisk Projects, Dotdotdash, and Outlet PDX. This was a wonderful opportunity to grow with peers personally and professionally. The trip began with a visit to the Vancouver campus where the DTC students were able to witness the DTC program in effect as students worked together on an archival project for their senior seminar.
Austin, a student who went on this trip provided additional details on his experience at each location they visited as a group. He says that Fisk was the one that he was not only most excited about but impressed by as well. Austin mentions the design studio and how he took note of the compassionate teamwork to create marketing, he found it to be truly inspiring and innovative. The founder and CEO of Fisk, Bijan Berahimi took the time to speak with the students and shared how he started his practice of content creation using his undergrad. Berahimi continued to maintain relationships with his contemporaries that went on to become team members in the business now.
The second location that was visited was Outlet PDX, this was a more intimate experience where students got the opportunity to meet with the sole paid employee at the studio. At Outlet PDX there was a massive range of voices, inspiration, and work as working artists and members of the community collaborated in the riso print-making studio.
Lastly, this group of DTC students visited Dotdotdash. This firm creates digital and physical interactive installments for many famous and financially successful companies.
Their work as designers was leveraged alongside physical and digital creation specialists to obtain final products that are featured in expos and conferences. The fluctuation of project type and scale was astounding for everyone to see.
As the days winded down, they would spend their evenings as a group consuming all the great meals provided, and taking multiple trips to get boba tea. Through this professional opportunity to go to Portland, Oregon for the weekend, students were able to connect with their peers, grow professionally, and get to know what each creative professional firm was all about.