Trust the process: Meet graphic design student Erin Bush

Growing up, she’s always loved art and being creative. Even the childhood hobby of scrapbooking was a form of graphic design in itself, arranging layouts and picking color schemes.

“Ever since I was little, crayons, markers, paint, anything I could get my hands on,” said Erin Bush, a junior studying graphic design at Rochester Institute of Technology. “I think I've just always had an appreciation for design.”

But, artistically inclined toward other kinds of art, she grew discouraged by her high school art classes, which focused on painting and drawing.

“I thought that's all that art was so I was just like, ‘Oh I can't,’” Bush said. “And that's why I think I kind of moved away from it.”

Bush had no experience in the field prior to college. She took her first design courses during her freshman spring semester at the State University of New York at Brockport, and fell in love.

She knew early on that she wanted to transfer to another school, so worked hard her first year to learn and build up her portfolio.

Bush attributes her diligence as a designer to Professor John Ragone, who drilled the importance of process work. She said he served as a mentor to her.

“I took it seriously,” Bush said, “so I think he kind of took me under his wing because he liked that.”

This process of saving all versions of her work before making revisions has become one of her strengths.

“I don't think I would have prioritized that as much if it weren't for him.”

Upon receiving an assignment, Bush will immediately start imagining ideas and begin sketch out designs before building the design with software.

“Basically it's just revise and revise and sketch some more then put it in your program then you revise it again,” Bush said. “Art is never done. It's just whatever your deadline is or whenever the client is satisfied.”

She said her design process can at times become set back if she gets overwhelmed with too many ideas.

“A lot of times I really do have problems taking what's in my head and I have all these cool ideas and actually making them in real life,” Bush said. “Sometimes there's a disconnect and I think that sets me behind, [thinking] about things too much rather than just doing.

This is where the unique format of an art-based education serves as an advantage, Bush said.

“If I'm stuck between two different designs, I'll just scoot around in my rolling chair and ask people in my class what they think.”

Her projects go through a formal critique from her professors and classmates, and are an opportunity to see what is and isn’t working in a design.

“Critiques are meant to be a positive experience, they're not supposed to be degrading,” Bush said. “They're supposed to be constructive criticism, to improve.”

Bush said she appreciates this as a way of learning, compared to other academic fields where exams might less fully show how much a student has learned. With each design course she takes, she said her skill set continues to develop.

“My taste and my design style and just what I can do with the software has definitely evolved throughout even just the past two years.”

Coming into her junior and senior years, Bush said she will have the opportunity to explore the areas of graphic design where her interests lie: user experience, user interface and packaging design.

“Now it's getting into interactive design… where I can see how to apply the real-world kind of stuff,” Bush said. “So I think that's shifting how I design and how I think about the process of my design.”

Graphic design, which Bush said “is everywhere,” influences people’s decisions and impacts digital user experience. Research, she said, plays an important role in understanding a user’s needs.

“[There’s] a lot of stuff that designers have to think about,” Bush said. “You can really tell when someone has a grasp on whatever their topic [is].”

A good designer, she said, is flexible in the development of their designs, “otherwise their work becomes static.”

“Someone who understands the rules of tradition of design, but is not afraid to break them, and willing to try new things and change with the times.”

"Especially with art and design, you can never stop improving."

She said artists are “creatively expressing” the current coronavirus pandemic and ongoing conversations about racial injustices through their work.

“I think now, a lot of artists and designers are using their voices to really advocate for the social and political climate,” Bush said. “It's very political, but in a good way.”

Anything from posters and pamphlets to infographics and apps are created by designers, yet Bush said she feels artists don’t get the credit they deserve.

“Designers aren't really taken seriously, artists aren't really taken seriously,” Bush said. “Trying to gain in society that same level of respect.”

Bush said she often stays in the library past midnight working on her design projects, noting the effort it takes to make a design a good one.

“I think the biggest thing is just trying to show people who don't understand that… we're not just [doing] arts and crafts,” Bush said. “It takes work, and there's a whole process that goes on behind every design.”

This article was published as a magazine design spread, and can be viewed here.

Since Bush discussed the importance of showing all steps of the design process, the

process for the magazine layout can be viewed here.