Shafia – A talented graphic designer
Shafia had always been unsure of what she wanted as a career but sure she had many options in front of her. Her parents wanted her to be a doctor or engineer but she never had an interest in becoming either of them. Soon she moved to Italy and lived there. Living in Italy was somehow the starting point of her career without her even realizing it. As we all know Italy is very famous for design and all she could see in Italy were those lovely designs. Seeing the exterior signage on billboards all over the town and especially around the famous Piccadilly Circus in central London having so many digital and neon signs made Shafia fall in love with the designs.
So that is how her journey started. According to her when she told her parents about it, she was quite scared as to whether she would stand up to her parent’s expectations or not. But when she won a student award, all of her fears went away and her only focus was to become the best designer.
During her learning journey, she met so many competent people who helped her get to where she is today. Within the industry, she found her mentor who also happens to be her boss. What she loves the most about her mentor is that she really looks up to other people and helps them progress into the careers they have chosen. Her mentor helped her develop an interest in doing more digital work instead of doing drawings and sketching and soon she became an expert in illustration and animation.
In college, she was given so many opportunities to break into the creative industry. She even worked on projects with the BBC where she designed a campaign to present to managers. Similarly, she did some work at Social Chain and Facebook London as well. She even got a rewarding opportunity to work with disabled people through Venture Arts as a designer of their calendar 2022.
So this is how continuous hard work allowed Shafia to improve her skills and become the best graphic designer.
Eftakher Alam – An inspiring freelance designer
2010 was the hardest year for Eftakher when his father suffered a huge loss in his business. There came a time when they didn’t even have money to buy food let alone pay for any other expenses. His family was nearly hand to mouth and that was the exact time when he had to sit for the SSC exam. This was the most valuable exam and his mother faced a lot of problems paying for the fee. She took loans from so many people to pay for my fee. On one side, they were trying to find the money for food to stay alive. While on the other side, his mother was struggling to get him to the SSC exam. He even told his mother to let this thing go but she insisted on sitting in the exam no matter what.
Eftakher was heartbroken and he wanted to support his family so he decided to pick up some tuition and earn something. He even did some odd jobs to help his family. But nothing was enough and eventually, they had to sell their childhood house. Though they were heartbroken yet Eftakher really wanted to support his family and he thought if he had a computer maybe then he can do something. So after many days of trying to convince her mother, she finally gave him the money to buy it.
It took him a lot of time to understand how to use a computer and make money out of it but at that time he thought becoming a developer can help him earn good money. But after wasting 5 months on that, he realized he can never become a developer as he had no interest in this field so he quit becoming a developer.
The next thing he did was to give himself some time to think about what he wants to do with his life. Soon he figured he has a lot of interest in painting and drawing so one of his friends suggested why not become a graphic designer. He gave this idea a thought and realized this was something he can really do. He had no savings left to enroll in a proper institute as he wasted all of it on learning development so what did he do?
He found a Photo Studio where a guy would sit all day long on his computer and do editing on Adobe Photoshop. Since he had no money and nobody would teach him anything for free so every day he stood at the side of a window and watched what the person did. There was no roof upon him as he was standing on the road. He would stand in the sun daily for 2 to 3 hours and learn as much as he could. Then he would go back home and try the very same things on Adobe illustrator. He did that until he became good at it.
Then he realized he could earn money by working as a freelancer. So he created an account on Upwork and started bidding according to his skills. After waiting for 2 months he got his first job. Soon other jobs came in as well and he kept polishing his skills. Then one day he saw a post on Facebook that got his attention so he contacted that person and he started to work with him. That guy taught him to learn creative design and present himself as a professional. Then he created an account on Behance and got his first job and from there everything started to fall into place. This is how Eftakher was able to get to where he is today.
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