Welcome to Cecilia Feliciano, the new Senior Graphic Designer at Ross Creative Works! She will be sharing her skills and expertise in print and web design as well as strategy development. Below is an interview to help you get to know her:

What got you interested in graphic design?
When I was a kid, I watched a lot of tv – it was sort of a bonding moment for my family. For whatever reason, I was always drawn to the commercials. I would say “when I grow up, I want to be the one that makes the graphics on tv”. Later, when college came around, I got a better understanding of what marketing and advertising was and I knew exactly what I wanted my major to be. In college, I started my first year in the marketing program, but as I sat through what felt like endless business classes, I realized… this is not it. I wanted to be on the creative side of things. I wanted to make things! After multiple conversations with my advisor, she introduced me to the visual communications course. I fell in love. This was it! I was never introduced to graphic design prior to this, but it had been what I was longing to do for all that time. The rest is history…

What type of design is most exciting to you?
I think that UI/UX design is incredibly interesting and exciting! It focuses on the user’s visual experience of elements on screen, and I believe as technology continues to advance, this is the way of the future. Soon everything is going to be digital, and it’s going to be really fun watching design evolve in this space.

What does good design mean to you?
“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” — Steve Jobs

When I think about design, I always think about this quote. As a designer my job is to make sure the design is useful and understandable. Good design solves a problem. Good design has a purpose. Good design has a flow. Good design is always what I strive for!

Favorite color?
This is a tough question – I feel like my favorite color is constantly changing. When I was younger, my favorite color was red. I was always drawn to it. Then as I got a little bit older, my favorite color was blue. There was something nice about the calmness that blue represented. Now, I will say that my favorite color is a mix between blue and green. Ask me again in a couple years and I’m sure I’ll have a different answer. 🙂

What experience do you bring to your role?
I started my design career working at a company that curated music festivals and concerts across the Chicagoland area. This taught me a ton about not only the music industry, but taught me a lot about the process of a project – being able to see things from start to finish. After my experience there, I started working as a graphic designer for an agency that specialized in with pharmaceutical companies. There I really developed my skills in working with multi-page documents and setting documents up for production/printing.

If someone asked me my specialty, I would say that I am particularly good at one-off print pieces and multi-page documents, but I’m starting to take a deep dive into the digital space which is super exciting. I do very well with handling multiple deliverables in a campaign and keeping track of all the moving parts, which requires a lot of attention to detail and organization skills. I also take pride in being extremely hard working and the fact that I can adapt quickly to any scenario that is tossed my way.