Passion, Diversity, Design, Dream

My name is Tarahgee Morris and I am a student at Temple who is majoring in advertising with a dual track in art direction and brand strategy.

Diversity is a term with a myriad of definitions. There is the diversity of the mind, physical diversity, emotional diversity, and several others. Working in an Office that specializes in institutional diversity and inclusion, I have acquired knowledge of how diversity impacts and affects college students. I am one of the graphic deign interns for the Office of Institutional Diversity at Temple University. At this office, I work closely with my supervisor to create content that will engage and captivate the student and faculty population. This work consists of designing the layout of an event and campaign presence, formulating the layout of social media campaigns, designing promotional apparel, and creating designs to engage students and faculty. Through this internship, I have learned that design is not a one-step process. To appeal to a larger group of individuals, it takes five to seven steps to achieve a design suitable for many.

From this internship, I realized that I do not want to just pursue graphic design. I love concept visualization and creative direction. I loved building the layout of an event and mapping out the steps with executing the creative concept of the event. Being a graphic design intern, I was just creating the content. I want to build a brief and direct the process of what will be created for the content and layout.

As an advertising major, I thought that my path would consist of going straight to the agency route. This summer of 2019, I will be interning at my first agency, Ogilvy, which is based out in New York. Slowly but surely, I am starting to realize that restriction of what and how I can design my content is something that I am and was never able to work with. It is a daunting and tedious process that restricts that creativity of that designer. I am contemplating creating my own creative content collective then agency so I will be able to work with other creatives who will share their talents with me instead of giving me a strict guideline to follow. After working as a graphic design intern, I am not saying that it was a bad experience. I loved and am still appreciating every bit of the experience that I am receiving from it. In the end, it is one’s choice on what they choose to pursue and whether it aligns with what they want to accomplish in the years to come.

I would like to leave with this quote I like to say to myself. Those who want to strive for work will help develop what is inside of others. Those who want to strive for passion will help to develop what is already inside of themselves.