Jordan Fisher, visual arts, discovered a nurturing environment in commonvision, UMBC’s student design and print center, where he could apply the graphic design skills he learned in his academic courses. There, he found mentors—Emma Hagen ’14, Laura Schraven, and Katie Chrzanowski ’07—who sustained him throughout his undergraduate experience.
Q: How did you decide to come to UMBC?
A: It was pretty straightforward for me. I started thinking about college when I was in high school. I went to Sollers Point Technical High School in Dundalk, Maryland, and that had a program where I could spend half the day at the Community College of Baltimore County (CCBC) during my senior year. Then I got into the CCBC honors program and from there it was guaranteed admission into various colleges. I picked UMBC because the location worked and because it had a design program that I liked.
Q: How did you choose your major?
A: It was kind of spontaneous. I transferred from CCBC with an associates degree in computer science, but I figured out during my last semester at CCBC that I didn’t want to do computer science. It was around this time that I started drawing a lot, and I stumbled upon some YouTube videos teaching graphic design. So I binged those for a good week or a month then, and I started making some designs of my own. This would have been in 2019 or 2020. It just felt like something that I really liked doing, and something that I wanted to know a lot more about. But risky—riskier than computer science probably! I didn’t quite know what graphic design was when I was getting into it and feeling it out, but I felt like it just came to me.
Q: Who has helped you along your academic journey?
A: Definitely all my supervisors at commonvision—Emma Hagen, Laura Schraven, and Katie Chrzanowski. They’ve all been instrumental to my growth professionally and academically here at UMBC. As far as professors go, I would say Guenet Abraham—a big influence in my academic training, and the first graphic design professor I had. Our relationship continues—we still run into each other and catch up. Her teachings have influenced my work a lot.
Q: What are you most proud of from your time at UMBC?
A: I’m proud of the skills I’ve gained and the work that I’ve done. If there was one particular thing that I would be proud of the most, it would be my work for UMBC Review. I did the design for the 24th volume of the UMBC Review a couple years ago, and that was a monumental task, partly because I made it a monumental task for myself. I really pushed myself on that, and I’m really happy with the result.
Q: What has been the best part of your UMBC experience?
A: In these last couple years, I’ve really opened up and met a lot more people who maybe I had been just acquaintances with before. Now I feel much more personally connected to the people around me every day. I’ve really enjoyed getting to know everybody in my design classes. Also, commonvision has enabled me to gain real-world design experience and create work that has had a lasting impact on the campus community.
Q: What advice would you give to an incoming graphic design student?
A: Try to see your classmates as your network of friends, not as people with whom you’re competing in the job market. Chances are they’re probably lovely people, so just be sociable. You can’t really design in a vacuum or make art in a vacuum, so you have to build connections with the people who are around you, who are experiencing the same things that you’re going through, and get inspired from their work as well. So make those connections.
Q: Do you have a favorite graphic designer? Is there someone whose work inspires you?
A: I really admire a lot of the work that my classmates do. If I were to name professional designers, I would say I’ve really enjoyed listening to designers Kel Lauren and Elliott Ulm. They have a podcast I was actually just listening to just now. Their perspectives on graphic design are really eye opening to me, and their design work is great.
Q: What’s next for you after you graduate? What are your plans and aspirations?
A: I would definitely like to work in a place like commonvision—a design studio where you have multiple clients. It’s not an in-house studio—It’s just whoever comes to you, because I like that kind of variety.
Tags: CAHSS, visual arts