Today we’d like to introduce you to Catherine Nixon.
Hi Catherine, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today?
Well, art is something I have always loved. All the women on both sides of my family are creative and artistic so I have been making things my whole life. My little sister and I always did arts and crafts growing up so when it came time to go to college and I had to decide what to study I chose art. I first started at a local community college and chose to study studio art because I did not yet know what I wanted to pursue as a career but knew I loved art. There I ended up earning an associate’s degree for transfer in studio art and originally deciding I wanted to pursue 2D animation. Because of this I decided to attend CSU Northridge because they have a dedicated animation program. During the process of orientation and signing up for the school I discovered their communication design (graphic design) program and ended up studying both animation and design during my first year there. Ultimately, I did decide I liked design more and decided to pursue that as my concentration for my degree. This program taught me a lot about working in the industry and gave me so many opportunities to network and better myself. One of which being IntersectLA, this is a creative agency on campus where I was able to work on a variety of projects for on campus organizations and off campus clients. Here I was able to learn how to work with teams of designers, speak to clients, lead projects, and how to implement the skills I was gaining in the classroom with real people and projects. I have since graduated from the school and moved back to San Diego for the time being. I am currently seeking a full-time entry-level position at a creative agency or as an in house designer to work on branding or marketing work. In the mean time I freelance and am trying to start a small sticker business with my cousin.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It has not been the smoothest road, but I feel that it has been a lot better than it could have been. The first major struggle I faced was deciding what to study in university. And once I made this decision I found out that I still needed to take some classes at my community college to be able to transfer to university, so I ended up having to spend another year there before I could transfer. Then, I struggled a lot with the transition of moving to LA for school. Luckily it is not too far from my home, but this is the farthest I had ever been. Now, I struggle with finding a job in the current market and being so far away from the network and support system I built for my career while at university.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I am a brand designer and brand strategist that has also began to branch into digital marketing with a focus in Social Media. I have a lot of experience in re-branding organizations and creating branding for events from my time at IntersectLA. That includes designing a variety of print and digital deliverables for these organizations and events. Because of this day and age and some of my final projects at IntersectLA I began to want to branch into the Social Media side of marketing and have now begun my journey to learn all about the intricacies of marketing a brand on a variety of Social Media platforms and how they differ. I have also re-integrated my animation knowledge into my work by developing motion graphics skills to help me work on short-form video content for these platforms as well. I was able to develop a lot of these skills more recently at an internship I had with a fin-tech app startup called Bundul where I worked as their Social Media Manager. My foundation in design has helped me stand out greatly as I begin to branch out into the field of Marketing. They have a lot of similarities but there are key differences in some of the approaches a person would take in each field. And so far, having a strong mindset of a creator and artist first before bringing in my business knowledge into the marketing projects I have been working on has been really helpful in making me stand out. I am most proud of allowing myself to take the risk of pursuing design, even though I originally wanted to study animation because I ended up loving it so much more.
Any big plans?
I am currently on the hunt for a more long-term position with a company. This would be most ideal for my life at the moment, but I am also open to contract work as well. I currently plan to stay in San Diego, but am open to moving back up to LA if the time comes in the future. I would really love to live closer to some of my friends I made in school.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.catherinenixondesign.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinenixon
Image Credits
IntersectLA, Envato Elements, Adobe Stock
