[Chapter 6] My first works as a designer

The Institute classes end and the time to give the next step, go to the world of work and start living the dream for which so many years I had been fighting and that it had cost me so much to get. Discussions relatives, feel little understood by teachers and friends.

But all that happened and I didn't care, I was on the way to my dreams and the time to start living from them began.

My first job . . . retouching photos

Spring 2003. After two years of studies and learning, It was time to work. Well, in honor of the truth, of being scholar.

Miguel, like not It could be otherwise because of his way of being, he fulfilled his word. The Institute He had agreements with several companies but, the most relevant of all of them was the Diaro Marca. The Institute sent only two people and had to be good since the high level of face that the institute could continue having the collaboration agreement in force with they.

And there I arrived, I am not able to describe the emotion that I felt that day. My work was going to be retouched photos and prepare them so that they were then printed in the newspaper. Maybe not was to make drawings as I expected but, for those, there were not many opportunities for Make graphic design and, much less, just out of the institute with 17 years.

How lost was, I remember that the first photo they put me Ahead was a Michael Schumacher in his Ferrari. I went crazy playing the cyan, the Magenta, yellow and black to balance color. That if the newspaper's role I absorbed a lot of yellow and that is why we had to raise it from that tone, tests of Color . . . Buah! A madness and I lost more than an octopus in a garage, but happy. The photos of all my idols Abraham Olano passed through my hands, Fenando Alonso, Dani Pedrosa, Zinendine Zidane . . .

My first "designer" job

Retocate photos of your idols is very good, in fact, I will tell in some post an anecdote about the first "relevant" work I did in my career and that has to do with David Beckham. But that will be for another Post.

What I had been saying, the retouched photos was very good but my Objective was to make drawings on the computer. Design, be able to create things new. The shifts in the newspaper alternated by weeks between morning and afternoon. The weeks I had to go in the afternoon I They made very rare and the hunger to learn was still intact.

It was then that I spoke to my uncle Jose Luís, the one who I had the advertising agency and gave me that IBM 286 with which I started all this madness. I proposed that if I don't It would matter that, the weeks of my afternoon shifts in the brand, I could go to give him a hand and continue learning more about the world of design Graphic.

He had a lot of customers, he had done campaigns for pleasant, marlboro and brands like that and it seemed good to be able to be to His side, try to lend him a hand and, at the same time, learn from the profession.

For the Paseo de la Castellana chasing a dream

My uncle accepted the proposal and that we did. The weeks I was going to His agency were quite intense, I left home at 7. 30 in the morning with a Sandwich in the backpack and a sack full of dreams. He took the subway, went to the office who was for the Colombian subway and dedicated the entire morning to listen, observe, practice and learn with him.

Upon noon, and with the time quite attached to the ass, I had to get out of there in a hurry and take the opportunity to eat the sandwich of On the way to the newspaper that was, at that time, on the Paseo de Recoletos.

On those walks, he reflected and theorized above all what I learned. I glimpsed in the future a lot of dreams . . . create some website, have some crazy idea that revolutionized Some sector, go to an auditorium to tell my ideas . . .

First summer working for my dreams

After three months of practices and many walks through the Castilian, They proposed me to hire in the newspaper to make summer substitutions. The Truth, no I could believe it, everything was still easy although, in part, with that Offer had faced feelings. I was 18 years old fulfilled and saw how all my friends enjoyed their first summer vacations together prior to the university and, in the meantime, I had to Be working in Madrid.

Besides, I was clear that I not only had to work for my dreams if not because, at home, the situation was not easy and, Although my father never asked me, I didn't want to assume him older load of the one he already carried with himself.

My girlfriend at that time, I had become information on a private university that gave a degree in design and Multimedia communication. That university was not exactly cheap and I, no I wanted my decisions to involve more economic load to me father.

Yet and so, and with all these thoughts and feelings Faced, my determination was such to fulfill my dreams that I do not It cost a lot to accept the offer, run out of summer and work to pay me the studies.