GAUGE Speaker Event

On Thursday November 3rd GAUGE hosted Ismeal Obregron from Oishii Creative to give a speech about his company and motion graphics. Before going to the GAUGE speaker event a did a quick google search on him and come across a lot hits, things he has done, accomplishments and accolades, and his company. I even took some time to visit his website, oishiicreative.com, and saw some of the most recent work from his company.

This was my first insight into the life of a very successful graphic designer, and I was very excited to see what advice he had for us young designers. Ismeal began by saying that a successful concept to have as a graphic designer is to understand language. He talked about the importance of being bilingual, but he didn’t mean that we needed to no more than two or more spoken languages. As a graphic designer we need to understand the language of words and visuals because it is one of the best ways to communicate with others. Ismeal showed the audience a video that was very effective in conveying the message of words and visuals. The concept of the video is to show images that would allude to words, for example a series of images that show different versions of “break”, it was everything from a broken arm, broken plates, a couple breaking up. There were a series of other images that continued unfortunately I did not get the chance to write them all down. The short video he showed was very reminiscent of a lot of the exercises that I’ve done in my Art 220 class with Jimmy. So I guess everything we do in his class has a purpose.

A lot us that attended the event were very interested to hear what led him to the path as a designer, and how he got his company up and running. Like many people do, Ismeal went straight to an art school, where he continued his education of art. While going to school he was challenged with the responsibility to keep the language of art, more specifically of design, alive and to keep it innovative while continuing to express himself. He gave us that same challenge, and it left me thinking if I would ever be in his shoes, challenging others and telling them the same things Jimmy and Ismeal have once told me. He also said one thing that Jimmy has often said many times, that there should never be any excuses for not being able to start/do/finish something. If you don’t know how to do something teach your self, if you can’t do this or that find away around it, stop placing obstacles in front of yourself that don’t exist.

One of the big steps that Ismeal took in his career was the start of his design company, Oishii Creative. He was candid about the fear he had when it all began. He felt compelled to start his own company because the company he was working for wasn’t allowing him the artistic fulfillment he wanted. It seemed like the right thing to do at the right moment, and today Oishii Creative is one of the most successful companies with clients like the NFL, NBA, and EA sports. A difficult thing to do while starting a company is creating a name, Oishii means delicious in Japanese. Ismeal said that when looking for a name it is vital that it is a word that you can own, something that represents the company in appositive way. Oishii Creative is a company that does a lot of work in motion graphics, a realm that I don’t know a lot about and is intimidating. As the owner of a company Ismeal has had to deal with a lot of reality and clients. One of the suggestions he gave us to deal with clients is to provide them what they want, nourish their needs because at the end of the day the client will keep coming back.

One thing that a lot us have in our minds as students that are close to graduation is all the competition that is out there. I fear that once I graduate I won’t be able to find a job as graphic designer, we are competing with people with extensive resumes and with a lot of experience. Ismeal gave us his insight on that, saying that people who have been graphic designers for a long time fear us because we have the freshest knowledge on all the new software being used. Which made a lot of sense and took a little stress off my back. The GAUGE speaker event with Ismeal Obregron was very insightful and I took a lot out of it, most of all he gave me a push to continue on.