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Name: Natalie Rogers
Location: Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA
Topics of interest: Graphic design, print design, movie posters, photo manipulations, concept art
Occupation: Graphic Designer and Science Communicator
In the latest Envato Tuts+ community story, we're going to meet Natalie Rogers from Albuquerque, New Mexico, and discover how she's used the site to learn new design skills and develop her career.
Meet Natalie
Natalie, 32, says that her awesome daughter Aurelia is her priority, but she also loves her work at the University of New Mexico, which combines three areas she loves: science, writing, and design.
In her job, she gets to design and create flyers, posters, and large print documents, write content about science research, and travel to research locations to take pictures and video, while maintaining several social media accounts.
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She recently worked with two web developers to design, code, and add content to a new site for Energize New Mexico's Year 2 Annual Report.
Getting Started
Throughout her career, Natalie has used online learning to build new skills and help her get to where she is now.
Her relationship with Envato Tuts+ started way back in 2007, in an unusual way:
I was trying to make a flyer for an upcoming event, but had no idea what I was doing. So, I googled "collage flyer tutorial" instead of "COLLEGE flyer tutorial"— a happy mistake because one of the results led me to this tutorial at Tuts+. After that, I was hooked on the site, especially for Photoshop design and eventually Illustrator tutorials.
Natalie says she's learned a lot of little tricks from Tuts+ tutorials, like masking and layer effects, mastering the Pen Tool, and how to use the Clone Stamp Tool ("before content-aware was a thing"!).
But the most important skill she's learned is typography, and "how placement and font choice can determine how successful (and how well-designed) your document is".
Here are two of Natalie's favourite tutorials:
- Create a Fantasy Landscape Using Digital Painting Techniques
- Create Spectacular Concept Art in Photoshop
The Future, and a Tip
Natalie says she is pretty happy where she is right now, but eventually has plans to set up a freelance design business.
I've already made invitations, flyers, and business cards for friends, so the next step would be to make some money off them!
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Natalie has the following tip for those just starting their career:
Don't get discouraged when comparing your work to others. We all have to start at the beginning, so the more you work on your own style, the faster you will improve. Don't be afraid to mix ideas and try something outside the box.
Connect
If you'd like to chat more with Natalie about design, online learning or her current projects, you can reach her via:
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Image may be NSFW.Clik here to view.
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