Senior experiences graphic designer life at RISD summer program

At 3 a.m. on a July night, the campus of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) was mostly dark and quiet, save for few lights — one of them coming from the South Hall dorms. Inside, senior Ingrid Yang sat at her desk, wires and wire-cutters in hand, snipping away. Her five suitemates kept her company, chatting and laughing as she worked through the night on her triptych, which consists of three painted canvases. Yang’s included three paintings of faces and wires attached to the canvases to create a 3D look.

“There were times when we pulled two or three all-nighters in a row because of the workload that was given,” Yang said. “But in the end, I produced my favorite piece of work for my final project.”

While many of her friends spent their summers doing science internships or math camps, Yang spent six weeks at a pre-collegiate program experiencing the “college life” at RISD, the No. 1 design school in the world, according to Business Insider. To gain admission to the program, each student had to send in a 250-word essayn the end, about 500 students were accepted. The program cost about $10,000.

Yang chose graphic design as her major for the program.  Every weekday at 9 a.m., classes started in the art building: Monday was drawing foundation, Tuesday was art history, Wednesday was design foundation and Thursday and Friday were graphic design. Each class lasted about six hours, except for art history, which lasted two hours.

“What surprised me was that the teachers didn't give a lot of lectures on how to draw better. They just wanted us to draw,” Yang said. “So when I went to class, [I drew], and when I went back to the dorms, I drew some more. Every day just consisted of art and really nothing else.”

Yet while the program gave Yang the freedom to create many of her best works, Yang said that at times, the process was extremely stressful.

“The first all-nighter I ever pulled with my friends, we were crying because we weren’t used to staying up so late,” Yang said.

But as the program went on, all-nighters became more routine for Yang, and she and her friends would buy snacks to keep them up and “complain about the work, but laugh about it too.”

One time, Yang said she was supposed to create three envelopes, three business cards and three postcards in a week, but because she had procrastinated, she left all her work for the night before it was due. At 7 in the morning, when she was finally done drawing them, she realized she couldn’t print out the postcards because her ID card had run out of money.

“I had to run back and forth trying to find someone to borrow some money. My posters were also at FedEx, which was a 15-minute walk away, and my class was starting in 45 minutes,” Yang said. “It was really stressful, but the adrenaline made it a pretty fun experience.”

While there, Yang experienced the life of a college student studying graphic design. Even though Yang knows that a path in the arts will be difficult,  she said she is willing to work hard to find success in the design industry.

“When I get asked what I want to major in, I say visual arts, and then they ask me what would be a backup plan if that doesn't go well,” Yang said. “To them, graphic design seems like an occupation that wouldn't be able to give you a roof to live under or food on your plate. But it means a lot to me. I love what I do, and I wouldn’t trade anything for it.”