You could say that my first opportunity was luck. Being in the right place at the right moment. Being that I just moved to the middle of nowhere with a town that didn’t have a ton of opportunities in graphic design industry. It definitely took me by surprise that this opportunity fell in my lap, and I was ecstatic.

I worked there as a shop, hand, running the laminators, printers, cutting down signs, installing Wraps installing signs, and everything else you can imagine. After a while of being there, and getting more comfortable with things, my boss had put me on a project that they did every year. It was a coupon book of sorts that he had all the small businesses from Town purchase a page printed thousands of them and took them all around town to help promote all the local businesses. I got a few assigned to them to me at first to see what I can come up with. I was so nervous it felt like the final boss, and in my mind I wasn’t ready. And to my surprise everything went very smoothly. I ended up doing about 15 pages total in that booklet.

After jumping over the first hurdle of doing design work at my first paying job, everything just started to fall together I was creating graphics for Wraps you name it I was doing it all. After a few years, the owner actually ended up, purchasing a screen print shop to expand the print shops capabilities. He had hired me there to work on designs for apparel and that’s where my true love for graphic design truly blossomed.
As I was there, I slowly worked my way up and was eventually helping customers doing quotes running embroidery machines, and working hand-in-hand with the screen printers in the back to get screens right to make separations, correct and ultimately make sure that we had happy customers.

It really hadn’t dawned on me because I was so busy that I was really kind of coming into my own as a designer during this phase I ended up starting my first clothing line called Tyrone collective and because I worked at a screen print shot I was able to produce them pretty cheap fast forward six months I had a ton of people in the high desert, wearing my clothes, my hats and it was really cool to see.

One of my clients at Square print Aunt ended up, actually offering me a job as they were opening their own raft shop down here in Victorville California. I was very hesitant as I had been at Square print for a while and built a great relationship with the team but ultimately I ended up speaking with my boss, and he said that it was a great opportunity for me as my daughter lived here, so it was much better situation for me.

So a few weeks later, I actually ended up moving down to Victorville started my new job at vinyl studios in Victorville California. This was a great learning experience for me as I was the lead graphic designer and I was one of the only guys in the shop that actually knew how to run the printers so I got a ton of experience with printing on large format and setting up files for signs, Wraps wall, wraps, and all kinds of other projects.

After a few years, I worked at a couple other shops, and ultimately ended up at Safeway Sign Co in Adelanto, California. I will say I was very reluctant to take the job just because it was more production and not a lot of creativity. I was there for a few years and was offered a position as a social media manager, here I got the opportunity to take a deeper dive into social media, mainly Instagram and Facebook, and a little bit of indeed. I was in charge of getting content, putting together content, designing all the content and scheduling content, as well as coming up with hashtags and captions. I even got to set up a podcast room and learn the ins and outs of how live streaming and podcast work.

In March 2023 unfortunately I was laid off from this position from budget cuts but I didn’t let that hinder me. I use that experience and turned it into something positive and I’ve been able to create a good book of business and keep my freelance dreams alive.