Illustrators and graphic designers:
when did you become "aware" that the thing you do was a thing people do?
How old were you? How did it happen?

I was in college before I really understood what an illustrator was—and that I'd always been one, really. Which is baffling to me now—we're steeped in illustration every day of our lives.

I feel like there was a day, in maybe my second year at university, where I got a pair of Rowdy Roddy Piper sunglasses and suddenly saw all the graphic design I'd been missing.

At age 5 I decided I'd be an artist when I grew up.
Later, I'd tell people I was going to be a "graphic artist," even though I didn't really know what that meant. It just sounded more serious, like it might chase away the phantom beret I imagined people seeing on my head.

When I'd tell people this they'd often ask, "But what will you make art...for?"
Their fearful faces would show me they were thinking, Oh sweetie, all the art has been made already. We don't need any more.

I'd shrug and say, "Movie posters?"
Because I couldn't think of A SINGLE OTHER EXAMPLE OF ILLUSTRATION AND NEITHER COULD THEY.
How is that possible? Were we all dumb? Looking back, it was kind of a dumb suburb.