YEAR: 2022-2024
Aside from my design projects, I have also created several illustrations for The Reporter, the student newspaper at Miami Dade College.
It served as a work study program and offered opportunities for students interested in positions related to the field of journalism. While I myself wasn’t planning in pursuing journalism, I thought it was a great opportunity to bring my skill sets to the table and work with people in different backgrounds and fields. I was one of their illustrators and worked for them from 2022-2024. I consider this place as my first “job” and client.
These illustrations were commissioned to me by the writers at the newspaper, so I had no involvement in the writing of these articles or any of the opinions presented in them. My job was to simply bring them visually to life in a compelling way that closely reflects the article’s topic.
During my year-long tenure at The Reporter, I have contributed over twenty-one Illustrations, ranging from digital to traditional art, for various columns and articles. Some of these illustrations were even awarded by the FSCAA (Florida College System Activities Association) in 2023.
My illustrations, along with their respective articles, have been featured on The Reporter’s official website, most of them being under the “Forum” category, where students voiced their own opinion on topics and subject matters . The articles have also been printed and distributed through newspaper racks across all of MDC’s eight campuses, as well as digitally on their website. You can read the individual columns that my work has been featured in the link underlined here: Archives
I have provided below some samples of what I believe was my best work during my time there with their respective writers. Click on each image to see their accompanying column.
A collage of some of my work printed through their newspapers.
How Race And Politics Created Two Different Americas For Cubans And Haitians
65th Annual FCSPA Awards Newspaper Winner - Illustration, 1st Place
written by Juan S. Gomez
Kevin McCarthy Removed As Speaker Of The House
65th Annual FCSPA Awards Newspaper Winner - Editorial Cartoon, 1st Place
written by Angel Araujo
Florida’s Rejection Of AP African American Studies Course Embodies White Fragility
64th Annual FCSPA Awards Newspaper Winner - Editorial Cartoon, 1st Place
written by Natalie Gelman
Social Media And The Illusion Of Connectivity
written by Isabelle Jean-Baptiste
YEAR: 2020-2023
This is a video demonstrating my process of creatively manipulating and editing images through Adobe Photoshop. This video was produced in 2023 when I was doing freelance photo editing work for clients online as a side gig. Works shown here were produced from 2020-2023.
This type of work, commonly known as “photoshopping”, is very popular throughout the internet and social media for its humorous and surreal nature. Manually manipulating and transforming images is a rigorous process of layers, channels, photos, masking, and editing to create a compelling piece of imagery. That was until the rise of generative AI programs like DALL-E, Midjourney, and Adobe Firefly that took the industry by storm in 2022-2023, leaving this genre of design work to many as primitive, unfortunately.
However, editing images in Photoshop is still considered a valuable skill and very much sought after, especially in social media and thumbnails for content creation on YouTube and countless other services. So, it’s not entirely dead, yet.