Alaysia Brown: Anosh is an acclaimed creative director and educator with more than 20 years of international design experience. Anosh has provided design services for hundreds of clients, including municipalities, government agencies, travel destinations, and educational organizations. His work has earned more than 65 awards in advertising, design and illustration as a graphic design instructor at Famu.

Alaysia Brown: His students have won A-D awards in nearly every nominated category. An artist believes designers are communicators first and foremost, so he approaches every design project with a communication strategy. We'll talk a little bit more about that. Anosh, earned his MFA in media design from Full Sail University and a B.S. in industry and product design from the Ohio State University.

Alaysia Brown: Welcome. And I thank you for joining us.

Anosh Gill: Hello, everyone.

Alaysia Brown: How does it feel to have your your bio, read aloud? Are you like, wow, I am shocked that I did all of those things. Are you like, yeah, I doing that. I remember doing that. It has been a long career. What's it feel like just hearing that?

Anosh Gill: Obviously it feels great. It's about me.

Anosh Gill: But,

Anosh Gill: But, you know, I mean, it's it's the many years of hard work and effort and, collaborations, partnerships and a lot of memories. So it's always good to hear somebody mentioned that the.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely awesome. Well, I'm going to go ahead and dive right in. And one little housekeeping thing I like to tell everyone, this is not, a place where you just kind of sit and watch me and, and not be in conversation. This is a space where we are all in conversation, so you don't have to raise your hand or anything like that.

Alaysia Brown: If you feel that there's a question or something that you, you know, want to ask a nudge, feel free to drop it into the chat or come off of mute and say, you know what? Hey, I think I have a question. This is a conversation between all of us, not just between myself and a nurse. So I will get started.

Alaysia Brown: How many years have you spent working at HBCUs? Just for the record.

Anosh Gill: I call it three plus seven, like ten years because I was an adjunct. And then I came as, tenure track, for six years back. So I've been full time for seven years.

Alaysia Brown: And. Yeah. And so the first question is, just what drew you to these institutions and has your work and how has your work at HBCUs shaped your approach to design education?

Anosh Gill: Well, it was, quite incidental. You know, my wife and I, we own the salon spa in Tallahassee, and she's a hairstylist. So we had an Aveda salons for some of them. And and maybe some men would know that. But, a colleague of mine, his sister, his brother, reached out to me and he said, you know, no, you must be great.

Anosh Gill: You know, you need to work with me in photography and this, this, this. But I also want you to see if you want to teach at SMU and said, really me teach? He said, I've known you many years. You'll be a great teacher. He was actually the division director of graphic communication at Frame U. Austin Roberts, date Austin Roberts, and, he asked me to come and teach and I'm like, okay.

Anosh Gill: And then he said, oh, wait a minute, you have to do a masters. So I did my masters. I had to have that piece of paper which said, I have done my master's. That's hands online, masters for that part. And, to your second question, it drastically changed my approach. I came from industry. I worked at Zimmerman Agency, which was the largest PR firm and the third largest advertising agency.

Anosh Gill: I came from Sachs Media Group, where I was a creative director. So a lot of work was, how should I put it? Not necessarily. Most of our clients or hardly very few clients were, you know, color people. You know, our first city background, you know, very, very few. So it was a different mindset.

Anosh Gill: So when I started working, it was just like, oh, okay, I got to do something about that.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah, absolutely. And as we've mentioned in your bio, you have worn many hats. Professor. Creative director, how do these roles inform one another in your work? Or were there moments in your teaching where, your work in industry, I'm sure because it's design, it showed up. But the way that maybe you were on site of a project, how did that kind of show up in your work?

Alaysia Brown: Our leadership as a professor.

Anosh Gill: I think when I started my first semester, I was very scared, really. Like, I was like, okay, I'm a professional. I know what I do, I love what I do, but teaching is different. Not necessarily an amazing creative director, the most award winning person and all that can do that. And that's why I was reluctant to join.

Anosh Gill: But as my friend said, no, no, no, you have all the capacity. You have the abilities to do that. So my semester of my first semester, I was really scared. I'm like, I to you, I'm doing a good job and not, you know, and I had a very, very different industrial, industry related, approach. So, it clashed with some of the teaching things or the previous, students behaviors and, you know, they were not accumulating a different new style of teaching.

Anosh Gill: So there was a little bit of, you know, hiccup starts on a lot of things.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah. So what brought you back the second semester or the second year? Because if there were hiccups and bumps in the road, there's, you know, there's opportunity to be like, I don't know if this is a good fit. So I guess what kept you there?

Anosh Gill: I, I honestly, you know, I remember a lot of times I'm going to say this thing sounds like cliche, but I did not have a lot of confidence about the students. You know, who would be great? Not. What I found out was that, oh, my God, these students are amazing. They were so willing to learn. Not all of them, but most of them.

Anosh Gill: You know, there was a whole bunch of them that were very excited, and I pushed the boundaries and I loved it. And there is one thing I tell my students is that when I was teaching or in my own field, you know, I was doing one design, but when I had 20 students in the class, I was doing 20 design.

Anosh Gill: And that was just so fulfilling in that sense that, oh my God, I'm doing 20 design. Now. Think about if I'm teaching three sections. So it's all about 5060 designs I'm doing. And that at the same time, which was very, very challenging. But it was a lot of fun. And that brought me back. And I just think, oh, you know what?

Anosh Gill: I'm going to do this more.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah, I love that. I love that. And one of my favorite things that you said during our prep call for this conversation, number one, you could just hear the passion that you have for your students and how you're just, you know, excited for them to succeed. So that was just inspiring to to hear and watch as you discussed.

Alaysia Brown: But you mentioned that there's diversity within diversity. And I thought that was such a profound point. Can you expand on what that means, especially in the design world and why it's important or in like even in the education space and why it's important?

Anosh Gill: I think design, if you want to portray for when you said diversity, I, I, I'm like, who is diverse? You know, are we talking about, you know, black designers, brown designers Asian all that. So we categorizing and in boxes. But then what is black design you know or what is brown design or whatever. You know when a if especially when are you doing through the race spectrum?

Anosh Gill: I think it's all wrong. To me it is the individual in their in their experience in life. So, you know, designers in Chicago would be different than designers in Africa or designers in Asia or other places. Different places. And, within the cities there are designers I know, designers who, I know one designer, you know, my colleague from from Zimmerman, and she still works there.

Anosh Gill: She's, African American. Her brother was the one who in the program, if you look at the design, there is nothing anybody can tell that she is African-American or coming from a diverse background. Her work is just professional for the client's needs and everything like that. So I always feel like that within the diversity, everybody's very different and design is we can go certain follows and styles.

Anosh Gill: I have a style, I have inadvertently made my students go for that style, but with time, I've learned, is that I need to encourage the students to do their own things. Also, and that becomes design as so much diverse within that, that it is really in the individualistic.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah.

Alaysia Brown: And I love a good segue. You set me up for this next question. So thank you for that. How do you ensure that your students feel seen and valued for their unique identities and perspectives? You just were talking about how, like regardless of race, there are just styles that are true to like, human beings. And so when encouraging your students, again, just how do you ensure that they feel seen and valued for their unique identities and perspectives?

Anosh Gill: Okay. Here's the thing is, when I started, as I said, I came from the industry background and the mindset from there. And then when I was giving assignments and work and everything, it was really with that singular mode. And then I started realizing that the portfolio the students were creating were kind of exactly what my portfolio or the way I wanted things to happen.

Anosh Gill: And I realized this thing that and this is what I'm talking about. The first 1 or 2 semesters, you know, where I'm like, maybe because of familiarity. But what I have done, the process is that I tell the students this thing, you know, you have to do three options. You have to do exactly what I'm telling you to do.

Anosh Gill: You must do that. But you are a designer, creative person, so I didn't want to stifle it. You come up with your own idea and then show me whether I would like it or not, you know? And then in practical, you also maybe come up in the third option, which is a combination of both. So that their uniqueness comes in.

Anosh Gill: And, talking about diversity and identifying themselves, I think, I asked an odd question to a lot of my students, and hopefully so far I have not gotten, you know, in trouble. I asked, you know, how do you identify yourself? You know, who are you? And sometimes the students say, I am, black woman or black man or, you know, or Hispanic or whatever, you know, somebody want to say that?

Anosh Gill: And I said, no, you're wrong. And the face, an expression like, what is he talking about? And I say that you should say is, I am a creative person who happens to be a black woman, you know, or or, you know, we I don't want the students to identify them as only with the diversity or the race or whatever.

Anosh Gill: You know, I mean, I'm not saying don't don't ignore that, but it's like, no, what is your inside your core, your brain, your heart. That's creativity. So. Right. So identify yourself as a creative person who happens to be this. And it's like flipping the the narrative in such a way that, you know, it. Makes them understand about themselves more.

Alaysia Brown: Gotcha, gotcha. And when we were in conversation again, just preparing for this, this call, you talked a lot about the importance of students like branding themselves. And so I'm wondering, why is personal branding so crucial for designers, especially early in their careers?

Anosh Gill: And I think goes back to the same thing. Is this every creative person needs to identify who they are.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah.

Anosh Gill: And establish. And then also I tell them, who do you want to be? You know, where you want to be there. And one of the questions I ask the students, and if there are some of my students who are here, you know, they might have heard this question so many times, it's like I said, what do you want to be?

Anosh Gill: You know, they ask, oh, I want to be. There's this sense like, what do you dream of? You know, what is your dream? You know what is not. It necessarily is a career. You know, what is your wish? You know, get a magic lamp, you know, what are you going to do with that? And that's where the identification or identifying yourself comes in.

Anosh Gill: Is that who you are? And then we are all, I, you know, I have done branding all my career in life, and I was taught in my the Ohio State University. I love that we said the, but it's it's great because you need to identify who you are and we are all at ourselves as brands.

Anosh Gill: We are selling what we bring to the table. And if you understand your uniqueness about yourself, that really, really helps you understand and then portray. So you might think I am this, but in 3 or 4 years in school you would realize, oh, wait a minute, I want to be this, go achieve that. And then you say, I am that.

Anosh Gill: And from beginning I keep on telling themselves that they are a brand, you know, start thinking of yourself as a brand. If they think themselves as a brand, then they can start trying to understand other brands also, because if you don't understand yourself as a brand, how can you do brand work for anything else?

Alaysia Brown: I love that, I love that, and we've been talking for a while. I just want to ask, if there's anyone in the audience so far with any comments or questions? Foreign so far. He said some incredible things already, so just want to create space.

Alaysia Brown: Alrighty. Not yet. We'll definitely as we continue this conversation. Omar? Are you. Yeah.

Guest: Yeah. I was like thinking, no thank you. And that's it's great to hear what you're saying. And, but, I'm going to bring the dark side of it. Right? So, like, I see many of my students, you know, the fear that, you know, they will not have a job that are already overworked, you know, like the kind of second job they parents already.

Guest: So I wonder about, you know, the different populations that we have to work with in our workplaces. And I know that in mind. Many, you know, struggle, really struggle. And it's difficult for them to, you know, like to even dream about who they could become, you know, like, try. So they're so scared that they just want to go for the short thing.

Guest: Right? And it's like it's really difficult in a very short time, you know, like to give them, you know, enough strength to like go and try to become yourself. So with that said, I guess the question is, okay, what about the the challenges that you have experienced, like this type of if you have, of course, maybe you haven't, but if you have, how do you how do you deal with them?

Guest: You know what was challenging, you know, with students and the person who didn't know how to become, you know, a brain and or like, you know, confident. What was challenging for you? How do you overcome it? I don't know, that's my question.

Anosh Gill: So I think it's very interesting up there is and teaching an HBCU, people can have stereotypes. Students come from different backgrounds, you know, challenging socio economic backgrounds to some really well of families and all, all kinds of students are there in the school. So, you know, I don't, think there are stereotypes like that. However, the students, need that support, you know, coming from a different high school or backgrounds and all that.

Anosh Gill: It is challenging. What I have started doing for the last one year is that we have about 130 students in our program, so all the new students, I encourage them to come to my office. And if they happen to come for advising or something for a director, I sit there with them almost half an hour talking about them and about what they want and what they are.

Anosh Gill: Two years are normally they would not. They're really shy. They don't want to talk about it and they don't answer right. The questions I'm asking in a song very easy. I'm asking the question number. But the thing is, it is very difficult to get things out of the students. Some of that, some of them and some of them know exactly what they want.

Anosh Gill: So I kind of challenge them and agree with them and and support them. But it's an ongoing process. There is not like this magic bullet. Hey, I told you this thing and you got it and you are great and everything is going to be great. It it it is an ongoing thing. And getting to support the challenges that, very few students reach out and come back and, push, you know, go in that direction.

Anosh Gill: So what I try to do is I have started a mentorship program and the students are mentoring other students also. So, that becomes, easier in that sense. Then I don't have to do the heavy lifting. We have a graphic design faculty, which is amazing. We work so well together, I can pick up the phone and tell them, hey, do this for me.

Anosh Gill: You do that for me. Like, literally, they did some things, you know, which normally faculty will say, absolutely not me not doing this for you. But they do that. So it's a very, very collaborative atmosphere, which is I think is very rare in academia because we have a small faculty and I think we happen to have them.

Anosh Gill: I've been very lucky about that amazing faculty. But, but it works with that. So it's the students who help other students. I am trying to help them and encourage them. And trust me, there are a lot of failures. I feel like I have failed a few students here and there, which I wish I could have, you know, be helped.

Anosh Gill: And a lot of times, the reason I'm talking about faculty is that it's not a launch job for me. I can say, hey, what about this student? You know, this is just something off. You know? Something's wrong, you know? Can you talk? Maybe you are, you know, close with a person. Because I am not that, maybe not approachable to that student.

Anosh Gill: So, it is very challenging what you're saying. Yes, it is the dark side of it. And, but I've taught also in the, Tallahassee Community College, you know, it's not called TSC. Let me keep on remembering that, and there was a huge diversity of population. There were more Caucasian students also. It's a general thing, I think, but there are some challenges for, you know, for being a student, an HBCU, but a lot of, things are the same for students everywhere.

Alaysia Brown: Yes. Thank you so much for asking that question. I love the energy that you brought to asking it. So again, just thank you. I know, thank you obviously, for getting that question answered. And then we have Janine Meeks in the chat who also has a question. Janine, feel free to come off of mute. And ask your question.

Guest: Y'all hear me?

Alaysia Brown: Yeah, we can hear you.

Guest: Right? So I had a quick question about, the Dei situation that it's been going on, since January. How do you think a lot of those students who are about to graduate will face, the market when it comes to working as a graphic designer with these, the I, protocols taken away, for example, like with target, I know there's the situation to where we had, an opportunity to have our graphics, represented in target merchandise, but, they kind of took that opportunity away from us.

Guest: So what does it look like now with us about to graduate in wanting opportunities like that?

Anosh Gill: I think it's, I mean, it's a very, very important question, Janine, but it's, it's very difficult time for a lot of people in this country. And I think it's far more challenging now to find opportunities like that. A lot of companies, bigger companies and multinationals like target, you know, I understand they have a history of supporting, you know, students and everything.

Anosh Gill: And, you know, also with, you know, African American Federation and a whole bunch of other organizations where they were so supportive, but now they are cutting it back because they are not getting the support and funding. Also, I have, lost well, at this for at least I've told this on hold where we were doing AI research and myself, I was doing, you know, doing got to do some workshops and things like that.

Anosh Gill: And now that funding has affected me also. So to answer your question, for jobs, I think you have to double down what I my approaches and, I see one of my professors here, he saw me today. I was not very happy this morning about something. And I was very, very mad. And I just said everything to him.

Anosh Gill: Let it out. And I think you you might have heard saying this to me, to you is I go home, hit a wall, cry whatever you want to do, you know, whatever works, work, yell at someone, whatever that thing is, and then get up tomorrow and, you know, double down on what you're doing. That's the the answer to all those challenges is that we don't give up.

Anosh Gill: We become bolder and stronger, and we continue and asking support for people who are willing to support. I know it sounds very, I don't know, cheesy. Maybe you want to say that, but honestly, that is the way to go about it. I do that all the time. A lot of times I do that when I go down, I feel down, I feel it, and I'm still feeling it.

Anosh Gill: I'm still feeling what's happening internationally. I've traveled in the world. I am from a different country. I was not born here and I feel the pain of what's happening in the world. Also. It is very, very difficult times ahead for us. So job wise I would say continue putting in effort. I think, hard work will pay off on that and putting in double down on that and ask for more help.

Anosh Gill: You know, you see a lot of people over here, you know, you should start connecting with all every person you see, you know, so that they can help. You don't know who is here, who could help you or, you know, so take your hat off and then start becoming more bolder.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. Andrea. Go ahead.

Andréa Pellegrino: You know, I wanted to piggyback. Thank you. And, I wanted to piggyback. And for the question, Janine, piggyback off of what you were saying, and, and, you know, you can imagine, well, I'm one of the co-founders of of the Diversify by Design coalition, and, and or my organization is and and you can imagine that we two are feeling, you know, from from being.

Andréa Pellegrino: Having a lot of interest in what we were doing to, to not so much, in terms of industry, what we're finding. And it's a slow fall, but but I want to throw this out there. That. And you've given me a thought, Janine, actually, through your question, we are finding that there are those organizations, both for profit and nonprofit, that are doubling down, right, that are doubling down.

Andréa Pellegrino: You know, it's like whiplash out there, right? Like there's there's so much trickle down pain that's happening right now. And, and so, so there are those organizations doubling down. It takes longer to find them and nurture relationships with them. However, you've given me an idea about about some of the work the coalition should be doing by asking your question.

Andréa Pellegrino: Because we, you know, part of our well, our mission, our mission is, is to make those kind of connections. It's one of one of our one of our core four goals of our overall mission, I should say. So I just wanted to piggyback because I, you know, we hear a lot about doubling down. And I'm glad you said it.

Andréa Pellegrino: Because it's not all gone. It's not all gone. And, it's just harder to find. And we will prevail in this. We won't. We are hellbent on keeping this coalition going. And, you will find work with, a good organization, but it's going to. And Nash's advice about connecting with everybody in this zoom room right now, finding out who they are.

Andréa Pellegrino: That's what I've been doing in the background. I'm finding out who everybody is. I have chats going on with with several people in here already, who I don't know. So do it, because you will find you will find a path forward. Thanks. Sorry for taking so much airspace there, but it's. I'm pretty passionate about this.

Alaysia Brown: We love it. And it's funny. I've been watching Ingrid shout out to you. Your facial expressions are me 1,000% like as I'm like, yes, she gets it. We I'm there with you. And there just so many people on this call you can just tell are like nodding their heads. Is Andre and and also speaking, that the community is they're being community similar to what Ingrid just did.

Alaysia Brown: Drop your LinkedIn's connect with individuals on this call. If we're on this call, it's for a reason. You know what I mean? So definitely make sure that you're leaning, on community at this time. Also, students, I'm hearing a nudge say office hours are important. I cannot tell you how many times I went to office hours in.

Alaysia Brown: My professor was like, I'm like, you'd set to come. And they were shocked that I was there, but also elated that I was there. So if there are any students on just kind of wanted to highlight that, that Jim, in the midst of Jim's that a not just dropped, I'm going to go into portfolios because they're ridiculously important and I want to make sure, that the students that are in attendance just have some notes that they can take away from this.

Alaysia Brown: And so let's talk about portfolios. Are there common mistakes students are making in their portfolios? And also how can they just do a better job of standing out with their portfolios?

Anosh Gill: I think, portfolio is something that, you know, there are certain amount of good numbers now, 10 to 20 if you want to. Do people have different numbers for that. But you always put your best work. That's the basic first rule of thumb on that. One thing I've learned through the talking to a lot of industry professionals, you know, from Florida and nationally also and internationally, people are expecting to see at least two case studies of your work.

Anosh Gill: People are looking about your thought process. Also. How did you come about it? Because, you know, designers nowadays have to be jack of all. You know, they need to know a lot of things. You know, the but the only thing that can make you stand out is being creative. That do you have a creative mind that cannot be taught.

Anosh Gill: And the industry when you're hiring people? You know, I've worked in the industry also. Nobody has time to help you for that part. They can help you, sell you a program. You can improve on it. You know, you say, I'm I'm okay in Photoshop, but I'm an amazing an illustrator. Sure. Why not? You know, and I can learn more programs, you know, that's fine.

Anosh Gill: Or I know you UX. You know, I know a little bit of web design. You can learn all that on your job, you know, and on the site. But what you can't learn is to be more creative or how to approach or design problem, how to get to that. And that's why you need to have this a little bit of case studies.

Anosh Gill: So people who are looking at your portfolio did understand what this work is about. You know how you have approached it and that is a critical thing in your portfolio. And please double check and triple check. You know, it starts with your resume. Also don't have spelling mistakes. I have done that in the past. I've made mistakes, because I didn't check even at this point, you know, so you have to check everything but show it to other people.

Anosh Gill: Also, designers, we creative people are very shy. I am extremely shy. When I was younger, I could barely speak, you know, and ask my students. Like. And most students are shy also like that. So we need to network and go out and, you know, be bold about it to show your work because, that's the whole point of doing a portfolio is and do it earlier on.

Anosh Gill: I have students who come to me as a freshman and said, I don't have a portfolio. I said, do you have doodles? You have sketches? I have a professor here. I saw a sketch doodle on his office. I'm like, let's do something about this little doodle. And, you know, so it's like very experienced professor, but he was doodling, you know, and, it helps.

Anosh Gill: So, you know, sure. You working on. I even show my professional work design with my experience. I've done that. I show to my students a lot of students have to critique my work and say, no, this is not good. This is the way you should do it. I don't have to do it. But I have my students look at my work and give me feedback because this is very important.

Anosh Gill: So it's not personal. It is a professional approach. And I always say it's not criticizing, it's a critique.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah.

Alaysia Brown: And I imagine it's got to be difficult, you know, to have someone look at your work, you feel like you've poured your, like, heart and soul into it, and then those critiques come. Do you have a lot of those conversations? I know there may be some students, on the call, who may find it difficult to not take it personally because, again, you're pouring yourself into this work and then you're giving it to someone and they're just kind of pulling it apart.

Alaysia Brown: So, any any comments on that?

Alaysia Brown: A nice to have you.

Anosh Gill: I guess, what the thing is, I have, a lot of students who don't come to me because they're scared of that part. I am known to be very brutal and honest. So, so sometimes, and a lot of times students don't want to come there, you know? And when they come in, they realize like, okay, he's tough. But you know, he's a he's honest and he's trying to help.

Anosh Gill: And that's what they, they need to take advantage of. That also is because I as I said in the beginning, I would sugarcoat, you know, I would just say nice and everything like that. And I'm just going to go back to my salon days where we learned about this thing about there were four quadrants of people, you know, different ones.

Anosh Gill: You know, Aveda taught us. And it was very interesting. One of the quadrant was, I call it Kumbaya. We are I'm going to say, Alicia, you are the best thing. You are so amazing. Is so great. You this, this, this, this. And somewhere in between, I will put the little nugget right there. You need to do this thing and everything like, no, don't worry.

Anosh Gill: Everything is great. You know, like. And I just, I realizing this that now they need to, you know, toughen up because in real life it doesn't happen. You know, when you go in a professional environment, the art director, the creative director, your boss is they are not going to be they're going to be nice and polite, but they are not going to be like that.

Anosh Gill: And they need to face that now while they are in a very close, protected environment.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah.

Alaysia Brown: Love that. And you and I have had some conversations just around students and confidence and, that being kind of like a number one thing that you've seen students struggle with is their confidence. And so we've talked about it a little bit, but I'd love to hear more on just what do you think kind of causes this lack of confidence.

Alaysia Brown: And how do you help your students, build their confidence in their skills?

Anosh Gill: I think creative people are generally possibly lack some confidence, you know, because we are sensitive people. A lot of them are. But, but again, you know, some people are coming from different backgrounds or their parents told them to do this test. They're not sure, you know, I mean, they're different. Yeah. Reasons for that lack of confidence, you know, or they never got that support or they got it if they're not sure.

Anosh Gill: A lot of times I tell the students sometimes that if they start this conversation, I'm not sure if this is good. And I just stopped them right there. I said, how dare you say that, you know, no, no, no, let me be the judge. You know, you don't judge yourself and say, this is not that good, you know, please don't do that.

Anosh Gill: You know, you need to come with confidence. It happened to me. I come from a culture, from eastern culture where you don't start seeing how amazing this work is. You never do that. That's what I was taught. And my first three months, the Zimmerman agency, I did this amazing ad and my own. The owner, you know, cut a Zimmerman asked, and he said, you know, is this, good?

Anosh Gill: This is great. And I just think, yeah, it's good. I was like, why did you were reluctant? Was like, with you. And I was just like. And it was really amazing.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah.

Anosh Gill: And he said, go back if you are not confident yourself and telling me how great your work is, how do you think I can sell it to the client? So that is something very, very important to feel that you you bring that in and we we nourish it. As I said, it's a small ball game. It's an HBCU.

Anosh Gill: Students are willing to get the confidence, change it. And again, it's an ongoing process.

Alaysia Brown: Yeah.

Alaysia Brown: And a part of that we talked about is award winning. So you believe that award winning matters. How do accolades impact a young designers career in confidence?

Anosh Gill: I think at least, teaching or here I realized that, you know, I come from a background, you know, blah, blah, blah from hazing. I am or or the faculty is amazing. We are still professors in us, you know, in small town, you know, in an HBCU. Not, you know, Scad or some of those big design persons or whatever.

Anosh Gill: You know, people think like, oh, they're the best and all that. So when we say your work is great or you're getting a knee, that's one thing. But we need awards. When industry professionals are saying your work is great, that changes the students. I have seen year after year, again, students who are extremely shy couldn't even barely speak.

Anosh Gill: I always give the students example, and I'm not gonna mention her name anything. But you know, she would dirty paper twiddling something really bad and barely could speak up. And she won, American Advertising Awards local. And then she won. The district also competed at national level, and after one year, the class was making fun of me because I must have made some mistake or something ridiculous or whatever, you know, and the class were laughing and I was just like, and she's sitting in the second row is like, how come you laughing at me?

Anosh Gill: And she said, are you laughing with me or laughing at me? And she giggled and she said, professor, I'm laughing at you. And I loved it. I was just like, oh my God, one and a half years winning awards. That totally changed the student because she was laughing at me and making fun of me. And, and I was just like, wow, this is amazing.

Anosh Gill: You know, like the change that happened. So, yes, the awards are very important, and students should, compete. And again, don't judge yourself, you know, show it to professionals to show it to your professors through to other industry people and see if this is good enough or not. And if they critique, make it better.

Alaysia Brown: I love that. I love that story. And again, I'm going to ask, are there questions that individuals who are currently in attendance have? We've talked about portfolios, branding, confidence, lots of different things at this point. So I'd love to hear from anyone who's on. Feel free to come off of mute with any questions or just comments you'd like to add.

Alaysia Brown: Ingrid. For sure.

Guest: I have a question.

Alaysia Brown: Oh. Let's see. Ingrid go.

Guest: I'm sorry.

Alaysia Brown: No. You're fine, I just I just saw here you go up Atlanta. So we'll have Ingrid Atlanta and then Victoria.

Guest: Can you hear me? Okay, okay. I wanted to make a comment about, winning awards. I have dealt with a good number. Not not as many as faculty member, but I have dealt with a good number of college students. And I just came off a trip to, Texas, where I met with students at SMU, University of Houston, Texas A&M.

Guest: Anyway, five schools. And, one of the things that I noticed, they're all engineering and architecture students, if you want someone to look at your portfolio, go to a school of architecture, not only do they have to suffer a lot of secrets in their studio for, I mean, that is their job to put themselves into their work every semester and be told you're a pile of crap so that that's that's what happened there.

Guest: So if you have a school of architecture on your campus as a student, I would encourage you to go there. They have no investment in your stuff. They're not they don't know who you are. So they're just going to tell you. And they have an eye. They have that. That is what they are trained to do is to have an art.

Guest: Now they're not design graphic designers and whatnot, but they care about how things look very much, very much. Architecture. Architecture students, and architect, architect, professional care, how they look. The other thing I wanted to say is that I personally care who's giving the award. So, for example, there's a difference for me between an NAACP award and a Grammy.

Guest: Now, the like I can't rule the audience audiences. True. I was giving me the award, so I it's just like praise or, you know, somebody makes a slight or a comment that is in-kind. I consider the source. So just consider the source. If you really don't care who that is or that organization, you don't need to be blessed or cursed by them.

Guest: Hey, what are all the dogs back? And so, sometimes that can give confidence, a boost that's needed. But sometimes you really just need to think about, do I actually care? Yeah, I.

Alaysia Brown: Love that, Ingrid. Thank you, for sharing. We appreciate it. And Atlantis. We'd love to hear from you.

Guest: Hello. I had a question for Professor Gill.

Guest: How do you like. How do you brand.

Guest: Yourself.Guest: Like, in.

Guest: Your portfolio without it being too jumbled? If you specialize.

Guest: In more.

Guest: Than one thing?

Anosh Gill: Good question. I mean, I think what you need to find out what you want to be or where you want to work. And what is close to you. But remember I said also before, it's like you got to show a variety of things you can do. Also, but you got to put the passion or the drive you have.

Anosh Gill: What really speaks to you. The work is foremost, you know, you know, that we were talking about it was also our, you know, some important client may be, but don't put a work which is from, let's say, I don't know, Club Med or Nike or Aflac you've done. And they were really, really bad science, you know, be careful about that.

Anosh Gill: You can mention the name somewhere, but don't show the work about that. You know that. Leave that for the interviews. But but sure, the work that you, you know, relate to it more and again, when you're putting your work asks the right people the right question. So, I mean, Ingrid had a point where, you know, who's saying what is good or not.

Anosh Gill: So you need to judge that part. Also, you know, and see who that is coming from. You know, my wife is a good judge of my work, but she's not a designer. So I always put it in the category. What wife? You know, for 28 years. But this, you know, designer this, you know, my son, this, you know, like, there are different categories and, you know, target audiences.

Anosh Gill: That'll work. But, you know, through the years, she's learned to be much better critique of the work, you know? So think about what you want to do, you know, and then ask questions to other people and say what they think is best. Also.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely. And Victoria, go ahead.

Guest: Hi. Thank you so much tonight for, being here for, for reaching out. I'm a big fan of, Famu and it's a wonderful department that you guys have. I have a lot of friends who graduated from there, who've done graphic design. And my question is, and I graduated from Clarion, with a degree in communications, a B.A. in communications.

Guest: And I'm not, like.

Guest: Artistically.

Guest: Inclined, like, in that way, but just in my field where we deal with writing and PR and all of the things where we're having big debates right now about AI. And so some of the and I work for a school district in Philadelphia. And so, a lot of the students will come by and visit me from places that have like, programs that have graphic design courses.

Guest: And they I it's a big debate right now. You know, those of us who are millennials, we grew up with that understanding that tech, having some digital competency, it's really important to move forward with the future. But now there's that idea that I for some people it's just a tool. But it's also a question of integrity, artist integrity and stealing from work.

Guest: So how are you addressing that with your students? And, and using this as a tool or if, you know, if it's something that they should be really using at all in their work. And, what are some of the, the, I guess, responses to that from students? How are they using it if they're using it at all?

Guest: Thank you.

Anosh Gill: Great question. A lot of nervousness and scary parts to it. Also, last summer, faculty, graphics faculty. And, you know, I we sat there, we came up with a very, very initial initiative that we need to introduce or accept. I happening and we came up with a very initial plan that certain assignments could be done like this, this sort of thing, or using that or identifying that ethics of it that you say you've used it, you know, things like that.

Anosh Gill: I am I since October, I have started doing some, kind of background research on myself. I'm part of, publishing a paper with AI and ethics, also with some of my colleague colleagues, you know, from, different universities. And I'm, working with some of the students and other faculty also to see where the AI usage is.

Anosh Gill: And, you know, the ethics and design is or what the AI capabilities are also, it is, something we all need to understand. And I've talked with, you know, not done really thorough research, but a lot of people are talking about it or dabbling into it, but I have not heard from anybody. They have a specific plan for AI.

Anosh Gill: What I heard from somebody in the industry was that apparently some places in Japan are already categorizing the awards with the AI usage. Also, you know.

Anosh Gill: Or

Anosh Gill: And there is something where the ethics come in, and I know there's one of the students who was extremely upset last time that, she was doing work creating the tools, you know, and another person just use AI. And the finished work was really good. So, the educators are behind in this thing. And that's why we are changing our curriculum and adding more AI in our classes.

Anosh Gill: And next summer with, what do I call myself? A pseudo expert or kind of, you know, mini expert? Because hopefully with my research and talking with other people and trying to figure out what needs to be done, we need to get to the point. And things are moving fast. But I do want to tell people that you have to embrace AI if you don't embrace your history.

Anosh Gill: Period. You know, I saw that in the 90s when I graduated, and I went back to my home country, and I was in working the largest advertising agency, and they had a partnership with the largest agency at that time. Again, Ericsson and I had this, Australian creative director come in, and I said, why are these 220 people sitting here in the studio?

Anosh Gill: You could do all their work in one night. I want to fire them all. And I freaked out. I went to the owner and I would just like. And we told them. I told them, learn in three, three months, you know, Adobe programs were not Adobe. There were other programs also at that time. Learn page maker, Photoshop, you know, in other programs, you know, Quark Express and so I was like, learn them, you know, and, some people did.

Anosh Gill: And guess what? In six months, most of the studio was fired because it was did not make business sense. So we need to embrace AI and we need to be in touch because this is ten times or 100 times much faster. But at this point, I for design as such, for my understanding right now is not very helpful.

Anosh Gill: It is just a tool we can use at this point. It can change.

Guest: I would like to jump in on this. I'm part of the same team with Professor Gil. And we designed the guidelines. And. Victoria, to answer your question, one of the things we address, about AI was the percentage of.

Guest: Work created.

Guest: By versus the, the creativity from the students, and is one of the things that, we definitely make sure that our guidelines the who bigger from the students.

Guest: Input.

Guest: Rather than

Guest: The tool. So I it's a tool.

Guest: But we also

Guest: But it requires a certain amount of skills to be able to take some information.

Guest: Now, a graph on a lot of,

Guest: Data that is out there.

Guest: And it creates a very homogeneous.

Guest: Work that doesn't really create anything.

Guest: That is one very created to that is unique. And so we always try to make sure the.

Guest: Students understand that, yes. If you want to apply the tool the.

Guest: Way it is, is going to look like every other, you know, I generated work and I was really going to have the or unique personality, unique work that you can create.

Guest: And the other thing that we also tell the students is, you can now use it as a come out of the box, you.

Guest: Got to modify, you got to change it, you got to put your.

Guest: Own stamp.

Guest: On it. And, and again, keeping that ratio of, of more input of the student versus the tool itself.

Guest: And so, we definitely in our guidelines for our classes is, we make sure that they understand that, part of the creativity,

Guest: Can never be overlooked. So it's important for.

Guest: Them to understand that.

Guest: Your input as an individual make a unique he'll make it.

Guest: Creative and make.

Guest: It, personal. And the tool will not do it for you. And so that's why you had to, you.

Guest: Know, use it as break. But but we are allowing.

Guest: And we use hitting a many, many.

Guest: Areas on a UX design. The courses that I teach, we encourage them to use because there's.

Guest: A lot of writing. There are graphic designers do not have, you know, training in.

Guest: Technical writing.

Guest: Is very difficult. You know, if you're dealing with, branding, if you're dealing with PDF.

Guest: Documents.

Guest: If you're dealing with problem, you know.

Guest: Statements and problem problems, so many issues. If you're doing research, parsing.

Guest: Through data.

Guest: For, for, interviews.

Guest: And, all this.

Guest: I can really help you to create a more technical.

Guest:

Guest: Language, but, and it comes.

Guest: In at the end would definitely want.

Guest: To make sure that they.

Guest: Are on top of this, information and is not the information is.

Guest: On top of them. You know, it's not at all.

Guest: Doing the job for them. They use the to adjust to perfect.

Guest: They make better.

Guest: Their, you know, skills.

Alaysia Brown: Thank you for adding that in. And I just have to mention we are getting down to time. We're going to ask one more question. But before we do that, I just have to say that the I, especially as we're in the midst of talking about, awards and all those things, the AI design world Studio Divide scholarship application is open, the scholarship application is open.

Alaysia Brown: So if you are in contact with students, if you are a student, we are encouraging students to apply to this scholarship. The scholarship is in its 30th year. The application opened and the deadline is April 21st. So we have time. The scholarship benefits look like financial awards, professional recognition, similar to what a nurse was. Just speaking about networking opportunities, community support.

Alaysia Brown: And so I am going to drop the link in. I just dropped it. We definitely encourage you if you know a student, if you are a student, to share it or apply to the scholarship opportunity because it is awesome. And if you have any questions at all, myself or Matthew, who is also on the call, is more than welcome.

Alaysia Brown: To to give you any assistance you may need. So I just had to plug that while we were on the topic of awards and all these things. And so again, thank you to everyone. The last question that I will ask you, on us is that as someone shaping the next generation of designers, what is one piece of advice you'd give to students and early career designers navigating today's industry?

Anosh Gill: I think one thing is believing self and hard work. You need to have the passion. You can let go of the passion and the drive. No matter what happens. That is something universal. And that's in you, if you have that, you know, I'm going to finish off with my high school motto was, perseverance, perseverance, command success.

Anosh Gill: You keep on doing it, keep on doing it. And, you know, great things would happen. And, you know, you have to start first with believing in yourself. You know, you have to be in a happy state and, in yourself in that, and then start doing that and keep on pushing yourself. Because if not today, not tomorrow, something great would happen.

Anosh Gill: And, you know, fate, destiny. If you're religious, God, you know, all those things come in, play and make amazing changes which you don't even expect would happen.

Alaysia Brown: Absolutely, I love that. And what's that high school motto one more time.

Anosh Gill: Perseverance commands success.

Alaysia Brown: I'm writing that in my journal tonight. I don't know about y'all, but I needed to hear that. So. So thank you for sharing that in so much. And that is that it? Is there any any any other comments concerns anyone has? Andre I didn't know if you were about to add something or not okay. Awesome. All righty.

Alaysia Brown: Well everyone, thank you so much. Before we wrap our panel.

Guest: Thank you.

Alaysia Brown: Yes, absolutely. And no, just between us. Absolutely. And to all the students, thank you so much for joining and all the individual individuals who attended tonight. Thank you. I encourage everyone all the time to stay connected with Diversified by Design. Follow us on LinkedIn. We're on LinkedIn. As Diversify by Design. We're also on Instagram at D. XD coalition.

Alaysia Brown: Also visit DHD Dot design to learn more about our upcoming events. We just released our entire spring AMA schedule. I'm going to drop the link for our next AMA, which is going to be, hosted by myself, but I'll be, speaking with Jasmine K Burton, who is a social innovation strategist, an impact entrepreneur, and an equity center designer.

Alaysia Brown: She's amazing. If you have not heard about her, definitely look her up on LinkedIn. She's super awesome. So definitely excited to be in conversation. Anoush thank you so much. This was great. And again, just everyone who came. We appreciate you keep up with us too. If you know a student, if you are a student, that scholarship link is so important.

Alaysia Brown: You can find out more about it on our website. Definitely encourage the students in your life to design students to apply to that scholarship. So thank you again and gosh, it's been amazing. Thank you to everyone who attended.

Anosh Gill: Thank you.

Guest: Great job and thank you.

Alaysia Brown: Bye. I'll see you at the next one.

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