Informational Interview with Craig Brown
Tony WonBeom Kim
Introduction
I am majoring in Sports Industry. My life was all about sports. When I was really young, I was thrown in to water and since then, I swam competitively for 7 years. And also, I am now the representative of Korea Lacrosse team. It was for sure that I wanted to work in sports industry but I never knew for sure what I really wanted to do in sports and through this opportunity I felt the necessity of finding out specifically what I wanted in sports industry. And sports motion graphic design was what I came up with which led me to Craig Brown who is working in the Department of Athletics of The Ohio State University. His job was manager of animations and scoreboard for all the sports events in OSU. He and his team made specific graphics for the screen board and also managed what graphics to be shown at the screen during the game such as ‘touch down’ graphic we can see in football games in the Shoe. As his job is directly related to controlling technologies, his work place was filled with computers and IT gears. The atmosphere of the workplace was professional with all the IT equipment. Before going deeper into the interview, I will list the information of my interviewee below.
To get further into the interview, I prepared questions before I went to the interview. There were some typical questions such as ‘tell me about your job’ and there were some questions that I was curious about personally such as if someone preparing for this field can also get a job in US military. From now on, I will summarize about my interview with Craig Brown.
His job was, as I mentioned above, was managing graphics and scoreboard and screens. The most important skills for this career was the ability to use design programs as perfectly. The design programs varies from Adobe programs such as Photoshop, InDesign, and Illustration and so on to some professional program such as Cinema4D. Craig Brown mentioned that his experiences in his design classes greatly helped him getting used to design programs. And also he mentioned that since design is about bringing your creativity into the real world, he said creativity is also one of the most important abilities desired in this field.
Furthermore, I asked him about the future of this career. “Well, the sports team doesn’t go anywhere.” This was his answer. I had to agree. The sports teams doesn’t go anywhere. Sports are going to get bigger and bigger and almost all the industries in sports have bright future. But he mentioned one concerns about the future of the job. As technology is getting better and better, more people are satisfying with enjoying sports in their home rather than going to the stadium. He said that they have to work on more and more to make the atmosphere of the stadium more and more energetic and much more attractive to the sports fans.
I also asked him about the other possible careers that would be possible for someone preparing for this job. His answer was that he cannot even mention all because there are so many careers. Especially even for the military, I could get a job for graphic design if I prepare for this career. Since preparation for this job includes the acquisition of the capability to use design programs, anywhere design is related is those career that is possible for those preparing for this job. To be more specific, not only for sports industry, one can work for industry such as fashion, gaming, and all other industries since design is inevitable thing for all other industries.
I asked him if graduating university or getting a degree in design is important in getting a job in this career and his answer was it is not necessary. However, it would definitely help me acquiring required skills and preparing for the career. He told me that design is the result of your creativity. However hard you work in your class, if you don’t have the creativity, it will be hard to compete with others. This is why graduating a university or getting a degree in design is not necessary. If one has skills to use Photoshop professionally and prepared well with one’s portfolio, one could get a job. Design is indeed a career that you are evaluated by your work not by your academic background.
At the end, I also asked him if I could send him the works I had done with Photoshop and he said he would be happy to see those. He said that he and his team also do internships. He said, if you’re interested in having an internship and experiencing the working atmosphere, he told me to keep in touch with him so that he could let me know when the internship is open.
After the interview, I have decided to apply for Visual Communication Design major between January and April next year since I came to a conclusion that taking design courses are quite beneficial to me preparing for the sports motion graphic designer. And since I started to have interests in the sports motion graphic design, I only used Adobe Photoshop to prepare for my portfolio but I think I should prepare to use other programs such as Adobe After Effect, Cinema 4D, and Illustrator. Since for graphic designers, knowing how to use various programs increases their value and eventually outcompete other designers and get paid in high wage.
The interview, overall, was very great. It was really a great opportunity to talk with a person in my dream career. Seeing the atmosphere of the working place and what they do for typical days, I was more than interested in the career. Bringing your creativity into the real world and sharing with people around the world was really a great thing. I learned a lot of things through this interview; what to do in typical days, what special skills are needed, hot the working atmosphere is like, how bright the future is, and so on. Through this interview opportunity, I could specify what I wanted to do in the enormously big sports industry. At the moment I came to the Ohio State University, I was thinking about sports law. But now I am thinking about the sports motion graphic design and this interview was in between that change. But I figured out that actually managing scoreboard is specifically not what I wanted to do. Even though this job is directly related to sports, it is really a job that has to work in a room for the whole week even in the game time. What I really wanted is to work for sports industry such as Nike, Adidas, ESPN, or other big sports brands or as a free-lancer. Free-lancers are thought to have a lot of freedom in one’s working environment which is indeed an attractive point in deciding one’s career. Nonetheless, I prefer to have more economical stability to the freedom in the working environment.
