Jason Codr
Jason Codr spent a good portion of his undergraduate years in studio courses in Whitin Art Building.
He preferred abstracts and painting with oils, but when he graduated in 1995 as an art major with professional emphasis, he went to work as a graphic designer/illustrator with Sandhills Publishing in Lincoln.
He poured his creative energy into the computer and didn't paint for two years.
The funny thing is, when he did paint again, he realized he had grown as a painter.
"My painting style had gotten more focused and detailed...yet I hadn't touched a brush in years. I was amazed," he said.
It reaffirmed why people in his field are called graphic design artists.
"I think you must, at your core, be an artist, and then learn to use the computer to create. Whether you are constantly painting or creating on the computer, it all affects your art."
Desktop publishing - even Windows - was in its infancy during his years at Doane.
He only took one course in desktop publishing because computers were still mainly used for word processing. Much of his computer knowledge came from working as a computer lab aid.
"That essentially forced me to use computers more. I used it to my benefit and started creating art work. It was a great launching point."
He still likes the ease computers lend to art, the ease of "changing things around with minimal effort."
At Sandhills, an information processing company whose products include trade and consumer publications, Codr creates illustrations and designs for a number of computer magazines, including Smart Computing, CPU, CE Lifestyles and PC Today.
His tools include Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, CorelDRAW and QuarkXPress.
Illustrations vary with each task. He might design graphics for Reference Series magazine one day, the next he may be asked to help with a cover for PC Today.
He feels fortunate to find a role that is a pure illustrating job.
The time spent in both Whitin Art Building and the Doane computer labs paid off when he began his job search.
"You really have to have the drive to say ‘I want to learn as much as I possibly can,'" he advises.
Today, he encourages his own students to take full advantage of computer graphic courses. Codr teaches introductory and advanced graphic design courses at Doane.
It's important for them to gain computer design experience before they graduate, he said, and not just students studying with a computer design emphasis. Mass communication and other similar majors have found the experience useful when looking for jobs in their field.
He hopes they find more than experience. Lucky ones like him may find something they love.
"I really love the fact that I'm able to create. I always said in school if I could draw all day and get paid that would be perfect. And that's essentially what I do."