Why Advertising? Why New York?

My passion for design and advertising starting in high school during my business marketing class. We were tasked with finding a magazine advertisement and replicating it as closely as possible using only free online design sites.

After looking through the TIME magazine, I came across a layout that was graphically filled with quotes from different people. My base “software” was Canva and my secondary tool was Picmonkey. With using such restrictive tools I still passionately finished my replica which teachers and fellow students couldn’t tell from the original (view my version below). At that point I new I wanted to get into design and advertising.

While creating my ad replica I fell in love with the task of “completing a treasure hunt”. A treasure hunt in a way that I had to find matching colors and fonts. It was so satisfying finding the right match. In the end I realized that design was my thang. 

So why New York? My whole life I’ve always felt that I’ve lived in a small town and have wanted a change in scene. Plus cities tend to have more awesome opportunities. By visiting San Francisco, San Diego, Austin and Tokyo I started to realize that I loved the big city vibe. I want to see if I get a cool vibe from New York so that I know whether or not it’s a fit for me after college.

- Kaheawai Kaonohi 04.29.2019