Part 2: The Golden Age

Now that we’ve established where we started, we can move on to when I really hit my stride. Oh yes, the all important 8th grade summer and freshman year of high school. Girls? No. Parties? No. Sick photoshop skills and a large following on Instagram? Yes. I largely consider this 15 month period of time to be the most important in my development as a designer and what truly solidified my idea of this passion turning into something I could monetize.

I vividly remember getting home from band camp at 9:45 pm, opening my computer, and spending 90 minutes clicking away in my room in total darkness, making an Andre Johnson photoshop that only my fellow Instagram sports designers and some of my middle school friends would ever see, all before taking my post practice shower. This was the golden age, a time when life was so uncomplicated it was blissful, and the reality of trying to make money off of this hobby didn’t exist. The strings to hold me down were not even in the equation at this point. I would create simply for myself and my own growth, picking up new skills and trying new ideas as I went along.

I just so happened to share these creations online, and apparently, people liked them. What was a cool trick I shared with my friends turned into an account with 3,000 followers and talking to athletes making more money than I’ll probably ever come close to. It really was my golden age.