Her Story
About Stephanie
Stephanie DePass is a licensed environmental designer and freelance graphic designer operating as SD Designs in Largo, Florida. She has been practicing graphic design for about 16 years, with nearly three years focused on environmental design. Her background includes a high school certificate in multimedia design from Robert Morgan Educational Center in Miami, Florida, and a Bachelor's of Science in Digital Arts and Design earned from Full Sail University in 2016. Throughout her career, DePass has contributed to diverse projects such as B2B pamphlets and quality assurance at Tirigo Holidays, collectible pins for events like the 2016 San Diego Comic-Con, t-shirt designs for Universal Studios and Six Flags, customized license plate frames, ADA and large-scale signage for hospitals and companies including Cora Physical Therapy, and work with medical wellness centers. She specializes in graphic design, environmental design, signage design, and multimedia design. DePass attributes her creative foundation to her parents' artistic influences and values respect and proper credit in collaborative work, while emphasizing that designers should not become overly attached to their creations since revisions are an inherent part of serving client visions. She identifies the misuse of AI as a current challenge in the field.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Stephanie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would say both of my parents, in all honesty. My dad was musically inclined and artistically inclined. My mother was super artistically inclined. She had even painted a mural of her school mascot when she was in high school in Wisconsin, and I believe it might still be there. She was very illustrative with drawing things. She even drew a book for me and my sisters when we were little. My dad used to draw these big bubble letters, but they were always perfect. So I'm pretty sure he was my typography influence.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice for this particular field is you can't get married to your design. You can be proud of it, but it has to be separate from being married to it because you might see this design as perfect, but in the end, you're designing it for someone who doesn't know. There will be revisions. It's not a reflection on you. It's their design, not yours.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
Recently the biggest challenge is AI. Most people now are using AI more so as a crutch than it's supposed to be used as a tool. Anybody that can type a prompt can create something now. The learning and experience that I had is not considered really so much anymore. AI was meant to be a tool to assist people like me to do those quick changes, but it's being grossly misused.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
In my work life, I value respect and credit where credit is due. If you're in a team and you come up with a design, and the team lead takes that design and presents it as their idea, that is a no-go for me. We really like being understood and recognized for the stuff that we do. In my personal life, it's gotta be my family. My family is my main focus. Everything I do is pretty much for my family, and my cat, but he's my family too.
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