AIGA Kansas City is excited to hold its fifth annual mentorship program, and this year’s theme is Let’s Start Fresh. Learning how to navigate the professional world can be a tricky and overwhelming experience for new creatives. Often, just being able to talk to someone “who’s been there” can make all the difference. Our program brings seasoned creatives (professionals with at least 4 years of experience) together with emerging talent (college sophomores up to professionals with 3 years of experience). We provide valuable networking opportunities and encourage open dialogue focused on professional and personal development. Whether you’re a mentor or a mentee, involvement in our mentorship program is a great way to become active in and help strengthen Kansas City’s dynamic design community. With participants from an array of creative fields and career and educational levels, we hope this serves as an opportunity for both mentors and mentees alike to meet, learn, grow and give back while building sustainable relationships.
How it works:
The program is led by AIGA Kansas City board members Khyneesha Edwards (Director of Mentorship) and Mason Barry (Associate of Mentorship). After navigating and maintaining creative connections during the COVID-19 pandemic with last year’s program, this year, we’re starting fresh. We’ve created a unique program format that includes:
One-on-one mentor-mentee pairings
A 6-part mentor-led digital career prep presentation series
Monthly in-person meetups
2 special design events with exclusive access for mentorship program participants
In addition, each mentor-mentee pair is assigned to a larger group that meets during our monthly meetups, further facilitating connection among peers.We monitor and apply local COVID-19 guidelines for each in-person gathering. It’s our goal to create a safe, positive, encouraging, and diverse learning environment for all participants.
Expectations and Timeline:
The program kicks off in October and lasts through May. Although there is no official time requirement, in order to get the most out of this experience, we ask that each pair try to communicate at least twice each month (roughly five hours total). Whether this communication takes the form of a phone call, Zoom or Google Meets chat, coffee break, or office meeting is entirely up to you. We strongly encourage participants to stay up to date with local COVID-19 guidelines and do what feels the most safe for you.
Qualifications:
You must live in the Kansas City metropolitan area or a surrounding town within 1 hour drive.
Current students enrolled in local area colleges and universities are welcome!
Spots are limited, so be sure to apply early!
You do not have to be a member of AIGA Kansas City to participate in the program, but we definitely encourage you to join our community and benefit from our member perks. If you aren’t a current member, sign up here!
For mentors, we welcome professionals with at least 4 years of experience. For mentees, we welcome participants ranging from college sophomores to professionals with 1-3 years of industry experience.
Example areas of design: account management, art direction, branding, copywriting, environmental graphic design (muralists, signage, exhibitions, etc.), graphic design, illustration, industrial design, leadership/management, marketing/strategy, motion graphics, package design, product design, project management, publication/editorial/layout design, typography, UI design, UX design
Interested in signing up for the 2022 – 2023 session? Please email Khyneesha Edwards & Mason Barry at mentorship@kansascity.aiga.org.
2021-2022 Mentorship Program Mentors
Name: Andrew Sexton Title: Production Artist Why do you want to be a mentor? Get to know the design community, and to pass on the knowledge that was passed on to me to help people navigate the design world. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator
Name: Grace Speicher Title: Designer Why do you want to be a mentor? Why not? It’s fun to help someone else, and I often learn in the process too! What’s your favorite platform to create in? For moodboard: inDD. Though Psd and Ai are my bread and butter, and After Effects is my jam.
Name: Jacob Gaunt Title: Designer and Illustrator Why do you want to be a mentor? I’ve had a lot people help guide me to where I am now and think this would be a good opportunity to help others who might need advice/guidance in school or early in their careers. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator
Name: Jamal Gamby Title: Associate Creative Director Why do you want to be a mentor? I’ve had great mentors throughout my career and would like to pay-it forward. What’s your favorite platform to create in? I love them all! But if I have to pick one it would be Photoshop.
Name: Kasi Yalon Title: Art Director Why do you want to be a mentor? I want to give back to the program that helped me so much as a student. I’m also interested in gaining experience in mentoring and meeting some fresh faces that need a little guidance. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator hands down.
Name: Kathleen Murray Title: Illustrator & Art Director Why do you want to be a mentor? I really enjoyed it last year, it was great meeting the mentees and the mentors and I felt like I was really able to offer some good advice. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Procreate on iPad Pro!
Name: Kelly Radiel Title: Graphic Designer Why do you want to be a mentor? I want to become a mentor to listen and engage with the next generation of creatives. I want to share what I know and learn what they know. I want to compare the way we learned to do things at our respective schools/companies and see the impact of a different perspective. I want to share how both my failures and successes made me the designer I am today. I want to offer some sort of guidance where I can and see where someone else might lead me. I want to become one of the people they ask a serious question to or send a thousand Instagram posts they think are funny/terrible/sad to. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Professionally – InDesign, it plays nicely with all the other programs! Personally – Instagram’s Story platform, it reminds me it’s okay for things not to align perfectly or be an exact pixel height, ha!
Name: Kelsey Walker Title: Chief Development Officer Why do you want to be a mentor? I think if I had someone nourish my spark from a younger age, I would have found my dream faster! What’s your favorite platform to create in? Microsoft Word
Name: Melinda Sanchez Title: Graphic Designer Why do you want to be a mentor? I am a latina graphic designer in KC that only had community college as an option for education, but still made my design career a reality. I want to show other young designers that they can become successful if they have the passion and determination in design. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator
Name: Meredith McGrade Title: Associate Art Director Why do you want to be a mentor? I had an excellent mentorship experience through AIGA as a student and would love to be able to provide a similar experience for another young designer. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Cinema 4D and Adobe Dimension
Name: Olivia Feathers Title: Designer Why do you want to be a mentor? I’ve been a mentor previously and love sharing my love of the KC design community with others. What’s your favorite platform to create in? InDesign
Name: Robbie Knight Title: Associate Creative Director Why do you want to be a mentor? I have over 23 years experience in the field of graphic design. I have worked with small agencies, large agencies, and in-house teams. I received great mentorship starting out and would like the opportunity to provide maybe some of that same knowledge to new designers. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Figma and Webflow
Name: Roberto Camacho Title: Sr. Art Director Why do you want to be a mentor? I’d like to think it’s my way to give back to the community but I actually just enjoy sharing my knowledge/experience with anyone that is remotely interested in learning from my mistakes. Without mentorship I’d probably be an account manager or content strategist by now. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Tossup between Canva or TikTok
Name: Ryan Walker Title: Senior Copywriter Why do you want to be a mentor? I’ve also enjoyed giving back — and helping younger writers. I recently transitioned to a new job where I no longer have a Jr Writer on my team and I’d like to continue mentorship in some way. What’s your favorite platform to create in? I fool around in Photoshop and Lightroom, but obvs spend most of my time in Word — ha.
Name: Scott McCarthy Title: Senior Motion Designer Why do you want to be a mentor? I’ve always wanted to try this out after doing a lot of the professional portfolio reviews in the past, and figured I have a lot to offer in the ways of navigating a growing career and how to best push one’s self to better yourself both personally and professionally. What’s your favorite platform to create in? After Effects is my main weapon of choice, but nothing beats a pencil and paper.
Not pictured: Abigael Green, Graphic Designer/Illustrator; Audrey Overcast, Marketing Director; Casey Ligon, Senior Content Creator; Daniel Jones, UX Designer, Outdoor Products; Heather Schmiedeller, Senior Art Director; Jenny O’Grady, Experiential Graphic Designer; Jillean Williams, Owner/Creative Professional; Kenzie Tubbs, Digital Creative Director; Mason Barry, Motion/Brand Designer; Saif Mahdi, Creative Director; Sara Batman, Senior Graphic Designer; Taylor Gersch, Product Designer.
2021-2022 Mentorship Program Mentees
Name: Alan Clark What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? To learn from someone in the field with experience and wisdom to share…and hey, maybe even a friendship. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Figma
Name: Bhroovi Gupta Student (Senior) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? I’d like to make connections and get career advice so I can be prepared to graduate and enter the market in may. I am an international student so getting advice on visa sponsorship is highly appreciated. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator
Name: Eden Kurr Student (Senior) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? Learn more about the designers working in my area, and hear first-hand experience about the job market and what to expect. What’s your favorite platform to create in? XD
Name: Emanual Murry New Professional (1-3 years industry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? Learning more about how to network with members in the UX/UI industry. How to display my portfolio and such to attract clients. Develop confidence in an area I’m new in. What’s your favorite platform to create in? My favorite platform is Figma design by far, followed by affinity designer.
Name: Isaac De La Rosa Student (Sophomore-Junior) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? To learn from an industry professional and hopefully broaden my horizons to design opportunities to learn and engage here in the KC area. Being from Austin prior to my time at KU i had started to build my network of people and events and would like to start doing something similar here. What’s your favorite platform to create in? I love to create in illustrator fun fact it use to scare me a lot because I only knew photoshop for so long the idea of learning a new software scared me.
Name: James Cermak New Professional (1-3 years industry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? I’d like to start my design career after graduation (and the pandemic). What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator (for graphic design) or Procreate (for illustration)
Name: Jane Vu New Professional (1-3 years industry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? I’m looking for direction in how to get my own freelance business started. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Photoshop
Name: Jarrett Bendure New Professional (1-3 years industry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? I just graduated this past may, I got my first job and I would like to keep working towards building my portfolio to get into an agency job! What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator and InDesign
Name: Jessie Fullinwider New Professional (1-3 years industry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? My goals of participating in the mentorship program are to connect with like-minded professionals, expand my network & develop both my individual and business skillset. What’s your favorite platform to create in? In Adobe I prefer InDesign. I also use a lot of Canva.
Name: Kacie Stepp Student (Sophomore- Junior) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? To grow as a designer and a person by centering myself in a design focused community. What’s your favorite platform to create in? It used to be Photoshop 100%, but more recently, it’s been switching to Illustrator
Name: Kayla Farrell New Professional (1-3 yearsindustry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? Advice on marketing my skill, being a freelance artist, business tips in general. What’s your favorite platform to create in? Illustrator
Name: Nicole Craft New Professional (1-3 years industry experience) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? To grow as a designer and strengthen my skills. I would also love the opportunity to talk with and learn from someone who is passionate about the same areas of design as me and what their journey with those areas has been. What’s your favorite platform to create in? A tie between Illustrator and After Effects!
Name: Tim Do Student (Sophomore-Junior) What are your personal goals in participating in the mentorship program? Personally, I want to get to know everything I can. Being a young designer, I want a chance at every opportunity to grow and become better by learning from people who work in the field and know good design is. I want to be a sponge in this program, collecting knowledge and honing skills that can only be done with experience. What’s your favorite platform to create in? If we are talking about Adobe products, Illustrator is close to my heart because it was the first program I ever used and learned from. I think learning Illustrator made me interested in graphic design as a career but after a year in college, I can fully say I am an Indesign Supremacist. I love Indesign with a burning passion and it really sparked my interest with poster design, publication design, and typography as a whole. There’s so much you can do with it and I will die on that hill. But off the Adobe products, I’m an advocate for making with what you have, so a pen and paper will always be my go to choice.
Not pictured: Abigail Miles, Annie Myers, Benjamin Little, Brandi Wilson, Brittany Lee, Callie Herzog, Chase Bundy, Christian Toth, Connor O’Neill, Daniele Bush, Jack Wrisinger, Ki Sowell, Maggie Rouchka, Michelle Carroll
