If graphic designer Molly Ahearn \u201981 had to illustrate her career path, it wouldn\u2019t be a straight line. After studying abroad in Spain her junior year, the Spanish and psychology double major figured she might be an ambassador. Instead, after graduation, she landed a job booking talent into a 5,000-seat outdoor amphitheater in the Dominican Republic. After that job ended, Ahearn worked for a private investor in New York City. She\u2019d bought one of the first Mac computers and learned out how to use its drawing and graphing capabilities on presentations at the office. \u201cI realized what I really enjoyed doing was working on this computer and making beautiful things, so I started working at ad agencies,\u201d she says. \u201cThe long and the short of it is that I\u2019ve been a graphic designer for thirty plus years.\u201d She opened her design firm, Full Deck Design, in Clinton Corners, New York, in 2009.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Ahearn calls herself a \u201cthinking designer.\u201d She helps nonprofits and businesses think their way through messaging, how to appeal to their client base, and then how to visualize it all. Here Ahearn shares some of the lessons she\u2019s learned along her career journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When I was first working as a designer in New York City, I took a photojournalism class at the International Center of Photography. I loved it. My instructor urged me to get an internship, and I ended up interning with Bruce Davidson, one of the original street photographers and an acclaimed Magnum photographer. I worked with him on his Central Park photo essay, which later turned into a book. I spent every weekend in the park with Bruce walking around and meeting people. I began to think I would rather be a photographer than a designer. But I quickly learned that taking pictures was just too precious to me. To have an art director over my shoulder telling me how to take a picture drove me insane. But as a designer, I had no problem. You want the logo bigger? Sure, I\u2019ll make the logo bigger. Designing wasn\u2019t precious to me, and it\u2019s been a really rewarding career because of that. I\u2019m able to understand what the client needs more than what I need, give them that space and my whole creativity, and welcome criticism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Networking is a skill. My networking strategy is to assign myself some goals. For example, talk to one to two people and get a conversation going. And if I accomplish that, I call it a success. Lower the bar for yourself. The truth is that everybody\u2019s nervous, and you just kind of have to go for it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m on the board of the local chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals. And you say to yourself, wait a minute, she\u2019s a graphic designer. What the heck is she doing there? But that\u2019s where my clients are, so it\u2019s a perfect place to network. You never know where a lead\u2019s going to come from.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I didn\u2019t understand the importance of mentors when I was younger. I wish I had. I have been involved in multiple mentor relationships and still keep in touch with most of them. If I had had that encouragement earlier on in my own life, I\u2019m sure I would have had the guts to go out on my own a lot sooner than I did. I am sure there were people that would have been open to mentoring me, but I didn\u2019t know to ask or who that might be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I was in my early forties before I felt that I was good at what I did. That was a big change for me, going from somebody who attended events to somebody who led events, and being comfortable in that role. You are good at what you do. Give yourself credit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even though I was a Spanish and psychology double major, I ended up being a graphic designer, and I\u2019m so happy I took that path. You never know what\u2019s going to come your way. Be open to receiving it.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Graphic designer Molly Ahearn ’81 shares advice about networking, mentorship, and more.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":875,"featured_media":21701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[45,1],"tags":[11,669],"class_list":["post-21699","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni","category-uncategorized","tag-psychology","tag-spanish-and-portuguese","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"article_type":[8],"flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","custom_link_url":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false,"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","post_thumbnail_style":"default","press_downloads":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/875"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21699"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29847,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21699\/revisions\/29847"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21699"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21699"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21699"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}