The following are parts of a conversation with Jennifer Lee.
We began our conversation discussing Jennifer’s story after graduating high school in Sydney, Australia, and moving to New York to attend Parsons School of Design.
Jennifer: I started [at Parsons] in 2021. I graduated high school in 2019. So I had a very long break. And honestly, I did nothing during that break. It was COVID as well. I just remember I was dating a guy in Sydney. That’s all I did. As soon as I got the vaccines, America was like, hey you can come. Got my visa. I flew off straight away. And then my semester started 2021, August.
And then my first year experience was, just underwhelming, I guess. Because first year in art school is very foundational work. So we don't really do a lot of designing at all. It was just drawing, making really random things. So I think most schools, most art schools in America do the same thing but they have first year foundation course. And everyone from different majors take the same classes. So even if you're fashion major or graphic design, interior, everyone takes the same first year courses. And those were quite boring. I took another gap after first year.
Calvin: When you went to Parsons, did you know what you actually wanted to do? Or you were just more like, go there and figure it out?
Jennifer: I think I had a general sense I want to do design. But obviously back then, I didn't know what graphic design really entailed. What my course really entailed. So I think part of the reason why I took another gap was to figure out if I really wanted to do graphic design or go into interior design. Because I was interested in interior design. But I realised just liking IKEA and decorating a room isn't the same as interior design. And I'm glad I learned that. So I just stuck with graphic design.
Calvin: Why did you go to Parsons in the first place? What was your thinking?
Jennifer: I don't think there was much thinking involved, honestly. Because you wouldn't really know what you're expecting unless you actually go to school. And that was my first time going to America as well. I applied to London as well. I got accepted into University of Arts London. I think part of the reason why I was open to trying different unis was because I wasn't born in Australia. Sydney already is like a second home for me. So another move to another country wasn't a big deal. Because my dad lives in Korea right now. I already had family in two different countries. So I was like, you know what? Me just leaving to America wouldn't be the biggest move. Also, I realised that I'm just very overly independent. All my friends are going to stay in Sydney, but that's fine. I'll just make new friends. I'm not really scared of going to new places. So I think that was a huge reason why I moved.
Also, I just wanted to get out of Sydney. Sydney was not an option for me. So I started expanding my options. I might as well just apply and see, kind of because I just knew that I would regret it if I never tried. I think honestly, until the minute I moved, it didn't feel like I was actually moving to a whole different country and city. I think knowing less made me a lot less afraid. There weren't that much thoughts involved, other than just me thinking that Sydney wasn't good enough [for creative study].
Calvin: Was there a reason why you picked New York over London?
Jennifer: I'm very easily influenced by weather. Also, New York just sounded cooler to me. my decision was really just based on what I heard from people and what I heard from the internet, because I didn't know anyone and I didn't have any resources.
We moved on to discuss her 2nd gap year which she spent in South Korea and her settling on choosing graphic design as her field of study.
Jennifer: So I took another gap [year]. This gap really changed my life. Because I spent that in Korea. So a lot of people just thought I'm traveling for a long time. Because I always come back to Sydney but then I'm in Korea or New York. But I actually left Sydney for good. And during that gap year, I didn't really know what to do.
I was born in Korea. I grew up there. I moved to Australia when I was like 10. But obviously, you don't remember things when you revisit your hometown. So basically, it just felt like I had to explore and learn a whole new city again. And find home. And this was when I just started going to a lot of art exhibitions. I actually learned about graphic design.
And I mainly just read books to learn. And then, I guess I'd spent another year feeling lost. And then I went back to Parsons. And then I think everything started making sense because I took so long figuring out if this was what I wanted to do. And I think if I just went straight into uni without a gap year, and having the extra year off after first year, I probably wouldn't have known. I still would be just doing school assignments not knowing what I want to do. I was very set. And I'm glad I chose the right degree for myself. But you know, maybe in 10 years time, I'll be doing something else.
The conversation moved to discuss her time in New York so far and her experiences across the different cities.
Calvin: Do you feel like from the creative and career-related perspective, New York lived up to your expectations?
Jennifer: I think it's hard to say now because I'm my interactions with people is still very limited to school people. But I think the biggest thing is it's the people you meet. Because I think a lot of people in New York, no one is really from New York if you meet people in New York. Everyone is from everywhere. And then they think that New York is the place for their career and then everyone is kind of meeting in New York. Everyone is definitely very driven. But I think [making] connections is definitely good. I can't compare it to Sydney though because I don't have many connections in design in Sydney. But I'm sure it's not as active as New York.
Calvin: What are your thoughts on Seoul compared to New York and Sydney?
Jennifer: I honestly think it's got something to do with you just always being open to meeting new people. I don't really think it's based on where you live because I see a lot of people living in New York and their connection is literally just classmates. Every holiday or weekend they would go back home and you're not going to meet people like that. I think when I spent my gap year in Seoul I felt very stuck because I didn't really know if I would actually go back to America and continue my studies. So I think I felt this urgency of trying to meet new people. I tried to meet new people. I think I honestly just DMed some people being like hey I want to work for your studio. Thinking back on that I had zero design experience. But I managed to meet them and stuff, they invited me over to the studio. Obviously, I never worked for them but I think it was a good experience because I gained validation that I actually I can meet new people and I can have them trust me. I think having that kind of interaction gave me confidence that I could actually talk to new people and maybe make a connection out of it. But I think I really value that connection that stays there even if you don't really like talking. It feels the same way. I don't like when you have to keep working on the relationship to build it.
At this point we began to discuss her social media presence and growth and how she approaches it all in relation to her own career and personal goals.
Jennifer: I think the growth past three months [followers] was probably like from 4,000 to now 50k. I always used to have this dream of having a big YouTube channel. And I did have a YouTube channel. I used to just make vlogs. I really like the idea of vlogs. And I personally just thought my life was interesting enough to make vlogs out of it. So I was like you know what? I want to vlog my daily life. I also really like recording my life in any form like writing, photos, videos. Documenting life. And I thought video was a good way to do it. I think I started posting YouTube videos when I first moved to New York in first year. That was in 2021. But I obviously wasn't consistent with it and I didn't realise how difficult it was to actually be consistent with uploads. So I would post two videos in like six months. And I got really stressed out. So I stopped completely.
And then I took my gap year in Korea. And I think I had a really big gap of not being active with creating things. I just wasn't making anything whether it be videos or design or artworks. And I hated that time of life when I wasn't creating things. And I realised I really have to make things every single day to feel happy. So when I finally returned from gap year and I went back to school I was like okay, I need to have some sort of creative outlet to be consistent that's outside my school stuff.
Because school stuff I am consistent with it but it's at the end of the day it's just an assignment, right? So I went back to vlogging for YouTube again. And then I came to a really quick realisation that YouTube is just too much work and too little traffic. I wasn't getting much engagement which I didn't care too much about. But I still want people to watch my stuff if I spent 10 hours on a 10 minute vlog. Honestly, I think for me filming has always been the easiest part because I always have the content ready because I just film what
I do throughout the day, right? So I never really had to worry about the content but because I mainly just film my life there’s too much to it. There's too much that I wanted to add to the video but no one's gonna watch an hour long video. Maybe some people will but I had to obviously condense it and I think condensing my life to short videos always it was too difficult for me because I never did it until I think I posted my first reel this year February.
I think I posted like three YouTube vlogs that semester so I posted three weeks in a row consistently and that was a big achievement for me. So three videos in three weeks and I was already burnt out. So, this was a big crisis for me. To some people maybe it just looks silly but I had a life crisis being like okay I can't be consistent with anything and I felt like a failure. I was so disappointed with myself because I made this promise with myself to just be consistent with YouTube and I couldn't. I enjoy making YouTube videos but why can't I get myself to do it and I went down a spiral and I said you know what I just hate feeling so stuck so maybe I'll just make a reel even though I didn’t like short form [videos].
I was like maybe I can make my YouTube videos but shorter and then just post it as a reel. That's why I think one of my first videos I don't think it had an audio. I think it was just my original audio and basically, I just made a reel but in a format of my YouTube video and that didn't pop off. I think I tried a couple and then now that I kind of got the hang of making short videos. It literally takes less than an hour to edit and it gets more views than my 10 hour edited videos on YouTube so I might as well try and I think I was consistent for a week and then two weeks after it popped off. I was pretty lucky with engagement and stuff. But I thought about it a lot. I think I planned it a lot.
Calvin: Are you still in that mindset?
Jennifer: I'm not, I'm actually trying to I'm taking time off to think about how I want to grow it now. I actually do want to go back to YouTube. I think it's really important to make whatever content you think you enjoy because I think that's also a big driving motto in my work. I'm very heavily opinionated whenever I watch something or whenever I consume any type of media I always have an opinion against something and I think that actually helped me create my own style of videos because I would never want to make videos that I wouldn't watch myself.
Honestly, it's not just about posting and editing, it's also seeing people's reactions. You can't just not care about people's reactions, right? So, you obviously take a peek at how the engagement's doing. Certain videos pop up more than expected, and then that will obviously kind of send you down a spiral, like, oh, should I make more videos in this way? I try not to care about it, but I do. And I think it kind of interfered with my work, my schoolwork, because I was too focused on editing and reels. I was handing in my assignment late and overdue, and I realised this is not good. That was tough. I think managing time is probably the biggest challenge I have right now. Because I'm a perfectionist with what I do. And when I felt the reel thing was taking away too much of my time, my working time, my design time, I felt very guilty that I kind of started reels for fun and potentially something to do with my career in the future. But I felt that was directly kind of interfering with the design time that I'm meant to be spending for school. And my grades got a little lower. I spent less time designing. And I kind of had a little creative block thinking like, oh, why am I making content when it seems so trivial? What’s the point of it? And in the beginning when I was reaching 10K, that’s the most exciting part and I think once it passed 20K, I'm like, hey, what next?
So I want people to think of me, if they ever see me on Instagram, even if I'm at like 100K, I don't want to be a random girl that just makes Instagram reels. I want people to be like, oh, the one that makes calendars. So in the long run, I think I just want to instil that image that I do graphic design. I think one of the reasons why I started doing reels is also because I wanted to just finish selling my calendars. Because I had so many copies left. I printed 80 copies. I'm sure everyone has flaws. And my flaw is definitely finishing things. I start things very easily. But finishing things off is the most serious part ever. And I always kind of leave it kind of half ended. So that's kind of what happened with my calendar. I did sell it through Instagram. So I tried to post it on Instagram. And I actually did sell it to some strangers, which is a big improvement from 2023. But I still made 80 copies. And I wanted to make money from it. I was thinking because I was confident my design would sell because all my friends loved it. Maybe they were biased. But you know, I was confident. And again, I only make design that I like. And I think I have I don't think I have the most niche sense of design. I think I like a lot of things that other people like. So I thought of ways to sell it. And I realised I actually made I filmed myself printing the thing. And I filmed it, but I never got myself to edit it. So I had those videos hanging just in my iCloud. And I was like, you know what, maybe I'll just edit this even though it's four months late. So I think I posted it Marchish. And that's when I was like, hey, this is really the last time I'm gonna try to sell this calendar. And I sold out after that.
Calvin: There are a lot of times with influencers where the community is not really engaged. You have a lot of followers, but then if you were to actually try to do something with them, it would be crickets. It seems like for you, this is not quite the case.
Jennifer: No, it's really interesting because when I see the following notifications, sometimes if the profile looks interesting, I go in there and see who's following me. And I'd say most people, at least, at least 60 to 70% people that follow me are art and design accounts. I think I successfully managed to get the target audience.
I always wanted people to know that I'm the person behind the work that I'm making. Because graphic designers, I noticed, it's very difficult to actually learn about the designer themselves, because they only post their works, and I don't know if you follow graphic designers, I follow a lot of accounts on Instagram, and I actually went to a lot of graphic designer exhibitions in Korea, and I met the designers and I talked to them, and they had such a fun personality, and they had a lot to themselves, they could definitely share more about themselves than just the work. But when I asked them, why don't you share any of your personal stuff on Instagram, they're like, oh, you know, just to keep it professional, it could potentially ruin the image of the studio. And then that's when I kind of realised my values were different. I think I trust people a lot more if I know who they are, and I think the thing with graphic design is, a lot of people just think that it's just a logo, and just making some cool things on a computer, but we do a lot of research. For example, if we're doing a logo, we wouldn't just get the name and then just make a logo out of it, we have to research the competitors, we research the background of the company, we do a lot of reading, and I thought that was really interesting about graphic design, is that people don't know. So I was like, you know what, maybe I could tell people what graphic designers do, and I just thought I had a friendly enough personality to be, I don't want to say online persona, I don’t like it when people have a different persona online, and they're different in real life, but I want it to be the same.
The conversation proceeded to discuss her general outlook on her career path as a graphic designer and more.
Jennifer: Usually the grad path after graduating is, I'd say roughly three ways you can enter. One is an in-house designer. So you just go into any corporate, and then you just become an in-house designer. But another one is a design agency. So if you actually join a design agency or design studio, they would be working with clients on project-based things. And usually I think those design studios are the ones that are the closest to what I want to do in the future. Because they're relatively small. I think some of them are literally one to three people. Some of them are like 10. Some big studios are like 15. That's considered pretty big, 15 to 20. I think that's where I will learn the most. I think that's where I could actually be part of a project and actually do design while learning things from other people. So ideally, I want to join a design studio. Third option, just freelance. But honestly, with the state right now, unless you already have a big enough portfolio and you have a big follow account and your website's already popping off and stuff, it's pretty difficult. But maybe I can do two and three together. I feel like honestly, three, I don't have a choice on.
Calvin: Going to the idea of going to the epicentre of your craft, would you want to stay in New York? Would it be better for your career?
Jennifer: It would be, I think, better for my career because New York is the centre of everything. And by that, I mean, literally every single design conference, events, pop-ups, all of that comes to New York. They come from different cities and countries to New York. And recently, there was a book fair called Printed Matters. Printed Matters is actually an art book store in New York. There's two stores. But they hold annual design book fairs. Design/art book fairs. It was the biggest book fair I had ever been to in my life. It was like five stories in a building. A book fair. And they came from everywhere. Europe, Asia, a lot of different countries. Actually, I saw an Australian one as well. That's when I kind of realised, these people travel to New York to attend this three-day art book fair. But I walked here from my school. So that was kind of crazy to me. People take flights and people fly hours to get here. And for me, it's a few steps from my school. And I think it's so easy to get used to it. But then every now and then when I actually meet people from outside of New York, in New York, I realise how big it is. It's a big advantage.
[However] I think we can say that it's easy, but it's also the most difficult because it's so competitive. It's so saturated. It's very saturated. And I think it's really easy to just feel like I'm not good enough. now that I'm in New York, I'm kind of like, there's too many talented people.
Our conversation ended with some final discussion on moving to New York and what she has learned living all around the world.
Calvin: Are you happy in New York now?
Jennifer: I'm very happy. I'm happy that I'm in New York. I don't think there was any clicking moment, honestly. But one thing that I just realised is you're never going to be happy in a city just by itself. You have to make yourself happy in that city. Being proactive. Because I left Sydney kind of hating Sydney and I thought I would just be happy and thriving when I moved to New York. But that wasn't the case. And honestly, I come back [to Sydney], I think this is my third time coming back the past two years, which is a lot considering how far it is as well. Everyone asks me , why do you come back every single holiday? I just miss Australia so much. So that was a big realisation. I miss Australia so much. And I honestly think Sydney is probably one of the best cities to live in, in the world. I wouldn't have this realisation if I hadn't moved to New York. So it's the same thing. If I move somewhere else because I hate New York, I'm probably going to end up missing New York.
I think something that's really important is keeping yourself stimulated and I think the city is a big factor, but in the end, if you live somewhere, you're going to get used to it in the end. You know, the Empire State Building, I see it every day on my way to school. I'm very desensitized, right? And obviously when I first saw it, I was like, holy shit, I'm in New York. So I think having that kind of realisation made me realise wherever I am, I need to stay stimulated and I need to keep myself inspired in my own way. And honestly, whenever I come back to Sydney, I'm so inspired. Whenever I'm in nature, I feel like I can make anything. Because in New York you just don't experience that. And then I start realising how important it is for you to stay close to nature. And I used to think Sydney was the most boring place ever. But now, every time I come back to Sydney, every single day, I feel like I need to do something fun. So yeah, now I'm kind of just like, you got to have the balance. And I think I see myself coming back to Sydney potentially in the long run.
I really do believe in having good people around you anywhere. You'll probably be happy. I think that's the most important thing. Yeah, it really is important. If I have good friends, I'm gonna have a good time. And I think that's a life lesson that I learned really recently. Because I used to always just believe in doing things for yourself to make yourself happy. I never really was dependent on friends and stuff until I went to America and literally don't know anyone. I realised friends is all I got.
Although I’m not at the same ‘level’ per se as yourself, it’s very reassuring to hear another designer has the same thoughts as myself, and most likely, many others in the field. This seemed to be such an honest interview, it was quite encouraging to read. Best wishes for your future career within the design field 🤞🏼
I absolutely adored this read! Couldn’t have related more or felt so seen. You’re so honest about how you approach things and I think that normalcy with which you approach your tasks gravitates people to you. You’re so deeply you, it’s amazing 🤍