Friday Fives: Susannah Beckett, '21
April 03, 2020
On Fridays we give #highfives to a different designer from our extended family of PNCA students, faculty, alumni, and guest lecturers. 🙌🏾🙌🏻🙌🏽 We ask them five questions. They send us five images.
This week's feature is Susannah Beckett, '21, a graphic design major and event planner. Susannah has been instrumental in making connections with students for our Design Lecture Series, and we are excited to see her interest in how people engage with each other and with design make its way into her work for identity systems and experiences.
Graphic Design Department Head, KRB, spoke with Susannah in Spring 2020.
Q: What are you listening to right now?
A: My favorite podcast is Punch Up The Jam, where they discuss hit songs and then at the end try to "punch it up," or try to make it better...or at least funnier. It's amazing.
Q: What is one thing you want to learn right now?
A: I'm really interested in learning about event experience design. I'm currently an event coordinator, so it sounds like a really cool blend of what I'm doing right now and what I want to be doing professionally. I think I have a couple of projects later in the term that deal with those, and I'm really excited!
The different genres of art are all so blurred, who are we to decide what is and is not design?
Q: You balance a lot, in your outside-of-school job, let alone with school. What is your favorite trick for “keeping it all together”?
A: I'm a big fan of lists. I like to set aside time to finish something in one go. I'm also trying to learn to say "no," to things, but it's hard!
Q: What feels vital to the future of design, to you?
A: I think people should gatekeep less. The different genres of art are all so blurred, who are we to decide what is and is not design? So that would be my recommendation, to try and be more accepting.
Q: What advice would you give your former self / just-starting-out-in-school self?
A: It's okay if you turn in a project that's not "perfect!" The point of school is to get feedback and learn from mistakes. If everything was perfect, you wouldn't need to be in school.
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Follow along with our #fridayfives on instagram @pncadesign, and see more from Susannah at susannahbeckett.com.