My name is Gillian, and I am originally from the United States. I grew up primarily on the Coast of Northern California, in several small towns on the coast in Marin County: Point Reyes and Inverness, located on the Tomales Bay about an hour and a half northwest of San Francisco. I spent my high school years living with my father in Santa Barbara, California.
As an adult, I have lived all over the U.S., including San Francisco, Boulder Colorado, Austin, Texas; Tucson, Arizona; Portland, Oregon, and Port Townsend, Washington, before coming to Canada in 2004. In the late 90’s, my mother bought a place on Cortes Island, BC, where I met my husband and had a child in 2007. We lived on the Island for a number of years before coming to Cumberland, BC, where I’ve lived now for about eight years. My son is now nearly 13 and has gone to Cumberland El since he started Kindergarten.
I am currently enrolled at NIC in the Web Design Fundamentals Certificate Programrogram and may decide to continue on to the Communication Design Diploma. I chose to enroll in this program as a continuation of both formal and self-learning in art and design, as well as digital photography. I have also taught myself Adobe Illustrator, Indesign, (some) Photoshop, and Lightroom. I am very excited to increase my knowledge and skills in those programs as a DGL student here at NIC! I have also taken some courses in Web Development on Lynda.com, and done some coding on Codeacademy.com. In addition, I have job experience as a designer and project manager at a local sign shop here in the Comox Valley. I enrolled in this program because I believe that Web Design and Development is a natural continuation of the things I’ve already been doing.
My Goal for the year is to get through this semester in one piece, (or at least without crying more than a handful of times in the next few weeks) while gaining the skills I hope to develop for a future career in Digital Design and Web Development!