I studied graphic design at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley (UTRGV), and I graduated last year. Right now, I’m doing freelance. In college I started becoming an artivist. I had a professor, Celeste Luna, who used that term, and I really liked it – combining art and activism. And I did that with my traditional art.
Right now the government is giving us so much to work on, to talk about, so I thought, what if I started incorporating the political aspect with my graphic design? Because I would only do it with my art. I did that little graphic because I saw a lot of designers and illustrators do it to raise awareness.
I am not good with words and there are people who are visual and need a visual element. If I see a whole paragraph of text, it’s not going to attract me to read it. But if I see an image that says, “Protect Trans Youth,” it’s like, what’s going on? Why do we have to protect them? I know me and other visual-inclined people need that visual aspect to understand that there’s something going on. So after seeing other illustrators do that, I thought, let me do my own version.I did the Texas boot with the trans colors with the text “Protect Trans Youth.”
I posted that and a tweet describing a situation and I remember my sister and others were like “Is that true? Is that really happening?” And yeah, that’s our way of raising awareness!