Humans of Dezynspace: Things You Need to Learn from the Quarantine

Humans of Dezynspace is a series of interviews on our graphic designers. It is a closer look on our graphic designers — their heartfelt stories, what drives them, and their inspiring experiences.

The feature today is Harry Dubouzet, our reliable senior graphic designer. He shares his passion for the arts, and what are the things he learned during the quarantine.

“I would usually introduce myself with my full name, Joseph Anthony Harold Dubouzet. It’s a very long name, and people get surprised about my last name — Dubouzet. It sounds very French. I’ve actually asked my dad about it, and we’re probably one-fourth, or one-eighth. My dad asked someone to trace our line back and said there was a French captain by the name of Dubouzet who arrived in the Philippines during the Spanish era. We have a lot of Dubouzets in Bacolod.

So for me, I like drawing and writing. Actually I started drawing because of writing; because I want to illustrate my characters. And…my passion for the arts is so great that I became a professional graphic designer. It would be surprising to know that I graduated as a MassComm (Mass Communications) graduate.

Well it’s kind of funny, it’s from my work before which became a reason why I became a graphic designer. I’ve always loved drawing — I started in traditional art, but I moved into digital afterwards. I started on digital arts, more like dabbling on it, during college.”

[When I was working] I did actual graphic design for my previous work…I realized when I was looking at the creative team, I felt like, I think I want to give graphic design a try. So I gave it a try. And I realized that I actually prefer graphic design over my work before as a Brand Associate. It was more of event activations, I would go to these certain events…like that. It’s like, I prefer making videos and graphic designs compared to event activations.

It’s also thanks to my girlfriend that I started learning more into graphic design, and she is an art director…We both shared our passion for graphic design and the arts. She was the one who taught me in [Adobe] Premiere and After Effects.”

Having a growth mindset

“What actually pushed me to become a video specialist was the time when someone asked me last minute requests. ‘Harry, we need an animated title of the card, can you do it?’ And then, I am like, *shocked* ‘I don’t– You want me to make an animated title card on the last hour, on a Friday?’ How am I supposed to do it? I only knew Windows Movie Maker during that time.

But I researched. During my childhood, one of my past times was animating stuff in PowerPoint. And I asked myself ‘is it possible to animate using PowerPoint?’ and it said I can. And I was amazed!

And that’s where my career in video editing started.

For me, when people ask me to do this, I’m usually more of the person who — rather than saying ‘No, I can’t do it’, I’m more of like: ‘Is it possible?’ ‘Is there another way?’. If someone says, ‘Harry, can you do this?’ I would be like ‘I am not sure, but let’s give it a shot!’”

3 key learnings from the pandemic

“Key learnings?…I guess one of them would be learning how to sustain yourself. Since I’m living alone, and I don’t have a companion at home to do stuff with. You really need to be able to maintain a sound body and mind when you’re living alone, when you can’t meet anyone personally.

Especially when you’re by yourself, make sure you stay as healthy as you can. I learned over the years that it’s so hard to get sick while living alone. Who’s going to find out if you’re not feeling well? Right?

That’s one of my fears and I try to be constantly healthy — as much as possible, eating the right food, getting enough sleep, making sure I’m not overstressed, making sure my room is neat and tidy as possible, and when I go out, I have a face mask and shield on. Because if I got sick, God forbid, it would be extremely difficult.

Getting into a routine is another important thing. Everyday, it’s going to be the same thing now and then, and you want to build yourself a routine so you have constant things to do to keep yourself focused on your activities.”

ABOUT DEZYNSPACE

Dezynspace is the leading online platform where you can easily book a graphic designer, exclusively attending to your design needs the whole 8 hours of the day, on a per demand basis.

All graphic designers are pre-vetted, professionally trained, and are able to respond directly to customer requests and queries in as fast as 30 minutes.

The Dezynspace model eliminates the tedious hiring process and the administrative and management concerns for its clients while providing them with good quality and professional graphic design talents dedicated to help them with their creative needs.