Name: Avery Lockwood
Job Title/Company: Graphic Designer for The Columbian-Progress
Education: Bachelor’s degree in Art: Digital Media and Time-Based Media from Brevard College
Years in position:1 year
Hobbies: I like to play video games — I’m a huge Nintendo fan. I like to play games like The Legend of Zelda and Mario. I’ve been drawing characters since I was little. My sister and I would create characters for a story that she was doing, and I just kept going with it. I also enjoy photography. I played basketball since I was in third grade throughout college. I also enjoy weightlifting; I can’t get that out of my system. I help with the Columbia High track team coaching shotput and discus.
What do you enjoy about your job? I really like the freedom to explore an idea with an advertisement or a cover for our special sections. With our latest Profile edition, the theme was “light at the end of the tunnel.” I went out and took some photos of tunnel-themed things and had a lot of fun creating that from scratch. I’m able to go out to do some photography and learn more and practice that skill.
Why did you choose this profession? I could have graduated with an exercise science minor because I did exercise science for the first two years. I thought I wanted to be an athletic trainer, but I realized science wasn’t for me. I always loved art and knew I could do a career in graphic design. With website design and social media is getting a lot bigger, this was a career I knew I could do really well in. With the paper, it goes hand and hand because we have the physical newspaper and online.
Who is your mentor and why? I have a few mentors. My college coach, Donald Hudson, who is the women’s basketball coach at Brevard, and Columbia trach coach, Earnestine Dillion, are people I look up to. Coach Dillon has done so well with track and field, and with me being a new coach to high schoolers, it’s nice to work with a coach who is flourishing. My old art teacher, Cindy Strecker, was great. I still talk to here, and she’s a good family friend as well. My parents, Kevin and Stefaney Lockwood, have both supported all of my different creative ideas and mediums. My dad taught me how to work hard, have perseverance and keep learning new things. My mom taught me how to be kind and help others.
What is the best advice you ever received? It’s not the end of the world if you mess up. I have a tendency to feel like everything needs to be perfect, and I’m very hard on myself if I mess up just because I know I can be better. But it’s not the end of the world to mess up, just have fun. That old saying, “I’m not here for a long time, I’m here for a good time,” speaks to me. Being a young person and also a Christian, I know there are more things out there. I try to be at peace with how everything goes because I can’t fix everything. So I try to be there for the people in my life and have fun while doing it.
What career advice would you give future women in business? Don’t be too picky with what you get because experience is everything in the workforce. Be picky if you’re not being treated well where you’re at because that is really important, too. But get all the experience that you can. I love doing anything that I can do. I feel like I’m a jack of all trades and like doing a little bit of everything, so that experience really helps. Also, don’t let the atmosphere of your work affect your work ethic. I know it can get very hard when you have a lot of stuff to do and your coworkers are bombarding you with questions but just let it roll off of you like water off a duck’s back and keep going. Good things will come if you keep your head down and work.
