Christian San Jose gives a talk about his career journey in design. Some key points: - He has been interested in design since age 5 but struggled with drawing skills. - He discovered web design in high school through making basketball forum signatures and wallpapers. - His freelance work led to his first paid job at age 16 and the realization design could be his career. - Throughout his career he has worked on projects for celebrities like Kobe Bryant, Dwyane Wade, and Usain Bolt. - He emphasizes constantly honing his skills, never stopping learning, and putting in the effort on every project detail to achieve proud work.

1. Canva Creatives Conference
November 16, 2014
Thank you for inviting me to Canva

2. Hi everyone, I’m Christian San Jose
Owner and Creative Director of Create.ph

3. We’re a design agency focused on digital media for global brands.

4. I founded Create in 2011, and since then we’ve created the official websites
of athletes, celebrities, and various companies.

5. Very interesting clients

6. [no voiceover]

7. Foreign clients…

8. [no voiceover]

9. …and local as well.

10. [no voiceover]

11. Design
Talk
with lessons
and sh*t.
A
This was supposed to be titled
“A design talk with lessons and shit”

12. Design
Talk
A
with lessons
and sh*t.
But they asked me to change the title to something more diplomatic

13. Inclined
to Design,
and the lessons
I learned along
the way.
Being
Being Inclined to Design [and the lessons I learned along the way]

14. designer
I’m 25 now, but I’ve been been inclined to design almost my whole life.

15. 5 years old
I started illustrating as a 5-year old kid.

16. 5 years old
But I wasn’t really that good.

17. 12 years old
Then I was 12 years old

18. 12 years old
And I didn’t really improve that much.

19. 25 years old
Fast forward to right now,

20. 25 years old
Still can’t draw shit!
I still can’t draw shit

21. 12 years old
So I sort of gave up on it really early. But at least the interest was there.

22. At 6th Grade, I stumbled upon The Sims.

23. It was a great game, and even though it was awesome finding different
ways of killing them…

24. …Trapping them in a room, setting Sims on fire

25. Killing more Sims…

26. I found it more enjoyable designing houses and its interiors.

27. …Designing a shit-ton of houses

28. At one time I made 20 house and vacation lots that were downloaded a
total of 80,000 times. It’s crazy.

29. 14 years old
I also stumbled upon graphic design at an early age…

30. 14 years old
Graphic Design!
(not really)
But not directly. It was actually incidentally through…

31. 14 years old
Basketball!
(do the thing! score the points!)
Basketball! As a kid I loved basketball a lot.

32. 14 years old
But I never played it…

33. 14 years old
…since I was short, clumsy, and had bad eyesight.

34. So that’s that.

35. [no voiceover]

36. So I resorted to basketball forums online like any basketball fan…

37. Not my stuff…and everyone had these amazing forum signatures — it was the cool
thing then, you just couldn’t post on the forum without a great signature.

38. My stuffWith enough curiosity and tinkering around, reading tutorials everywhere, I
found myself creating my own graphic signatures.

39. Then from basketball signatures, I created basketball wallpapers.

40. [no voiceover]

41. [no voiceover]

42. [no voiceover]

43. [no voiceover]

44. From tutorials I also learned how to slice PSD files and
have it generate HTML automatically.

45. Graphic design soon became web design, and with little knowledge on
HTML, and I was creating image-heavy slow-loading websites at 15

46. Basketball websites, school projects, church websites…

47. [no voiceover]

48. [no voiceover]

49. ALL FOR
FREE!
because I didn’t
know better!
…all free because I didn’t know I could
charge money for what I was doing.

50. 16 years old
I never thought that this could even be my career.
I just did what I enjoyed doing.

51. POST
MY WORK
ONLINE
but then,
I started to
I was on the computer at a regular basis. I posted
my work online, just so everyone can see.

52. 16 years old
Then I started getting inquiries bases on the stuff I’d
do for free anyways, and they wanted to pay me.

53. 16 years old
My first paid job was a website layout for $100 (back then was PhP 5,000).

54. [no voiceover]

55. $100
For a 16 year old, that’s a lot of money.

56. 16 years old
Then my second job as a “freelancer”

57. [no voiceover]

58. 16 years old
[no voiceover]

59. The inquiries kept going, and with all the small jobs accumulated

60. Very different kinds of projects and clients saw my work

61. [no voiceover]

62. I didn’t mind

63. And kept wanting to give me money…

64. I didn’t mind.

65. Awesome.

66. ENJOY WHAT
YOU DO, & THE
MONEY WILL
FOLLOW
Lesson 1
(EVENTUALLY)
Lesson 1: Enjoy what you do, and the money will (eventually) follow.

67. [no voiceover]

68. I was able to buy my own laptop before I got to college. I was enjoying
what I did, and was self sufficient.

69. COLLEGE!
I liked tinkering on my computer a lot, I was in front of it everyday, so me
and my parents figured I should take Computer Science in college.

70. So I graduated…

71. NOPE!
Nope. I hated it.

72. F*CK
COMPUTER
SCIENCE
Eventually, I dropped out.

73. 17 years old
And I went back to what I did best, being in front
of the computer, designing.

74. DESIGNING
And I was in front of the computer every single day.

75. EVERY
Every

76. SINGLE
Single

77. DAY
Day

78. HONED
MY
SKILLS
I honed my skills.

79. HONED
MY
SKILLS
[no voiceover]

80. HONED
MY
SKILLS
[no voiceover]

81. HONED
MY
SKILLS
[no voiceover]

82. HONED
MY
SKILLS
[no voiceover]

83. & LEARNED
NEW ONES
I learned new ones.

84. ALWAYS BE
DESIGNING.
Lesson 2
(NEVER EVER EVER STOP)
Lesson 2: Always be designing (never ever stop)

85. There was a job opening at Team Manila Graphic Design Studio.

86. After the conclusion of my interview, they mentioned that I’m going to
start in a week, and their software of choice was Adobe Illustrator.

87. NO PROBLEM!
I LOVE
ILLUSTRATOR!
I said “No problem, I love Illustrator!”

88. I DIDN’T KNOW
SH*T ABOUT
ILLUSTRATOR!!!
I didn’t know shit about Illustrator.
I never clicked the pen tool in my life.

89. For 1 whole week, I watched Lynda.com tutorials…

90. and taught myself everything I need to know about Illustrator.

91. FAKE IT
UNTIL YOU
MAKE IT
Lesson 3
Lesson 3: Fake it Until You Make It

92. Up to this point, I still didn’t have a clear idea what’s going to be my
future. I just knew I wanted to design, and now, also Illustrate.

93. Here are some of the things I did while at Team Manila.

95. I was surrounded by very talented people

96. and it was the first time I really grew as a designer.

97. [no voiceover]

98. The whole experience was amazing.

99. Not long after, I needed to go to the States, less than a year working at
Team Manila, because I was migrating there with my parents.

100. Personal
Work
Client
Work
The experience I gained at my first job, and the skills that came along with it,
gave me the confidence to continue and further pursue personal design work.

101. I was able to work on personal projects, stuff I did, as I
always did, just for myself.

102. Emo guys

103. Forbidden Kiss

104. Ultimate Cute Shirt

105. Printed in the states, and pirated in Thailand

106. Stuff that made no sense

107. And awesome collaborations with fellow artists

108. [no voiceover]

109. PERSONAL
WORK
OVER
CLIENT
WORK
Lesson 4
Lesson 4: Personal Work over Client Work

110. Client
Can you make the logo bigger?
Because sometimes, stuff like these get tiring.

111. Client
Can you make the logo bigger?
NO
No.

112. Client
Can you use my daughter’s logo? She’s good in…
Can you use my daughter’s logo? She’s good in Pai…

113. Client
Can you use my daughter’s logo? She’s good in…
NO
NO
NO.

114. Eventually I got client work that I actually liked.

115. Bands like Cobra Starship. Sold at Hot Topic.

116. It was awesome to have clients that were able to
appreciate my personal work.

117. And since they enjoyed it from the start, for their own projects,
they gave me enough freedom and trust.

118. …one illustration was even tattooed on to a Spanish stranger. There is a
person right now, with a clown on acid, inked on her back.

119. A music themed shirt design, which sold 4,000 copies. I didn’t REALLY
know how much 4,000 shirts were; They didn’t even give me one.

120. I really only believed it, when the shirt appeared on a Tonight Show with
Conan taping, worn by an audience member

121. …And on iCarly / Nickelodeon.

122. The Siren Song, illustrated in 2009

123. And Mechalabaw, in 2009 as well

124. For the Mechalabaw design, I was lucky enough to win $10,000 from
DesignByHumans Annual Contest, which lasted 2 months.

125. After that exposure, Adobe contacted me to make an Illustrator artwork, to
be included in and bundled with the release of Adobe CS5.

126. Adobe even made banner ads with a sample of my work

127. I thought my computer was playing tricks on me. Didn’t know anything
about the ad until I saw it while browsing online. Maybe it was in the
contract I didn’t read.

128. 21 years old
Constant, consistent work, made my work and myself better. And it opened
up a lot of doors along the way.

129. I was lucky enough to be contacted by HS3, a digital
marketing agency based in Los Angeles.

130. They saw my portfolio, asked me to design the official logos of a few
athletes, including Albert Pujols.

131. That’s awesome!
They said: “That’s awesome!”

132. Interestingly enough, something else I did before
caught their eye, my old web design work.

133. Do you also do websites?
They asked: “Do you also do websites?” I answered: “Yes, of course!”

134. NOPE.
NOPE. Not in a long time.

135. MAKE YOUR
OWN LUCK
Lesson 5
Lesson 5: Make Your Own Luck

136. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
This was 2010, I hadn’t done web design in 4
years. I had to relearn it again.

137. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
4 years out of the web makes a whole lot of difference. I had to get my
knowledge up to speed.

138. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
SVG
HTML, CSS, UX, UI, Web 2.0, so many buzz words.

139. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
UXSVG
[no voiceover]

140. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
CSS3UXSVG
[no voiceover]

141. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
CSS3UX RWD
SVG
[no voiceover]

142. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
CSS3UXBOILERPLATE
RWD
SVG
[no voiceover]

143. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
CSS3UXBOILERPLATE
UI
RWD
SVG
[no voiceover]

144. I haven’t done websites in 4 years
HTML5
CSS3UXBOILERPLATE
BOOTSTRAPUI
RWD
SVG
[no voiceover]

145. With galleries, tutorials, videos, developer friends, and a lot of trial and
error, we were able to create good websites.

146. Along the way I taught myself PHP and Wordpress, and we
were able to make our sites complete.

147. And we soon worked on local client projects too

148. [no voiceover]

149. Web projects kept coming, and within a year I decided to
drop my illustration works to focus on web full time.

150. DESIGN &
ILLUSTRATION
DIGITAL
My obsession with design translated easily to my new
obsession with user experience and digital interaction.

151. My web portfolio grew, and in 2011 I started Create.ph.
We’ve been obsessing over the web ever since.

152. With my experience on sports design way way back, and my
knowledge in web design and illustration now, I was able to
work on amazing projects with amazing clients.

153. Stuff I never thought possible. The official website of Kobe himself.

154. Kobe’s Foundation website.

155. Refining and creating his official logos.

156. Official artwork and shirts, worn by Kobe while touring the world.

157. I got to meet him and I introduced myself. I said “Hey Kobe!” He said “Hey
CSJ!” — no, that didn’t happen. He didn’t know who I was. I name-dropped
my partners in L.A., then he figured it out. It’s fine.

158. So that’s Kobe.

159. Then I got to work on Wade’s official site.

160. [no voiceover]

161. [no voiceover]

162. Various projects with D-Wade.

163. Extending his branding to various material.

164. [no voiceover]

165. It was on his Li Ning shoes

166. So that’s Wade.

167. Then we got the fastest man alive, world record holder and multiple-time
Olympic Gold medalist, Usain Bolt.

168. [no voiceover]

169. [no voiceover]

170. [no voiceover]

171. So that’s Bolt

172. Then we got Big Sean. He’s with Kanye’s GOOD Music.

173. We did his official website.

174. So that’s Big Sean.

175. Is anyone seeing a pattern here?

176. We got to work on Usher’s official wardrobe website.

177. Where he orders from his own private personal collection or closet, then a
stylist sends whatever he picks, wherever he is in the world.

178. So that’s Usher

179. Since 2011, our set up has mostly been the same. We’ve
grown to a small team of 10 in 3 years.

180. EVERY PROJECT
I still work on each project,

181. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
…on every PSD

182. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
…check every pixel

183. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
…every layer name

184. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
…every class name

185. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
…every line of code

186. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
…every FTP structure

187. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
…every favicon

188. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
…every 404 page

189. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
EVERY CLOSING TAG
…every closing tag

190. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
EVERY CLOSING TAG
EVERY LINK
…every link

191. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
EVERY CLOSING TAG
EVERY LINK
EVERY ANIMATION
…every animation

192. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
EVERY CLOSING TAG
EVERY LINK
EVERY ANIMATION
EVERY LOAD TIME
…and every load time.

193. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
EVERY CLOSING TAG
EVERY LINK
EVERY ANIMATION
EVERY LOAD TIME
This is the work that clients don’t see, but makes our work something we
can be proud of, in an out, start to finish.

194. EVERY PROJECT
EVERY PSD
EVERY PIXEL
EVERY LAYER NAME
EVERY CLASS NAME
EVERY LINE OF CODE
EVERY FTP STRUCTURE
EVERY FAVICON
EVERY 404 PAGE
EVERY CLOSING TAG
EVERY LINK
EVERY ANIMATION
EVERY LOAD TIME
This is what our clients pay for, and what they deserve.

195. BE
OBSESSED
Lesson 6
(YOU NEED IT TO SURVIVE)
Lesson 6: Be Obsessed (To not only survive, but prosper in our industry)

196. We’re very fortunate to work on amazing projects. And even though we’re a
young company, our next project is designing the official website of Mitsubishi.

197. We’re not a big agency. We’re just group of young designers and developers,
loving what they do. And we’re lucky to work with client like these that trust us.

198. With every work, our rule is that our newest work should always be better
than the last, and this motivates us, more than money or anything else, and
makes each day in our office exciting, every single time.

199. FIND WHAT
MOTIVATES
YOU
Lesson 7
Our last lesson: Find what motivates you.

200. That’s it from us at Create.ph

201. INFO@
CREATE.PH
I hope you enjoyed the talk.

202. THANK YOU!
Thanks everyone!