My Story
My name is Arno and I am a creative addict. I was born and raised in South Africa, and ever since I can remember I’ve been drawing and making stuff. Throughout primary school I always participated in Art shows and competitions. I got featured in some local newspapers and even won some prizes.
Moving onto high school I selected Visual Art as one of my main subjects along with Computer Programming and Civil Technology for the 3D drawings and the opportunity to mess around in the woodworking room of course. I was already spending a lot of time drawing, learning about computers and being creative, but everything changed the day I discovered the magic of Photoshop. One of my high school friends got me copy of Adobe Photoshop CS2, and I fell in love. I started messing with photos, swapping faces and creating parody CD covers and posters. Soon enough I started designing stuff on Photoshop for my friends and family. Everything from new rugby jerseys for my school, to faking scorecards for one of my mates so he’d get the motorbike his dad promised him. If you needed something Photoshopped, I was your guy!
I graduated high school in 2010 and it was time for me to ditch my dreams of becoming a scientist or a magician, so decided that I wanted to be the next best thing, a Designer! Unfortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to go study after school, but I continued to learn and create every chance I got! I started working as a barman during the first summer after high school, followed by a job as an internal salesman for industrial gaskets… not the most exciting job ever, but it taught me a great deal about how life really works after school.
I made new friend at a party one night and he got me a job as a call center agent at a great e-commerce company situated in a very cool suburb in Johannesburg. One of the main attractions to me at the time was the possibility to move into their creative department after a couple of years. I had my eyes on the prize and started working my way up in the call center from there. 2014 was a BIG year for me, not only did I meet my beautiful girlfriend and best friend at a local festival, but also went on my first trip abroad, a crazy tour through Europe. What a year! I got to experience Amsterdam, Germany, Austria, Switzerland and France where I got to see some amazing art in the Louvre including the super famous Mona Lisa! Throughout all of this, I never stopped creating and teaching myself about design, art and all of the awesome tools available to creators. I did a lot of freelance work, and started dabbling in video editing too. I eventually got my shot in the creative department as a Junior Designer! It was GO-TIME!
The following year and a half was the biggest learning curve of my professional career. I had an incredible Creative Director as a mentor and learned about the in’s and out’s of professional design. It was all coming together now, the skills I picked through the years along with the inner workings of a creative department, refining my knowledge and really finding my voice and my own style. At this point I started creating more and more digital art, pop art mashups in particular. I also got to see some more iconic art from the inspiring Andy Warhol on a company outing to a limited time display of some of Andy’s finest work, including the world renowned Campbell’s soup cans!
Another giant year in my life was 2017, I got to visit the United States of America with my girlfriend and her mom. We stayed with her amazing family in Florida and had some pretty insane experiences, especially with her cousins as they took us to a range of incredible places! From a music festival in the Gulf Shores in Alabama to an unforgettable night on Bourbon Street in New Orleans to mention but a few… Southern hospitality is REAL, and Dr.Pepper changed my life. On the flip-side I also left the above mentioned company after 6 happy years and experiences in a host of different departments, from sales to support, and even hosting VIP’s, the most important being the valuable time I spent in the Creative Department.
The following couple of years taught me the basics of HTML and CSS coding with a tiny splash of JavaScript. I was now a fully fledged professional designer and I could honestly feel it! I was at a point where I could confidently do pretty much anything on Photoshop, I knew my way around After Effects and enough of Illustrator and InDesign to open them up without feeling anxious. I started learning more and more about web design, using WordPress and Webflow to build some pretty crazy websites for a beginner. I faced some huge design challenges and worked long hours but kept soaking up every new experience and learning curve like a sponge! The thrill of creating a new website from scratch, from the images and typeface to the layout and functionality is truly phenomenal!
Towards the end of 2019 I started working in a much more structured environment along with some people I’ve met on my journey. My girlfriend and I decided to make a tick off our bucket list by visiting Ireland for the World Famous St. Patricks day festival! We were all set and super excited for our trip to Dublin in 2020 when the dreaded Corona Virus struck. We still went. Even though we missed out on a lot of experiences because of restrictions and lock-downs we actually ended up having a blast and a completely different experience to what we had originally planned. We barely made it back to South Africa before the international travel restrictions fell in place, and transitioned straight into a full on national lock-down. And that’s where I find myself today! Ready for whatever the future holds and still highly addicted to creativity!
My vibe
