PR486: A Beginner’s Guide to Design Breaking Down The Adobe Suite

By: Kathryn Aurelio ‘25

After getting my first social media publicity position in high school, I scoured the Internet for design platforms I could use. Of course, Adobe took the first spot in every search, but I soon realized it came at the cost of a monthly fee too high for a high schooler looking to make graphics.

Once I got accepted to USC, I made it my mission to take advantage of Annenberg’s free subscription. I religiously checked my phone to look for open seats in a class that was the perfect marriage of strategy in PR and beginner’s design, PR486: Multimedia PR Content: Introduction to Digital Design Tools.

Thankfully, I was able to snag one of the 20 available slots.

Freshman me walked into a class of seasoned upperclassmen, but the full-screen display of a gray rectangle containing rows and rows of tools and a seemingly infinite amount of special effects was even more daunting. Fortunately, the class was warmly welcomed by Professor Jenn de la Fuente. She emphasized the importance of issuing encouraging compliments and helpful critiques as our small cohort of interdisciplinary non-Roski students navigated design possibly for the first time.

I got especially excited after hearing an announcement that the course would have a semester-long assignment centered around creating a PR package for a music festival! I knew this 2-unit class every Wednesday afternoon would be a welcoming experience and a reliable home base for my interdisciplinary (PR, design, and music industry) interests.

If the color gray was personified, it’d be the Adobe interface (quite a paradox that the industry standard has such a dull design). It was really overwhelming trying to navigate on my own as I simply wanted to make Pinterest-worthy designs at the beginning. But Jenn made sure to start with the foundational building blocks by taking us through the basic tools of Illustrator within the first weeks. Additionally, she made it easy for her students to refer to a class web page with resources, including links to tutorials, fonts, textures, mockups, and more!

For our first assignment, we began fabricating our music festival/record label through a paragraph-long pitch and a business card. I came up with “Sunny Star Records/Sunny Star Fest,” a project that highlights the pop music flurry surrounding the feeling of both "starry" –melancholy/woe and "sunny" – joyous daylight celebration This assignment allowed me to meld perfectly my passion and fandom knowledge to implement meaning behind my designs.

For the next step of the project, I developed a vintage style of screen printing to highlight the festival information while showcasing the artists. We had a roundtable in class to discuss what was already working and what could use improvement as we moved to the next design phase. I found this class focused on what’s often missing from the design market – advocating for the intention behind your design choices in a public speaking environment.

Having to use my public speaking skills after the long in-person school drought made me feel like I was growing exponentially both on a personal and design level.

Jenn made it extremely easy for us to go to office hours outside of class to use her paper-cutting machines, sticker-making station, and other office supplies to work on our projects.

Through support from Jenn, my peers, and friends who’d been watching me grow on this semester-long journey, I was able to produce a full physical PR package for my festival. It consisted of a business card, poster, box, brochure, vinyl record sleeve and disc, VIP pass, a sunscreen bottle, keychain cards, and stickers.

After a semester kick starting my Adobe design journey, this class inspired me to pursue a minor in Communication Design at Roski. The confidence I gained from the positive feedback sessions after each step of the project from Jenn and my peers brought me a sense of confidence (and a vision of incorporating design work in my future career). I have the established foundational skill set that I can list on my resume and a solid piece for my portfolio.

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