About Me

Hi! My name is Makinzie Ford.  I am a Graphic Designer based out of Fort Wayne, Indiana, currently studying at the University of Saint Francis. 

I am a Graphic Design major at the University of Saint Francis, and I am concentrating in Illustration and Photography. I am a detail-oriented designer with experience in various mediums, such as painting, vectors, collages, and many others. I have substantial background with writing, a meticulous creative eye, and expansive experience working with the community and have exemplary people skills due to my work history. While brainstorming for new projects, I always try to think of ways to make the project into something I find enjoyable, therefore, I feel more passionate about the project. Though I know this will not always be plausible in the work field, I generally find myself turning towards my musical influences to encourage excitement throughout the project, keeping myself and my creative ingenuity engaged.  Besides art and design, music is my passion.  Marrying the two together is what I want to do for the rest of my life and brings me copious amounts unadulterated joy.  Any time I have the opportunity to pair the two together, I will always take that chance.  My main life goal is to be designing in the music industry.  In addition to music, I love pulling from vintage aesthetics, predominantly the late 60s and early 70s era.  I find myself drawn to patterns and styles in this era and incorporating them into my art.  Due to them being heavily drilled into my artistic practices in high school, I now love alternate forms of shading, like stippling and crosshatching, and applying these to digital formats.  I find some of my strongest creative traits lie in stippling, manipulating the small dots to create a larger composition. 

            A few of the many musical artists who inspire my work and are also a repetitive subject in my pieces are Greta Van Fleet, Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac, The Velveteers, George Harrison, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and many others. Their words and tunes have taught me how to live, how to navigate life and emotions, and how to harness my creativity. However, there are also many visual artists that I truly admire.  Paige Sara is a photographer, designer, and all-around creative mastermind in the music scene. I truly aspire to model my future career after her.  A few others include photographer Joe Greer, designer Van Andrew, designer and typographer Paula Scher, designer Wes Wilson, painter Georgia O’Keeffe, and painter Alphonse Mucha.  I have marveled over these artist’s works for years and I find little bits of them intrinsically woven throughout my works. 

            As long as I can remember, I have been painting and drawing.  My great grandma taught me how to paint at a very young age and it helped me to connect with her and grow up in a creatively nurtured environment.  Because of that, and because I have the most experience with it, painting is my favorite medium.  Lately, I’ve really been enjoying learning how to create digitally, and it is quickly becoming one of my favorites.  I love experimenting with classic techniques on digital software like stippling in Procreate.  Procreate and Illustrator are my favorite softwares because I feel like I have the most control in them and know my way around them the best. I use all sorts of sources for my images, beginning with stock images, but lately I have been using my own photos and illustrations. 

            I feel confident in my work compositionally and I have a sound idea of how to work the page.  I intertwine the visual elements of design with the principals of design to create cohesive compositions.  I really like pushing elements off the page to engage the edge and adding in textures and patterns to elevate the design.  Color is a big part of my style and creative process and one of the main focal points of my design, and one of the main factors which influences the development of my piece.  I feel that I have an expansive knowledge of how the elements and principals are meant to come together to create a beautiful and comprehensive piece that I am proud of.