Meet The Artist
Zachary Perry
Graphic Designer/ Illustrator
From a young age, Zachary always had the passion to create something special. For every school project, he introduced an element of design and ingenuity into something as simple as a book report. He then began utilizing his design skills to develop a website for his father's restaurant in Richmond, RI. Zachary enjoyed the creative process and originality of the piece and decided to expand his knowledge into several art classes. He has continued to develop his career in the graphic arts field from drawings to websites, then logos to book covers, and finally advertisements to collateral design pieces.
In 2014, he was accepted at the University of Rhode Island to specialize in the field of Graphic Design. He started out with an array of gen-eds, in-depth studio classes, and business orientations. These studio classes consisted of drawing, painting, printmaking, sculpture, digital art, and videography, which gave Zach the fundamentals to start his career as a Graphic Designer. Within his studies, he came across a few design contests for different radio stations, art galleries, and campus organizations to help with their branding materials. Overall, Zach was able to take these designs and present them as a portfolio to prospecting jobs after graduation.
During his college career, Zach took a part-time position at a Mobil station located near the University. There, he was able to work on his studio projects during slow times during his shift. These projects consisted of several writing instruments, and enormous drawing pads stacked on top of multiple milk crates. Nevertheless, these assignments got the attention of a lot of clientele passing in and out of the station. One Sunday morning, Zach was drawing a self-portrait for a studio class he would be attending the next day. An older woman approached him and began asking about his drawings. She was very interested in his style of work and wanted to commission him to design her new book covers. Thus began a working relationship with a local author, Claremary Sweeney, as they developed five covers for a local murder mystery series, and seven interior maps to outline the setting of each story. After that, they had collaborated on their first children's book series while Zach earned 6 college credits in doing so. Overall, one self-portrait turned into a multi-book series paid internship. This was the beginning of Zach's career as a Graphic Artist.
One aspect that college students tend to overlook is the number of resources they have at their fingertips. The biggest support of Zach's career was a mass email chain to all aspiring artists within the fine arts community. Every few days, he was sent information on featured artists, special events, and even job opportunities. Surprisingly, he was the only student to follow up on these mass emails. Soon enough, a prospecting job in Jamestown was looking for a designer for their newspaper and Zach reached out to the owner. By then, he had to make a tough decision on how to manage his time between a full-time curriculum, and two part-time jobs. He knew that experience was the catalyst for all new business ventures, so he pushed through all doubts to become a successful designer. While working at the Jamestown Press, he learned how to design advertisements, layout the weekly paper, and format each story to fit the space needed. Overall, this position gave Zachary the opportunity to expand his reach in the design field. With his design experience, understanding of all Adobe programs, and now a formatting background, he would stand out indefinitely.
