Meet Hillary Griffin

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Hillary Griffin. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Hillary, so excited to have you with us today. So much we can chat about, but one of the questions we are most interested in is how you have managed to keep your creativity alive.

Whenever I start feeling like I’ve gotten stale or feel disconnected from what I’ve been working on, I think back to when I spent precious hours creating characters and stories when I should have been getting a good night’s rest. This was back in grade school and college, when I hadn’t yet applied my art and design skills to the working world. I was my own client, my audience was a small circle of friends, and the subject matter was whatever comic, manga, or game I was obsessed with at the time. There were no deadlines or high stakes; just pure enjoyment for myself. I think back to that seemingly endless fountain of ideas and creative drive and try to carve out some time for myself to rekindle it. The most rewarding way I’ve been able to do so, is by making Halloween costumes.
I take a lot of pride in my costumery and am now extending that to my Halloween displays now that I have a front yard! Just this year, I finally realized a costume that had been sitting in my back pocket for a couple of years: The Thing, from John Carpenter’s 1982 movie. It’s one of my absolute favorite horror films (practical effects, zany alien designs, an excellent dog actor) and I knew I wanted to be the iconic movie poster. So I did some planning, trial and error with an LED mask (though I learned a bit about basic circuitry, which was neat), and ended up with a satisfyingly low-tech, budget-friendly adaptation. Having had a habit for picking costumes that aren’t popular, I knew I would need something else to get trick-or-treaters to at least consider approaching my house on our sleepy street. I wanted various forms of The Thing to be featured. I drew up some sketches of the most memorable evolutions of the film’s eponymous villain and after some thought, gave them all Sonny Angel faces to be a bit more kid-friendly. Cute and creepy. I was psyched to try crafting some plywood cutouts and painting them. Even bought a jig saw. But time slipped away from me, and as the last two weeks of October closed in, I adapted my designs as illustrations for laminated prints. They were 3-4 feet wide, glossy, and vibrant. I was so pleased. Stayed up late getting those bad boys trimmed and prepped for lawn stakes, but it was worth it. To top it all off, I gave my husband the task of dressing up as RJ McCready.
Even though my sleepy street gifted us with only a handful of visitors, I was still so, so proud that I could do my part to spread a little holiday spirit and work with my own hands to put it all together. It was a good night sipping margs to a little Pink Floyd and generously stuffing kids’ bags with snacks.
When your full-time is at computer, it would make sense that your creativity would want to manifest in other mediums. Costumery has also allowed me to refresh on old skills, like sewing, or try something new, like sculpting with chicken wire or figuring out how to attach mannequin arms to my waist. I got my start with cosplay in high school, planning group costumes with my friends and even participating in some events at Anime Expo. I think I’ve kept up a good record of having something homemade every year since 2011 and I think it’s a pretty reasonable goal to maintain!

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I work as an in-house designer for California State University, Dominguez Hills. My department produces all marketing and campus communications for the university. For instance, I’ve created our web ads, motion graphics in our videos, illustrated magazine covers and stories, and even illustrated our mascot, Teddy the Toro. It’s been challenging with limited state resources, but my team has always found ways to try something new. There’s also something inspiring about working in higher ed and hearing from my team’s writers about students’ stories or faculty achievements. I’ve been there about 10 years now and when I move on to try something else, my first look would be another non-profit or some sort of educational organization… maybe go back to children’s media again.
My first few jobs were illustration and motion design for a pilot episode of a children’s variety show and picture books. When I read reviews or saw delight on kids’ faces–it made the hours of trying to perfect each step worth it.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

Communication, decision-making, and time management are the three that determined whether I struggled or flourished on project. Do I have all of these mastered? Debateable. But I try to employ them every time I take on a project. I’ve also noted that whenver I am on top of these, I avoid the burnout that drains my creativity.
Time management will allow you to plan out how long a project will take and break it down into more achievable chunks.
Decision-making allows you to actually follow out that time-management plan. Someone like me will often get hung up on option A, B, or C, spend extra time to make option D, and then be unsure of what to present (just send three–they’ll choose the one you don’t like, anyway). But good executive decision-making focuses on what’s feasible in the amount of time you have and ticks off the boxes of what was requested.
And speaking of what was requested, that brings in communication. From recapping what you got out of a verbal request, to setting expectations, down to a timely update email stating that you’ll need more time (NOT the day-of).

Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?

When I was hired at CSUDH, the department didn’t exactly know what they wanted for my position long-term. There were a couple of initial projects that they had in mind, but leadership changed and the remaining team wasn’t sure where they wanted my focus. I ended up learning more HTML and CSS on the job, about email marketing best practices, training and teaching, and ADA compliance. It has made me valuable at the place I learned these skills, but I don’t think my skill in each of these makes me a strong candidate for a position that is focused on just one of them. And normally, these are different jobs. Web developer or UI/UX designer, IT administrator, marketing professional. I also wouldn’t want to apply for a job that was solely one of these, either. Perhaps other people would have a much more uplifting career turn brought on by a skill learned on the job, but it hasn’t happened yet for me.
So I’m all for being the go-to person for a specific skill. I like working with someone who has honed their craft, has their thing. They likely know something about that skill that I wouldn’t without having lived it.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://hillarygriffin.com
• Instagram: @sparrowcheek

Image Credits

Hillary Griffin