Turning Challenges into Opportunities: Lessons from Jeremy’s Creative Journey

Jeremy's story is an inspiring blend of creativity, determination, and cross-cultural adventure. Through BYOL, Jeremy turned a challenging career transition into an opportunity to develop new skills, reignite his love for design, and land an exciting new role in the creative industry. His journey reminds us of the power of perseverance, continuous learning, and finding joy in the creative process.

Tell us a little bit about yourself.

Hi, I’m Jeremy! I'm from the US, but have been living in Japan for the past 14 years. I'm passionate about travel, photography and cooking. I've always loved to draw since I was little, so I've had an interest in art and design for a long time.

I’ve been interested in Japan since I was a kid and wanted to come ever since my family hosted exchange students. They brought us a VHS copy of My Neighbor Totoro and Hayao Miyazaki’s art style became my first impression of Japan. When I finally came here to study in college this impression became fully realized. From the cicadas singing in the summer, the perfect rice paddies, and ancient shrines, it was everything I imagined it to be. I love the combination of traditional with ultra-modern, minimalism with “wabisabi” (finding beauty in imperfection). I didn’t want to leave. 

As soon as I graduated college, I made my way back to Japan and have been here ever since. This experience of living abroad has definitely shaped my photography and designs. (These influences are present in Mt. Fuji illustrations, sakura macro photography, or temple photography I’ve taken on my travels.)

Tell us about your career path. 

Like many expats I first came to Japan as an English teacher. I taught for a couple of years in the mountains of Nagano prefecture and then made my way to Tokyo. In Tokyo I studied Japanese to a business level of fluency and became an event manager for a Japanese company. I was responsible for clients coming from overseas who wanted their events in Japan. I would get creative briefs in English and work with local designers to make proposals. This was my first taste of the creative process. 

After working at the event company, I became a project manager at a few different global tech companies where I got to manage several different projects including corporate branding, digital content creation, print materials, exhibition booth design, and video production. Getting to experience the whole process of coming up with a concept, sketching it out, working with designers and then seeing those ideas come to life made me fall in love with the design process.

How did you find yourself at BYOL?

After working with graphic designers for years, I wanted to learn graphic design so I could do it myself. Up to this point I had made thumbnails in Photoshop, and could edit my travel photography in Lightroom, but I knew that the designers I worked with used Illustrator. So I decided the first step in learning design would be to learn how to use Illustrator. I started with the original Illustrator Essentials course after searching for the top rated Illustrator course on Udemy. At the end of the course I learned about BYOL, and that I could take several courses for one price, so I signed up last year.

I love the teaching style, it is really approachable and easy to follow. The supportive BYOL community and monthly challenges make it an amazing learning environment that I am happy to be a part of.

What is your favorite BYOL class? Why do you like this BYOL class?

The updated Illustrator Essentials course is my favorite. As I mentioned, I had taken the original course, so when I took the updated course, I found it so much more thorough. It progressed in a much more logical and easy to understand way. I really liked that I had one mock brand that I built on throughout the course. Having this one focus on while learning not only the tools of Illustrator but also learning how to create brand colors and select fonts all the way to creating mockups makes for such a great design foundation. It makes me feel better equipped when approaching designs for different projects.

I also realized through this course that Illustrator is my favorite design software. I love drawing over hand drawn sketches and creating vector graphics. I usually start with the pen tool, shape builder tool and edit with the direct selection tool then draw over with the pencil to make shapes feel more organic. After the course, these are the skills I’ve put to practical use the most. (Helping my sister vectorize her hand-drawn illustrations “Tooth Guys Nobunny’s Perfect”.) Then skill-stacking and using 3D tools to inflate what was once a drawing can be particularly satisfying (as was the case with the “Fuji Inflated.”)

It's amazing how many classes you have taken and how many new skills you have gained! How did you maintain the motivation to take so many classes? 

At the beginning of the year I found myself fresh out of a work contract. I had no idea how my new job hunt would go, but I knew what I could control is learning new skills to make myself more valuable. I also knew that if I had the choice I would love to be a creative project manager again. So the first few months of my unemployment I spent hours learning Photoshop or Illustrator in the morning, and doing my homework in the afternoon, like I was back at school. To make myself ready and available for UX/UI project manager roles, I also learned Figma and refreshed myself on HTML/CSS. It really gave me something to focus on.

Eventually when I started getting interviews everything I learned became something I could lean on. I am happy to say that I was able to get a new project management role on a marketing design team at a major streaming platform. It’s amazing what happens when you wish upon a star! I’m excited that learning the creative process helped me get this role and grateful to BYOL for helping get me there. 

Can you share a bit more about how learning these new skills led you to this exciting new career opportunity?

For months it felt like I would need to compromise, because the job I wanted just didn’t exist. I learned a bunch of design skills, but I couldn’t yet apply for a design job as I haven’t built a professional portfolio yet. I wanted a job where I could manage projects for a design team. This is what I always enjoyed doing (compared to just event management). Finally, when this job came up I knew it was exactly what I was waiting for. They wanted a project manager familiar with the design process and Adobe Suite (specifically knowledge of Photoshop & Illustrator).

I am grateful to BYOL for giving me something to focus while navigating a tough job market, and for giving me the skills necessary when that right job came along. I could talk confidently about the design process, and could ask the right questions about their process in the interview. While I may not be designing myself, everything I learned will make it so much easier for me as a project manager to work with the designers. (I’ll definitely still keep working on side projects outside of work and participate in the monthly challenges.)

What is next for you? What are some future goals you have?

I am putting my Illustrator skills to use helping my sister vectorize characters of hers to put on shirts (see my profile photo) and mugs on an online shop. These “Tooth Guys” are super fun to work on, they always put a smile on my face. It’s really nice to be able to collaborate with her even when we are far apart (she’s in the US, I’m in Japan). My dad is in the process of opening a winery, so I have offered my services to design his wine labels (ex. “Wine Label Tradition”) and will design his website.

I will continue learning on BYOL. I want to learn After Effects & Premiere next. One of my other side projects is a YouTube channel where I introduce Japanese dishes in English. It’s called “Home Cooked Abroad.” I need to update the branding soon and hope to use effects to make my videos better.

Anything else you would like to share that we should have asked you?

Thanks to BYOL and the community for being there for me over the past 10 months! It was certainly a challenge, but to have a positive, uplifting place to learn and grow gave me a great focus and made me feel a part of something. To anyone else going through a similar tough situation, I would recommend keeping the goal of who you want to be and what you want to do in mind and focus on little steps each day to get there. You’ll get there.

Also, if you can make yourself smile while designing something, that's when you know it’s something worth working on. Don’t forget to have fun along the way.

Thank you, Jeremy! Congratulations on your new role and thank you for sharing your journey with us! I know our community will resonate with your perseverance and quest to continually grow and improve.