Finlandia Success: Hayley Laban ’11

Alum Hayley Laban ’11

• Major: Graphic Design
• Graduation Year: 2011
• Hometown: Houghton, Michigan
• Current Location: Cheyenne, Wyoming
• Job: Graphic Designer

What I do:

I am a graphic designer at a marketing firm called Warehouse Twenty One in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I have been with them for just under three years. My company primarily works on large campaigns for companies both regionally and nationally. When we take on a campaign, we can be designing everything from the company’s own brand and identity, to promoting a certain product or service through designing advertising materials like billboards and tv commercials.

Before I worked at Warehouse Twenty One, I was a designer at a website and development firm called the Future Forward in Burlington, Vermont. There I primarily designed websites, but some clients would come to us looking to develop their logos and brand as well.

I’ve also worked at Rome Snowboards in Waterbury, Vermont as a marketing and product designer. It was my first big gig after graduation and I had the privilege of designing the majority of the company’s 2013 glove line.

How FinnU prepared me for the real world:

I am very grateful for the education I received at Finlandia. The professors in the art department are attentive and creative, giving you one on one personal attention and providing you with feedback in the same manner a client might. I got to take classes that actually had the main project being work for an actual client. The professors even went out of their way to come up with people in the community who were needing design help. It was really great to get that real world experience while still in school.

Memory:

I remember when I was a freshman, my advisor and design instructor at the time, Nikki Belkowski, asked me to consider taking a higher level design course my second semester because she believed that I really had talent for this. To hear that so early on into my schooling was really inspiring. It made me feel like I had chosen the right path. The work that I was doing that early on was probably just awful! But the fact that she could see beyond that and look to the root of my work, that ignited the passion I still carry for design today.