Cynthia Cully is a Design professor at Sinclair Community College.
She started as a Communication major at the University of Dayton, but later realized that graphic design was a better fit for her.
“To me, art is more personal. The fine art is more personal,” she said. “Commercial design…[or] graphic design or visual communications, that is for someone else. Some people will say [you’re selling out], but I don’t see it that way. She said that’s how you’re able to make money and because you’re working for someone else, it’s a bigger problem to solve because that’s all we’re doing. Where on the fine art side, I can do what I want. It’s personal to me, I don’t care if you like it or not. But as a graphic designer and you’re the audience, I need you to like that. To me, I like that challenge.”
After she graduated with a bachelor of Fine Arts from the University of Dayton, she continued her education at the University of Cincinnati, where she earned her master’s of design degree.
She then started working for Mead in the school and office products division.
Later, she started working at Sinclair. She started teaching what was called pre-press classes at the time, which were introductory courses to computer programs.
She later started teaching typography courses and basic design courses, as well as more advanced second-year courses. She now teaches all types of Visual Communications courses, with an exception to those based on web design and development.
“I teach across the board. The only stuff I don’t teach is the web stuff and the interactive design… because that’s not my background, because I come from a print background,” Cully said. “When I started to work, we were still doing everything by hand, so there was no web. For me, I enjoy the print.”
She describes teaching as an exchange of information, because not only are her students learning from her, but she’s also learning from her students.
“There’s something that every person that you come in contact with, they have something that they can share with you or that you’re going to learn from them. So if you approach it like that, you can get a lot out of this. So it’s not just about, ‘I’m learning about typography today.’ No, it’s more than that,” Cully said.
She advises current Visual Communications students to start looking for a job early on, to research the company they’re applying for and to stay passionate.
“Be passionate about your design… I think that’s not just for graphic designers, but that’s for anybody,” she said. “Because if you’re passionate about what you’re doing, number one, it doesn’t seem like a job. Number two, you’re still interested in it and you’re constantly growing in it.”