This weeks LiveMakeDesign features letterer and illustrator- Shauna Lynn Panczyszyn.

Shauna is a 25 year old graphic designer,hand letterer and illustrator from Orlando, Florida. During 2010 she graduated from the University of North Florida with a BA in concentration for Graphic Design and Digital Media. Since finishing her degree she has interned, freelanced and has held several design jobs. She has produced work for OC Weekly and Brunet-Garcia Advertising, among several other companies. Her work has also featured in the Communication Arts Typography Annual Two and Graphic Design USA's 2011 design annual. She has also received several AAF ADDY awards at the local, regional and national level.

Like many illustrators, her inspiration to become an illustrator was sparked at a very young age. At the age of 3 she was caught by her mother drawing on their walls with a permanent marker pen. Ever since then, she has always wanted to have some sort of career in the arts somehow. When she was 13, she took a computer graphics class which opened her eyes to the possibility of being a graphic designer.

While attending UNF, she initially was focusing on choir and opera classes but during her first semester she realised that she was becoming jealous of students who were art and design students. She decided to change her major and was accepted into a program where she was taught everything about graphic design. However, during these classes she found her true love lay in illustration.

While focusing on illustration, she loved the possibility of it becoming a career. She ended up being able to intern at Brunet-Garcia Advertising in Jacksonville, Florida. During this time she was able to start practising with hand lettering and experiment with how it worked. After her intern she got a job at an in-house company for just over a year, contributing to do freelance illustration and hand lettering until she made the choice to move to Orlando and become a full time freelancer. 

Shauna's design process starts of by reading the brief she is given and creating a few quick sketches to get out some basic ideas. From this, she will then choose the direction/directions she wants to peruse for the design. After she will then work on the computer so that she can sketch out the basic rendering and layout for the design. This step allows her to quickly get the design on screen and then go back and give her design more detail in the lettering and illustrations. 

During the sketching phase of her work, it will vary depending on the brief that she has been given and what needs to be designed. When working on the computer she will sketch right into Photoshop then do refines from there on. Other times she will do a loose sketch on paper, and occasionally make very detailed sketches. The upside to using Photoshop instead of hand sketching, means she can easily move things as the sketch becomes more developed. 

If you would like to connect or have a look at Shaunas work you can do so here:

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