Cool Careers & How You Got Them
A conversation with professionals who have cool and interesting jobs and a description of their career path, targeted at high schoolers, hosted by Zain Raza, a current high schooler.
Cool Careers & How You Got Them
1.7 - Graphic Designer and Design Researcher Zahra Bukhari
In this episode, Ms. Bukhari explains her multifaceted career in graphic design where she employs her creative and artistic skills.
Hello everyone, welcome back to another episode of Cool Careers and how you Got them. I'm your host, zayn Raza, and it's my job to help you explore your different possible future career options, with some less traditional professions and paths that you might not be aware of. I'm sure lots of adults ask you what you want to be when you grow up, and, if you're anything like me, you don't have an answer for them. Hopefully, my podcast can give you some inspiration. I'm very excited and lucky today to be joined by Mrs Akhra Pakari, who has a very cool and interesting career. She's dedicated her career to graphic design and design research and, without further delay, let's get into it. Ms Pakari, how are you?
Speaker 2:Good, how are you? Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1:Of course, we're very excited for this episode Without we're going to start how we always do. What is your official title?
Speaker 2:My official title is Designer Pretty straightforward.
Speaker 1:Usually when I have these episodes, I have a general idea of what the job incorporates in a day-to-day life, but I really was not sure. This one's a bit flawless. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure, my title is Designer. The reason why it's tough to just say designers? Because there's so many different types of design. The work that I do is pretty much an intersection of graphic design and strategy. I also sometimes do experience design as well, but my background is mostly in environmental graphic design. And graphic design, I would say split between highly collaborative work, where you're interacting with and functioning as the facilitator between all the people on the team to bring their ideas to life, and then just being hunched over your computer for hours at a time trying to be as creative as possible.
Speaker 1:You said environmental design. Is that associated with your job or is that just the intersection that you found yourself drawn to?
Speaker 2:Actually a little bit of both. After I graduated, the first job I had was in environmental graphic design. The kind of work I do now will sometimes incorporate or require environmental graphic design. It just depends on what the project entails and what the client's looking for.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool, let's do a little blast from the past. When you were a teenager, what were you like?
Speaker 2:Pretty much the opposite of what I'm like now In terms of personality very shy, I think. A lot of teenagers, a lot of, I think, brown girls just growing up in America. You're pretty insecure and unsure of who you are and where your identity lies. I come from a mixed race background as well, and so that just plays into who am I and what kind of category do I fall into. I felt like I was really trying to figure myself out, and, in doing so, was just very quiet and unsure of what I wanted to do. That all changed when I got to college, though.
Speaker 1:Okay, and where did you go for college?
Speaker 2:I got my bachelor's in fine arts at Rutgers, at the Mason Gross School of Visual Arts, and then I got my master's at the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice, is this your first career?
Speaker 2:No, no. After I graduated from my bachelor's, I was working at an environmental graphic design firm called GHD Partners. I worked there for about two years and then, when the pandemic hit, as if that wasn't enough change, I was like, okay, I want to get my master's as well. So quit my job, went to get my master's in design for social innovation, which is where a little bit of that design, research and strategy came into play. I did that for two years. I actually went back and taught at Rutgers, at the department that I got my degree from. I taught there for about a semester, which was pretty cool. Then I started working at my current job, which is SY Partners, as a designer.
Speaker 1:Okay, nice. What kind of things did you learn from those previous jobs that help you now?
Speaker 2:I think, the first thing being like I'm still trying to figure this out. I don't know how well formed of an opinion this is, but definitely the more extroverted you are, the more friendly and outgoing you are, the easier it is to make your way and carve your own path. I realized that in my first job the more friendly I was, the more outgoing I was, the easier it was to connect with people. Then I was teamed as being more successful because I was given more projects, I was given more opportunities, more face time with clients. That's easier said than done, I think, especially for a lot of people, but that kind of attitude of being like very in a capitalist society, being very determined and taking on the typical definition of what it means to be productive.
Speaker 2:I was very much and I still am, I think, very much trying to do that, because that's what it takes sometimes to move yourself up, especially, I think, in design. I'm not saying it should be that way. I don't think it should. I think there's a lot of negatives to doing that, but that was one of the things I learned. I think one thing I'm learning still is what work-life balance looks like. I think that's a hot topic these days.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it definitely is. That actually goes into one of my other questions that I usually ask. Would you say that your job is more tailored for an introvert or an extrovert?
Speaker 2:That's a really tough one because I was just talking to my sister about this the other day. My sister's a high school teacher and I was thinking I was like, wow, her job is so socially taxing. Every single day she basically has to get up and do a presentation in front of high schoolers that's like my nightmare. But she has to be on all the time. She has to interact with people, whereas with my job it's definitely a little bit more flexible. So if I, for example, was like all right, guys, I just need heads-down time to be creative, I can opt to do that so I can kind of close myself off to people and recharge a little bit as well. The specific job that I'm in now at SY Partners because it's a consulting firm and a creative consulting firm it's a very highly collaborative space, so it does require me to be social and interact with so many different kinds of people. But as a designer, like I said, you do have that option to kind of pull back sometimes when you need to. So it's definitely flexible.
Speaker 1:So because you're doing both of these things, you kind of have to have that extroverted part. But if you were just a designer it would be. You wouldn't have that much interaction with other people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I would say definitely, especially if you're in like consulting, where it's like you kind of really do have to like I can suck up to the client, basically, and just like say what they want to hear. It's like very, it's very easy for extroverts to just be like yeah, oh, my God, you're so right about that. You know what? Let's have dinner after this and like talk about a new scope, and I just like hear myself like from the outside and I'm like that is not you, but that's what you have to do sometimes.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. So obviously I think you have a cool career because you're on the show, but in your opinion, what makes it cooler, unique?
Speaker 2:I don't know. Well, obviously I'm a little biased because I have always felt very connected to being creative and making. I really enjoy the freedoms that you are granted when it comes to art and design and so being able to do that as a career is what's very cool to me. If you ask me if I'm using my sister as an example, a lot. But if you ask me if I thought, like being a math teacher is cool, like it's not to me, but knowing my sister and how much she loves what she does and being in education and just like also really loving math which again, I can't relate to on any level but I feel like that's really cool for her.
Speaker 2:So I think if you are doing something that you have, this is such a thing like a very like American way of saying this. But if you have a passion for something, then you have the opportunity here in many cases to kind of pursue that and that's what makes it cool when you actually enjoy a little bit of what you're doing. It's work. I mean it isn't fun. I don't know if anyone told you that or everyone, but like it's not fun.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I kind of got that from school and I was just like, oh, it's like this. Like you said, if you enjoy your work, it's not really work. So can you take us through a regular day? I don't know if you have a schedule, but an average day.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I'll take you through an average day when I'm on a project, so our work is also flexible and that we can come in in person whenever we would like or work from home. I usually like to go in person. I work like at home with my husband and my cat and it's just like I can't keep talking to the same people every single day, so I go into work. We have a like our team usually has a meeting in the morning where we go over with the agenda is for the day and everyone kind of talks about their tasks Throughout the rest of the day. It's kind of a combination of, you know, as a designer going like heads down and just trying to again like bring the work to life, just really trying to do anything creative to get those gears turning, and then also working hand in hand with the strategists on the team. So the designer and the strategists are usually like the I would say like the core of the team and they duo together and so when I'm working with the strategists and they're kind of putting the content together or explaining to me what the content needs to look like, I can start to bring those ideas to life and so that kind of creative, like messy collaboration sometimes is what's really energizing.
Speaker 2:If there's a client meeting that day, that's in person, those are definitely a little bit more fun because we will use our like office space to transform one of like the labs or the meeting rooms to bring the clients in and just create an experience not just have like a regular meeting but create an experience where they feel inclined to and excited to collaborate with us and answers some of our questions and continue to kind of push the work forward. And that usually takes up like most of the day and usually at the end of the day we have like a stand down moment where we're like okay, this is what we did, this is how it went and this is what we're gonna do tomorrow. So definitely like you definitely feel like you're intense, you're like going all the time, you know, but that's what's exciting to me.
Speaker 1:So you will all meet together and then everyone will kind of break off to do their own mini projects.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's like breakout rooms back in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:Cool. So that's when you have a project, but what about when you don't have a project?
Speaker 2:So consulting is really weird because so this is my first, this is my now my second year actually doing consulting. Like I said before this, I was in an agency, but like now, so like right now I don't have a project and so I just kind of sit tight until my manager lets me know if there's anything I can help on. So sometimes it's like an internal project, or like someone needs like icons to be designed, or like a deck that needs a design pass. I'm like, yeah, I can do that, but I mean today I'm like, all right, I got to do groceries and I don't know do the laundry, so I'll take advantage of that, but I'm like on call to see if I get put on anything.
Speaker 1:Okay, so what happens if you know you just go through a period of time and you're like there's, I don't have any projects.
Speaker 2:Mentally, this is what happens. It's like day two and I'm like I have no hobbies, there's nothing for me to do. What's my purpose? Am I even a human being without work? Cause this happens every single time. I don't have a project. This is where that interesting question, or like constant tension of like what work-life balance looks like.
Speaker 2:Because, again, especially being, I think, in New York and in like the tri-state area, where it's like we're just so trained to be like on all the time working as hard as we can, especially coming from, I think, from immigrant families where it's this idea of like you put everything you have into what you're working on because we've sacrificed so much so that you can be here.
Speaker 2:There's a lot of that pressure constantly, I think, as like a second or third generation kid growing up here. It's tough to just sit tight. So when you have those off times it can get pretty heavy because you have all of those things going on in the back of your mind. But you do have to kind of remind yourself like I'm still getting paid, Like even if I'm just sitting around and kind of doing nothing. So I'll take advantage of that and like actually come up with like new hobbies or like learning how to do other things that either help my job or they don't. I'll take advantage of, like the time to go, like see my friends or hang out with my family, because I really don't do that enough and I don't think people do that enough because we're just not taught to prioritize that really in our lives.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think I definitely understand where you're coming from. My parents neither of them were born in the US, so, yeah, I get what you're saying with that, and I'm sure it's only exacerbated as you get older.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so get rid of it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that you're talking about work-life balance, because I think a lot of kids my age really don't hear enough about that and then when they get to the age where it starts to actually impact them, they're just like I have no idea what's going on. Yeah, exactly yeah. But I was just wondering because sometimes I'll have like essays to write in school or something like that, and I'll be flowing, I'll be doing great, and then all of a sudden I'll get a writer's block when it's like a creative writing assignment. So I was just gonna ask you if you have your own version of like a writer's block, what do you do for that?
Speaker 2:100%, 100%. I have ADHD. So growing up I had so many of those creative blocks all the time and so I was like, okay, this isn't normal to have this many creative blocks, but before I was getting creative for that, I had to come up with ways to get around that. And when it comes to being creative, I think the hardest thing to do is to be creative on demand, because creativity is not something that happens in a linear fashion. You get inspired at whatever time and buy the smallest things.
Speaker 2:So what I like to do is remove myself from the environment that I'm in at the time, which is really hard to do, because if you're like I have three hours to finish this, how do you remove yourself from that? That can be either. I mean, ideally it would be like you physically remove yourself from the environment and you go run an errand, or you talk to someone on the phone, or you like work out or something. But if you need to just switch gears for a second, like watch a show or do the dishes, even that little time where you can just turn your brain off for a second, that really helps, because your brain is still subconsciously trying to solve a problem or connect the dots and you just get tired of doing that when you're really focusing on it all the time. So you need to give yourself a break. As hard as that can be, it'll help out, it'll work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that time crunch writer's block is too relatable.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know you have a lot of flexibility in your work, but if you could give a rough estimate, how many hours would you say you work a week?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I think when there's a project it's like 50 hours a week, probably 40 to 45, 50 hours a week. It depends on the client too. Again, I have a lot of thoughts on consulting, but with a client, depending on how much people want to suck up to your client, we'll put in as many hours as possible. So I've worked up to 60 hours. I've worked 12 to 14 hour days for three weeks straight through the weekends before. Not healthy, not OK. But then the next week I'm off and I have nothing to do. So it's fun for someone with ADHD because it keeps things interesting, I guess.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can see that, and you have the opportunity to work either remotely or in person.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it depends on the project. If most of my team is in New York, then we'll meet like basically like no, unless you're in like IT or on some of like the internal like ops teams. You know people will go in like max three times a week or if you have kids and you need to get away from them. I've heard that a bunch. But yeah, I'll go in like two or three times a week?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know we talked a lot about work, but how do you use your free time?
Speaker 2:The perfect question what have I been doing recently? I really was like Again, like recognizing that I didn't really have any hobbies and I don't even. I didn't even, it's definitely a me thing. I didn't even have like this, this a good connotation, not connotation, like I didn't even think like the idea of like a hobby was. I was like what's even, like what's the point of that? Which is crazy.
Speaker 2:As a creative person, it's important to have so many different outlets. I actually started making. I started beating. I started making jewelry Recently because my grandmother, my grandparents, just moved into my parents' house and my grandmother's an artist and she was giving all her beating stuff away and I it was when I was off of a project, so I'm pretty desperate. I was like I'll take it, I'll learn, and that's actually been so nice and so fun to just make things for people and also not have any.
Speaker 2:You kind of forget, I think, as an artist and as a designer, when you want to be, that you are inherently a creative person. No, you are a creative person and it is inherently the opposite of what your job is going to require you to do in a late stage capitalist society, where you are again required to be productive, required to bend over backwards for the client, and as a creative person, you don't want to have those kinds of rules and boundaries. You want to be valued for who you are and the kind of art that you make. That gets lost. I should have started off with that.
Speaker 2:When it comes to being an artist or a designer, I would say 90% of the time that gets lost. When you're first starting out, you kind of have to put that to the side and you don't get fulfilled by your job and so therefore, having a hobby, having something on the side, is necessary for you to feel fulfilled as a creative person and so that you don't get burnt out either. I remember feeling like that in my first job. I was like am I even good at design anymore? I am, yeah, I've tried it out a bunch and I'm good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I also need a hobby. I played soccer high level soccer for a really, really long time and I had to stop playing this year and I just have so much time now compared to-.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like what do you do?
Speaker 1:Like sitting around, like I'll do my homework and then I'll just stare at the wall for three hours and I know so I'll also find a hobby. I love it. But I thought of another question. So when you're doing consulting work and you're catering to the client, what do you do? When that client is I'm trying to think of a way to put this delicately you don't have to if you can't figure it out.
Speaker 1:When they're just being bad, like they're just wrong, or if they're asking unreasonable things or stuff like that. How would you deal with it?
Speaker 2:Yeah, how do you push back and how do you advocate for yourself? That is like my biggest, I think, struggle, the thing that I'm trying to work on most, I think it's Okay. So, especially when it comes to the kind of consulting that we're doing we're working with huge corporations here we have to work with companies and clients who are in such a different world from where we're at. So these are like the C-suite of like Fortune 500 companies, and so I think, especially with some. So I come from like more of an activist background and that has been so incredibly challenging to grapple with, and I think, especially now with the genocide in Palestine, figuring out when to push back on certain clients that we're working with has been really challenging, especially because this is like my second year. A lot of the times I've been the only like, I've been the youngest person on the team and the only person of color, and so it really does depend on what your position is. Do you have power, do you have authority in those moments to be able to push back? And so I think that's a question that a lot of consulting firms need to. You know, I'll speak specifically to our consulting firm, because our consulting firm, we don't consult businesses, you know, for the sake of, you know, making better business it's so that they can create better relationships between the C-suite and the people down here, so that they create better relationships together and start to prioritize collaboration, diversity, equity, sustainability.
Speaker 2:We have a couple of these like points that we want all of our clients to really start to think about to be able to prosper and, to you know, retain and keep their employees happy, because, you know, people like my age, your age in between, like you know, we're not coming into the job search these days in America being like I'm going to make it, this is going to be great, I'm going to have a house in a couple of years Like, it's not like that anymore for us. So we have to really take a human centered lens when it comes to approaching our clients, and so, because of that, a lot of the employees at my firm come from human centered design or activists or grassroots organizing backgrounds, and so when we work with some of our clients and they have these unrealistic expectations or like just polar opposite viewpoints of us, it's such an ethical dilemma because it's like when do you push back, when does it actually cross that line and when do you like capital not capitalize, but implement or understand that the idea of change happens through gradualism, because we're still working in the same system that's used to oppress so many people. So when you're working within that system, you can't disrupt in the way that you want to disrupt. You have to work within that system and change is going to be so incredibly small.
Speaker 2:And if you are grappling with that kind of tension, that's what you have to understand, which is tough to do. I don't think that it's. I don't think it's natural to feel that way, and I'm trying to figure it out myself. But I'm also like the further up you get, the more power you get, the more knowledge you attain, the more you'll be able to push back on things like that. So I'm figuring that out as I move along.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did. I actually wasn't even thinking about it in that way, but I definitely agree. I was just thinking like is there ever like an internal conflict that you have? Or it's like, okay, I want to push back on this, but like am I risking losing the client if I push back? And like what would you do in that situation?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think because I'm still, because I'm a designer and I'm not like the principal or partner level yet I'll voice something to the partner where I'm like hey, they want this deck done in like a week. That's just not possible. I cannot do that. So I kind of put the pressure on them to push back on the client. If I'm unsure about something, I'll reach out to like other designers and be like is this normal Like? Should I like gauging? Should I push back or not? Because you don't know what the ramifications are going to be. But a lot of partners struggle that too, because sometimes they're just like guys, it's what the client wants, this is what we have to do and you kind of don't really have a choice. You know. You're like okay, do I want my job or not? I guess I'll do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, if the partner comes back and he's like no, sorry, like it is what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like again, you can push back as much as you want with the partner which I have before. But yeah, at the end of the day, if that's what they want, that's how it goes Okay, and now?
Speaker 1:what's the next step in this field for you?
Speaker 2:The next step would be I mean, at this particular firm. It would be more of a leadership position, so being a creative director where, again, I have a little bit more of that agency to determine what the project looks like and how we practice it and what our relationship with the client looks like. I'm definitely interested in doing that In life, though I'm not really sure. I'm not sure what kind of design I want to do after this. I am interested in more school, but I do hate writing all those essays. I'm interested in continuing to do design research. It's similar to what we were talking about earlier. And how do we design for this world where the current generation that's coming into the workforce feels like their values and ethics are so at odds with what previous generations have had before? So how do you design for that? How do you design systems and ways of working so that people feel fulfilled? I'm interested in doing research on that, but for now I'm just sticking it out here and trying to learn as much as I can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I get it. So thank you so much for joining us, ms Bakari, as we finish up, let's do our mail bag. So to submit for the mail bag, you can email Zane at coolcareersandhowyougotthemcom, fill out our Get in Touch form on our website, coolcareersandhowyougotthemcom, or dmsonig at coolcareersandhowyougotthem. So today's question is from Brittany, who's a sophomore in Maryland, and usually there's not always a question that taps into your expertise and fortunately it doesn't, but I think it's still a pretty good question. I was wondering about this too. So her question is what should I do if I don't know what I want to do for a job? I'm scared of being locked into something for the rest of my life If I don't like it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's a great question. It's a question that you know it's not specific to graphic design, it's something all of us kind of think about. One of the one of the great things about America which is like, literally there's two things, and that's one of them is that there is a lot of opportunity to pivot here. So if you have the opportunity one, if you have the opportunity and the privilege to be able to go to college and get a degree, that's already going to give you a lot of agency in helping do this. But a lot of the people, a lot of the designers that I work with now, didn't go to design school. Same with the strategists Like people didn't know a lot of the time that this is where they were going to end up. They tried out different things and I think you kind of have to go into it with like OK, what am I kind of interested in? And think about it, not like, oh, I like if I go to business school, I will have to be in business for the rest of my life.
Speaker 2:Business school is teaching you a way of thinking. It's equipping you with a set of skills that you can apply to many different career paths. That's the kind of mindset that you have to have moving forward. I think it's the same thing with art school too.
Speaker 2:You're going to art school, you know, not just necessarily to be a designer, to be an artist, but to learn how to think creatively, to literally learn how to think outside of the box, and so that kind of mindset can be applied to so many different ways of thinking and you have so much time to make those pivots, as long as you, you know, are on top of it and you're motivated to do that and to make those changes. It's important to do that and take on as many experiences and talk to as many people as possible. That's the other reason why being extroverted, I think, fortunately and unfortunately is so important here, because you know the more people you talk to, the more exposure you get and the more opportunities will come up. There's people, there's so many different kinds of things that you can even know where jobs, and so you know, keep on talking to them, you'll find something too that works for you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly. I mean, I was talking to my mom about this actually a couple of days ago and I was like mom, like what do I do? Like say, I want to be a doctor, right, and I am a doctor for like 10 years. And then I'm like, oh my God, this sucks, like I don't want to do this anymore. And she kind of used herself as an example where she was like because she had a jewelry business and then switched to healthcare, it, nothing to do with it, completely opposite. She was like you know, zane, like I wasn't locked into the jewelry thing, and before the jewelry thing she was like I worked in hospitality, like with hotels and like restaurants.
Speaker 1:So you know you do have the opportunity to pivot, you're not locked into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, your career also, just like it, doesn't define you, which is a really difficult thing to wrap your head around. Again, going back to this, the society that we live in, and like having that, that immigrant mentality, like when you're here you don't necessarily we don't have the same kinds of hardships and restrictions that our parents and our grandparents did. So here you do have a little bit more of that flexibility where it really isn't just about your career for you to be able to be successful and define success for yourself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely. If people want to learn more about you or what you do, where can they go?
Speaker 2:To learn about the kind of work that I do. They can go to my company's website, not my company, the company that I work for. Their website, sypartnerscom. About me. I mean, you can follow me or connect with me, whatever it is. On LinkedIn. You just type in my name. I have a website, too, that has a lot of my not the work I'm doing now, but my previous work and my thesis work czarbukharicom. There's a password, though it's buhari-guest.
Speaker 1:Okay, cool. Thank you so much. So, to finish up, you've got the ear of many highly ambitious students and do you have any final advice for them or an ask for them? Some of the guests have asks.
Speaker 2:Hmm, I would say I guess I do have an ask.
Speaker 2:It's tough for me to have like a blanket ask because, again, I know people are coming from different backgrounds and have different levels of like authority or power here. But, like I said, the younger generation probably starting with my generation, which is like late, like in between Millennial and Gen Z the more you voice your unhappiness and dissatisfaction whether or not that's literally voicing it or like hopping from different careers you are being heard. And I didn't recognize that until I started doing this kind of work where we're talking to some of these C-suite employees, like they are noticing the trend and they're recognizing, I think, the level of, I think, unhappiness and the difference in values that people have now, and so they know that they have to do a lot of work on their end to start to tailor their companies, their own ethics, values and ways of working to start to cater to us. And the more you voice that, the more it's being heard. It's definitely being amplified. So I would say continue to do that in the ways that you can.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's great. Thank you so much for joining us today. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 1:Let's take care.
