AIGA Chicago | Mentor Feature Series

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This article was originally published Oct 19, 2022

The Mentor Feature series features past Design Mentors from AIGA Chicago’s Mentorship Program and gives them a space to highlight their own mentors who have supported and inspired them to get to where they are today. AIGA Chicago would like to give visibility into our own Mentorship Program by recognizing the benefits of not only having a mentor, but being a mentor to another.

We interviewed Lauren Versino about her personal experiences with mentorship and being a mentor for AIGA Chicago.

Tell us about yourself.

My name is Lauren Versino and I work for PepsiCo in their Gatorade business. I am the brand design lead for Muscle Milk, and a new energy drink that Gatorade is coming out with next year called Fast Twitch. So, that’s who I work for. And that’s what I do. And it’s kind of an all-encompassing job. It’s like project management. It’s art direction. It’s creative direction. And it’s just Managing everything that a brand needs to read visually and read consistently.

And it’s a little bit funny because going into my background, I went to Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia VCU, which isn’t like the biggest sports school either. It’s not a top 10 school in any way. I went to school for sculpture and extended media but I minored in general business just because after a certain point I was like, “I can’t listen to theoretical arty conversations, I need an equation.” So I feel like that’s kind of how I ended up in corporate America, how much more corporate can you get than PepsiCo right?

How did you get to where you are today?

I graduated from college in 2013, which is about the time Instagram was on everyone’s phone, and apps were really picking up, but we weren’t very app-focused back then. We all weren’t thinking about how we make things like we do now. I actually hadn’t touched Photoshop until my senior year of college; I never even knew what the pen tool did. And I didn’t know Illustrator at the time either. And somehow, someway, I kind of fibbed my way into my first graphic design job at a local trophy company. While I was there, I learned how to use CorelDRAW and was engraving glass and acrylic trophies. Then they pivoted to apparel — and I got them to subscribe to Lynda.com (now LinkedIn Learning) or something — and I learned the rest of the Adobe suite.

I’ve truly learned everything I do on the job, so I consider myself self-taught in design. I really think that in design, you can get anywhere anyway. That’s what I love about our industry. We can just prove it, we don’t necessarily need to test into it.

Who has helped you along your way? What have they taught you that sticks with you?

It takes a village to help you. I’m not gonna remember everyone along the way but I think that there’s something to be said about anyone who ever listens to you — whether they follow what you’re saying or not — or pick your idea. Anyone who listens to you in the creative field is the best. Not everyone understands what we do and it’s really difficult to articulate. Otherwise everyone would get it. So I always found a tremendous value in people I worked with who don’t know what I do valuing the fact that I do it. I think that’s a huge piece of being successful in the business specifics of the creative field.

My first creative director I ever worked with was Scott C. It was back in Detroit at some silly job I had at the time, and we both just happened to be in the same place at the same time. He was the first creative director I ever worked with when I was about 26, which is kind of late in the game to know a creative director at all when you work in the creative field.

First of all, he taught me how much value there is in the people above you, because I had kind of always been on an island of me, and I think a lot of designers suffer from that. Something Scott taught me that stuck with me is to follow those who you admire. So when he left our job, I really took that to heart and thought, “Well Scott’s leaving and he gave me all this value. Maybe I should look to leave.”

I think that’s a huge thing when you’re with companies and creative departments that are expanding and contracting. The people whose work you admire and who you enjoy working with; if they’re moving around, you should be asking the same questions. Should I follow them? Why did they move? What are they doing? Was that for them? Is it for me? That was the first time it struck me in my career to think, “Oh, I should pay attention more.”

Then I moved to Chicago, where I happened to work for Wilson’s Sporting Goods, and I met four people: Danielle, Mel, Tim, and HM. I worked in their creative department and Danielle gave me a shot. I was a kid off the street that was gonna sink or swim but you couldn’t tell. I think that every creative needs that shot.

Every creative needs someone, whether they know them or not, who will just give them a chance. And I feel like Danielle gave me that chance.

Because Mel was an account manager I think she really saw me. I think she saw what I was capable of with a little practice and where I could fit, knowing way more about my industry than I did at the time. She would encourage me a lot to try things, do things, talk to different kinds of people, and talk to people who were way more important than I would ever be. Without that encouragement, I don’t know if I would be this far this soon because I also feel like a little bit of a late bloomer.

Which leads me over to HM. He was the general manager of tennis at Wilson. A graphic designer talking to a general manager of an entire business is a little unusual, but what I really valued about Mel’s encouragement to reach out to him was I got to see how businessmen view what I do. Which is a really big deal because that’s the point of working, right? You have a business objective and you kind of have to reconcile your creativity with what the task is and find the middle ground there. Talking to HM and having a relationship with him the whole time I worked there was really valuable to understand the executive perspective.

Lastly, Tim was my creative director at Wilson for a few years and he just had a really casual and human approach to working. I really loved that he would remind us all the time, “Yeah, design is chaotic and it feels like everything’s an emergency but you are one person and you can only do so much in a day and that’s okay.” And he would always push for the unexpected and to be better than before. I think a lot of the values our team would get recognized for were related to him and those are values I carry with me everywhere. Sure, we could do the quick thing, we could do the safe thing, but that’s not interesting and that’s not what makes brands number ones and that’s not how you win. And I happen to work in sports, where winning is important.

I also met all of those people at the same time. I didn’t meet them slowly over my 10 year career. I met them all at once one day. I got a crash course and in four years I went from being a freelancer who was like, “I don’t know how to do this,” to working for one of the top beverage companies in the world. So it doesn’t take long, it just takes the right amount of people.

How have they influenced your life?

Finding a mentor isn’t like online dating where you’re just swiping and looking for criteria. They’re just people I worked with every day that I was drawn to because I liked them and respected their work. Then before I knew it, little sponge me just soaked in all their stuff and I was being mentored.

How they’ve overall influenced me is honestly; they were really validating. I think our field can also be riddled with imposter syndrome. I’m 30 years old and I’m really, in my opinion, still on the pretty young side to be managing the caliber of things that I am. But I never once questioned whether I could, and I really think that’s a testament to my mentors. I worked with those people for almost four years for a reason. Millennials and younger love to jump around because that’s the way we see the most growth in our career. So when you find a place that’s worth taking a beat for, that’s super valuable.

What do you now do differently that honors those who have guided you?

I’m very aware of people’s humanity. I think that’s a testament to the pandemic shift in working too. A lot of people I work with who are having kids, or have just had kids, are rebalancing their whole life. So if you’re late to a call, or you have to reschedule one of the thousand Zoom calls we have all day, that’s fine. Like it’s cool. We work to support our families.

Something I also really try to do based on my mentors’ guidance is be as open and available to talking to anyone, anytime. I only got where I am because someone gave me a second to show me how to make a contact sheet, or use Lightroom, or walk me through how to format the InDesign files. I could have wasted three hours to figure it out myself, but when people give you a second it can change the way you work your whole life. So I always try to give everybody a second. I also always try to do portfolio reviews for people when they reach out to me. I really try to make time for people to show them something and support them.

Because that’s what got me so far in four and a half years — while I was struggling for the other four and a half years — I would say that’s the biggest way I honor what my mentors have done. Because if no one gave me the time of day, I would just still be splashing around hoping to swim one day.

Why is mentorship important to you?

In 2020 we all needed a hobby, so that’s where mentorship with AIGA really came back around. I had been a mentor for the Fall 2019 semester, and that was so impactful. I could also see how much it was helping and connecting with other mentors when telling my group about navigating a creative career in corporate America. We all need that, school didn’t teach us that.

So I thought, “Well what can I do with that?”

I’m really into helping people understand how much power they have. I will talk about finances all day. I will talk about negotiating your salary all day. I will tell you where to find the resources that you need all day.

So I made it into a podcast. I broke it down into lessons and every week had a theme. I got on TikTok and do TikToks about it, and I’m all over it. It’s important to me to be out there because, also in the pandemic, I was looking at the design census and how non-diverse we are as an industry, both in genders and identities, different backgrounds, different races, the whole nine yards. And I was really trying to figure out, “Why? Where is everyone?”

So I went out there like, “I’m gonna tell everyone how much money I’m making, where I was living, what I was doing, what I learned when I got there.” It’s to just make this more accessible because I remember four years ago I didn’t know how to freelance, I didn’t understand taxes associated with that, I didn’t know anything. But I paid $150,000 to go to art school. I had a portfolio on a CD no one gave a shit about. What the hell? How am I supposed to make it? What do I like? What do I do? So I have a podcast about it.

I have all of the resources I ever talk about from my podcast on my website and it’s all for free for anyone. I’m a white woman, I don’t need more money to teach anyone how to get anywhere. That’s why mentorship matters to me. I don’t think it should be a pay-to-play sport to have your design voice out there. So I think it’s really up to people like me and this mentorship program, and people who’ve made it or who are at their peak, to share what they know with anyone who cares to listen. Because I was that student who never went to an extra lecture, never listened to an artist’s talk, did not care, because I did not get how valuable that could be. So I’m out here to just tell anyone anything anytime.

Where do you find your mentors?

For me it’s kind of an accident. I think some people really like to seek out specific people and I see nothing wrong with that. Some people have really clear goals. I was a meandering creative and I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I just knew creative jobs are out there; what ones can I get? I think that’s where a lot of people start.

Like I was saying earlier, I would just fall into who I was drawn to. I found people who I liked and who I emotionally meshed with. After a certain point in my career, I stopped taking jobs when I just got vibes that I didn’t like people. I let myself do that, and opportunities became so much more joyful and better for me. So honestly I find all my mentors where I work and I don’t ever know who’s gonna be there. It could be someone younger than you or less experienced than you. Just whoever is looking at something with eyes you wish you could see with.

Leave us with something you’ve learned and still live by today.

I think the biggest thing that I’ve learned, especially when I look back at all the weird different kinds of creative jobs that I’ve done, is the thing I tell everyone: Just do what you would be doing anyway.

I think as creatives, whether we’re paid for it or not, we will inevitably be making things. And for me, I always knew what kind of stuff I liked to make. I like to make social media posts because I’m on it all the time, and I really like video work, even though I don’t do it professionally at all. I was filming a commercial last week on set, which I’ve never done before, and I felt really good about everything.

We get a lot of weird different feedback like, “You should be really niched out,” and, “You should specialize in one thing.” But you don’t even know what that means. Just go chase things you’re interested in and go do whatever you would be doing anyway.

I would have been designing anyway. I would have been telling people how to deal with their visual social media strategy. One way or another — anyway. So I just found the vein that would pay me for it. I like a routine, I like stability. So I like corporate work. Some people love to run around, and try a bunch of stuff and be free and do whatever they want. Go do it. Go. Do whatever you’re gonna do anyway because what you spend your time doing is what your job will be.

In college, I managed our gym, then I worked for trophies, then I worked for Wilson, and now I work at Gatorade. I spent my time in sports, and that’s what I’m doing now. Whatever you spend your time doing. That’s your job in more ways than I think you even know. So just relax and try stuff. Go do what you were doing anyway.

And if you want to know all the details about how to negotiate a salary, how to write a resume, and how creative directors like me look at your portfolios. Or if you want to hear from photographers, UX designers, art directors, and all different disciplines; my podcast, The Creative Mentor is everywhere you can get podcasts. It’s free, it’s ad free. It’s on my website. That’s free. There will never be anything you get from me that I will ask you for money for because again, I’m a white lady who doesn’t need any more money. Just go out and do better than me.

We are incredibly thankful to Lauren Versino for taking the time to be interviewed and provide resources for this article. Stay tuned for more interviews with mentors, to be announced on our Instagram and LinkedIn.

If you’re interested in becoming an AIGA mentor, contact Leslie Presto (presto@chicago.aiga.org).

If you’re interested in joining the AIGA Chicago board in any capacity, please reach out to Kelly Knaga (kel@chicago.aiga.org).

Interviewed and edited by Samantha Boudiab. Graphics created by Donnie Gardner and Samantha Boudiab.