Palmer Trinity School

PTS AERIE Summer Edition 2018

An independent, college preparatory, co-ed, Episcopal Day School serves a community of students in grades 6-12.

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That is the most important lesson that Angela Guzman '02, one of the designers of the original emoji keyboard, has learned throughout her revolutionary career. Her creativity blossomed when Angela entered Palmer Trinity as a sixth grader and she was drawn to the art program. Her first project, a papier-mâché 3D assignment, instantly hooked her, and from then on she took every art class she could sign up for until graduation. Six years later, as an AP art student, she recalls sitting outside of her class with her middle school art teacher, Mrs. Alberni, discussing her future career path. Angela chatted with her teacher about wishing to become an architect when suddenly the conversation led to Industrial Design, which she playfully considered at the time to be "small scale architecture." After graduating from Palmer Trinity, Angela attended the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) and studied Industrial Design. She knew she wanted to focus on Industrial Design at RISD largely in part because of her conversation with her Palmer Trinity School art teacher. Angela went on to earn an MFA in Graphic Design and during her last summer in college, Apple recruiters visited RISD. At the presentation, Angela waited until everyone was done chatting and she walked up to one of the recruiters and gave him her resume and portfolio link. About a week later they called her for a phone interview. Shortly after, she was told she had been selected to be the first intern on the iPhone design team. She enthusiastically accepted the Internship and after seven consecutive years of art school in New England, Angela moved to Silicon Valley to begin a career that would influence communication between people world-wide! Once in California, Angela met the team of designers who worked on the first iPhone and was handed her project. She was to draw the original Apple emoji along with her mentor, who became her friend. She describes this experience as "my dream job, getting paid to draw little icons alongside an incredibly talented team. But once they were released, and my family and friends started to use them all over the world, well, that changed things a bit." Angela believes the best part of this project has been seeing emoji's in the real world. She explains, "for example, when I walk into a store and there are emoji slippers hanging on a shoe rack or a giant billboard in San Francisco with a football and soccer ball from the set I drew." Angela describes one of the most interesting experiences she's had as a young designer was to see the apps she worked on debut at Apple's World Wide Developers Conference in San Francisco and seeing Steve Jobs demonstrating them. She remembers sitting in the audience and looking at these designs on giant projected screens, From a curious PTS art student, to the designer of the Emoji Stay curious. I think that no matter how much or little I may know at this point in time, my curiosity is what keeps me motivated." palmertrinity.org 56 ALUMNI PROFILE class of 2002

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