Lisa Ito

Bio:

Grew up in NJ and somehow found my way to St. Louis to study Communication Design. I've been coming back home for breaks to intern in NY/NJ in graphic/web design and UX. A child at heart, I still love cartoons and comics and those influences find their way into my illustrations and designs. Other interests include football watching, electro music, and animated gifs.

• Title: Aspiring Intern Illuzigner (Illustrator/Designer), Onepager
• Age: 20
• Location: SoHo
• Contact: @lisito, tumblr

What are some of the cartoons/comics that you've found that most influence your illustrations and design?

As a kid I worked hard at learning to draw so that I could make up my own Pokemon and Digimon characters, so I'd say those series have definitely influenced my art style. I also really like the look of old anime/manga, like Speed Racer and Tezuka Osamu's work. Currently I've been watching a lot of Cartoon Network's recent series (Adventure Time, Regular Show) as well as streaming older things like King of the Hill and Daria. My favorite graphic novel thus far is Asterios Polyp by David Mazzucchelli.

What have you found to be the most challenging aspect thus far at your internship at Onepager?

The Communication Design major at my school is focused mostly around print media, so transitioning into in web design and UX has been both the biggest challenge and the greatest learning experience. When designing a book or poster, you consider the way a reader will read through the page(s), which is generally left to right, top to bottom, page to page. With web design, navigation is less linear and therefore a little more challenging to design in a way that the user will understand how to move through a site. It's also been a fun challenge learning to code for the first time since the era of Tripod, Geocities, and frames.

Please share some of your favorite animated gifs.

Oh boy it was tough to pick, but I think these are the top of the list for the moment:

• Cat
• Owls
• Hockey (And the rest of The Best Animated Sports GIFs of 2010)
• The Shining
• Sunny field

What do you miss most about or from NY/NJ when you are away at school in St. Louis?

St. Louis lacks: my cat, the beach, weather that doesn't change drastically every other day, seafood that didn't have to cross a lot of land to get to my plate, Mitsuwa, and Mom's good ol' home cooking.