I am Neeka Yazdani – the one and only – and I am an 18-year-old student who currently resides in the city of Coquitlam, British Columbia. I come from an Iranian background and have been living in in Vancouver ever since I was born. My culture is of great importance to me, and it has always been the backbone for my art journey. I started to discover art as a wee toddler, with my mother encouraging me to build my skills and try many different art forms as she had done in Iran when growing up. One of the most impactful art forms I grew up with is dance. I started officially taking dance classes at the age of 6, however I was already in a dance environment prior to that due to my mother always making me tag along her dance classes, which naturally pushed me to like dance as well. Of course, I grew to love traditional art as a child as well. I was always extremely passionate about drawing and painting as it was my favourite activity in elementary school. High school is when I started to develop the curiosity and hunger to improve my skills. This is also when I started to dive deep into what careers interest me. Despite my love for dance, I had to give up on competing after realizing it wasn’t the right career path for me. However, this gave me more time and the opportunity to develop an understanding of the possible art careers I could dip my toe into. After testing out different art courses in high school, graphic design was the one thing I was set on, even though I didn’t know much about it and had the most experience in traditional art. When I took on the challenge of becoming a club leader, not only did I have the opportunity to reach back into my dance roots and be able to teach students, but I was also pushed out of my comfort zone to design a proper social media platform for it. Those experiences helped me learn about branding and how to captivate an audience with graphic design and I became much more passionate about it.
Each of my high school experiences built my courage to apply for a future in the IDEA program at Capilano University and look at me now! I chose this program to complete my goal of stretching every art limit I have in order to become a talented and impactful graphic designer with a utility belt of different abilities that can contribute to industry requirements. This includes pushing through the countless challenges that come with unfamiliarity in certain art forms and using the process as experience for my future projects. Additionally, my goal with taking a challenging university English course is to build my confidence and skill in communication and expression.
While I do prioritize each goal I’ve made for this program, I also find it important to keep self-care in mind. For me, self-care consists of investing in my hobbies, which include the aforementioned dancing, listening to music and creating playlists, reading, and watching tv shows. As hard as it may be to find time to schedule proper self-care, having a balance of both work and play and being able to complete my goals is the key to success in this program.