Mentee Megan Dobrusin recaps her experience with the 2013 AIGA Charlotte Mentor Matchup.

Since our last meeting, Mark (Iafrate) and I had a quick chat at Amelie’s and caught up. At the time, I was working at FIG Marketing and told Mark how things were going in the corporate setting. We also talked about freelance work and how I had a few wedding invitation designs going on. Mark gave me a general idea on how the BuzZ events went since I was unable to make them, and we talked about how we were hoping we could make the Aaron Draplin TALKabout event. (Read the recap here.)

We wrapped up our last meeting at NoDa Brewing. I told Mark about my plans to travel to Australia with my family for a couple weeks since I have the time off, and how I am going to focus more on my freelance work while job searching. We also talked about non-Graphic Design topics, like how my volleyball team was going to playoffs and how designers tend to like breweries—which was funny, because we saw Rachel Martin (a fellow AIGA member) at the brewery!

Speaking as a mentee, the mentorship program was extremely helpful and fun. Mark introduced me to websites I should know (like Dribbble.com), some design magazines I should subscribe to, and he forwarded some interesting articles to me. Mark and I kept things fun and easy by trying a new brewery each time we met since we both like craft beers, and we would (almost) always have a topic prepared to talk about. I’d have questions ready, and Mark had answers. We also kept things fun by creating a “volleyball” poster, where one person would start designing a poster, then the other would have to add or edit it in some way, and we would go back and forth until we agreed it was complete. It forced me to play with Photoshop and strengthen my skills in that area, whereas the second poster forced Mark to get back into Illustrator. I’m glad I signed up for the Mentor Matchup because of what I’ve learned, I know I have another professional I can ask all my design related questions to, and there will be another familiar face at future AIGA events.

Thanks to Megan & Mark for contributing to our blog and for supporting AIGA Charlotte by being a part of the Mentor Matchup this year.