Somersfield Alumnus Domico Watson: From School Success to Spotlight in Sports and Art
September 24, 2012 — With a father who’s a former Olympic athlete and a mother serving as Bermuda Track and Field Association president, it seems only natural that their offspring would be destined for sporting greatness. But budding graphic designer Domico Watson — the son of Michael and Donna Watson — chose a different professional path. The 19-year-old attained a 4.0 grade point average at Savannah College of Art and Design last year. Meanwhile this summer he was commissioned to design artwork for the Carifta Games and a commercial for the Olympics. His designs made it onto billboards at the L. F. Wade International Airport and local buses; his commercial was played on heavy rotation on ZBM.
Mr Watson said: “Even though I didn’t do sports, I tried to relate arts to sport. That’s one reason I love to do ads for sports events, because while I didn’t inherit the sports gene, I developed a love for it and a love for the competition aspect of it.” The teenager first developed a passion for graphic design at age ten when his father introduced him to Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop. “From there I basically decided to go ahead and teach myself. Most people thought it might be a little over my head at that age, but I decided to go ahead and try it anyway." He liked the fact he was quickly getting better at it. “Some of the designs I was making up were things I couldn’t always technically do with pen and paper and from there I applied some of the special effects I was coming up with to my drawings.”
Even before that, Mr Watson had always been passionate about the arts — something he credits his father’s side of the family with. He took classes with the Masterworks Foundation and the Centre for Talented Youth but decided not to pursue fine arts at the professional level. The teenager said: “I got to see that I could apply graphic design in a business setting, whereas fine arts has its limitations in terms of how you can relate it to the business world. I always wanted to be a part of the business world in some way because I found the idea of trying to work my way up the ladder interesting; not in the sense of having control or power, but to be around people who were thinking of how business could apply to the world. Most of the time so many people were saying you have to do accounting, economics or project management, but for me I was shocked to find out there was an art-related field that could get me into the business community as well.”
Mr Watson said his mother helped him get his foot in the door when it came to advertising for the Carifta Games, but his talent is what sealed the deal. His ideas had to be approved by the Track and Field Association board. He said: “The Carifta advertising was a big thing for me because it was the first time my artwork would be seen on a much wider scale. It’s really every graphic designer’s dream to have their work not just up on walls, but in a whole bunch of different areas.” It was also rewarding to see his commercial for the Olympics play around the clock on television, he said.
Now back at school, Mr Watson is part of the Motion Media Club and working on a campaign with his peers to promote SCAD as a top-notch arts school. Currently back in his second year at college, he said he was able to balance his workload with extra-curricular activities by carefully planning out his time. “I have time set aside for school work and other things. My school work is number one and once I get that done I go on to everything else.” There are challenges, however, such as learning new technologies like 3D-based programmes and coding for websites. Graphic design has also forced him to recall math and physics-based knowledge he learned while a student at Somersfield Academy and Bermuda High School’s International Baccalaureate programme.
The reward is being in charge of his own destiny, he said. “I really feel it’s the first time I am being taken seriously as an adult and put in charge of my own career, so it’s really up to me what I want to do from here. Whether I set up a job interview or internship is up to me and it’s important for me to just prove to everyone what I can do.” The teenager credits his mum with inspiring him to reach for the stars and said: “She doesn’t ever feel like she can only accomplish one thing in her life. Every time she accomplishes a goal, she moves on to something else and sets the bar even higher for herself. That’s something that I find very impressive and I have tried to do things just as well throughout my life.”
Originally published on The Royal Gazette