Profile: Raymond Lee

About Raymond Lee : Art has always been a large part of Raymond’s life. He is American born and of Korean ethnicity. As a kid when the school day was done, most Korean-American kids like him had to go to after-school programs where they had to study even more for some reason. In Raymond's case, besides the piano, and besides the violin, and besides private math classes, he also had a tutor who trained him classically in fine arts. Although Raymond genuinely liked art and drawing, needless to say he was a little burnt out. Fast forward a few years. Raymond's not a very good student. He shutters at the thought of homework and research papers and tests and quizzes. But he still loves art. And so he was accepted into the School of Visual Arts in New York City and in a few years he graduated with a bachelor's degree in Graphic Design/Advertising. He also won a few student accolades along the way, and after graduating from SVA he landed a job as an art director at McCann Erickson, an advertising agency in New York. It wasn't exactly what he expected, but it was a decent job nonetheless. Unfortunately this was during the time when the great recession hit, and so Raymond and many others were laid off of work. Raymond worked a low key freelance job designing brochures for insurance companies, then took a month off to travel through Africa. When he returned home he started working freelance again and some odd jobs here and there. It was around this time that Raymond decided he wanted to pursue his true passion which was cars. And since he was pretty good at drawing and designing, his dream job was to become an automotive designer. Raymond decided to begin his new journey to become an automotive designer and enrolled into the College For Creative Studies in Detroit, MI into their Transportation Design program. Things were going well in his new endeavor, but unfortunately after a couple of years, Raymond ran into financial difficulties. Much to his dismay, he decided he could not afford to continue his studies at CCS anymore. So he dropped out and moved back to New York where he is currently working in a holdover job while still working on his portfolio at home when he has free time. His dream and passion to design cars for a living is as strong as it ever was and it is still his ultimate goal, school or no school.

 

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