His good friend Mary Heim just got hired at the Franklin Press and when a job opened at their CNI affiliate, the Smoky Mountain Times, publisher Rachel Hoskins asked Mary if she had a friend to recommend for a similar job there.

Thank goodness for friends like Mary Heim, Jordan Stevens said. Heim, who landed a job at the Franklin Press as a result of Southwestern Community College’s Job Fair, recommended Stevens for a similar position when the newspaper had another opening. Both Jackson County May graduates of SCC’s advertising and graphic arts program are now working as newspaper graphic artists.

Heim did. She recommended Stevens.

“Mary gave me a wonderful recommendation,” said Stevens, who, like Heim, graduated in May from SCC with an associate degree in advertising and graphic design. “During our two years at Southwestern Mary and I sat side-by-side so we knew each other pretty well.”

Hoskins asked Stevens to bring his portfolio to a panel interview with her, Franklin's production manager Mike Bumgarner and Swain's publisher Clay Wilson.

“I was extremely excited - and just as nervous,” said Stevens, who lives in Whittier. “I was mostly worried because of the timing. All of this occurred the week before our program's portfolio presentation, which was to be my first time publicly presenting my work.

“Therefore, I hadn't yet finished my portfolio and wasn't completely ready to present it. So, the next few days consisted of me running around like crazy trying to get everything together. With the semester winding down, and graduation approaching, I was already busy, but a looming job interview tipped the scale.”

Stevens managed to put everything he could inside his portfolio. He decided not to "practice" presenting his portfolio, because, as he said, “I came to the realization that this should be easy to talk about, my portfolio is a physical representation of the last two years of my life.”

His interview went well, he said. “I felt very prepared to answer all of their questions, some I actually remembered hearing our instructors- Bob Clark and Bob Keeling, we call them the two Bobs - talk about in class as questions we would one day need to readily have an answer for. I received a call the next week with the job offer.” Stevens started work as the Smoky Mountain Times graphic artist the week after graduation.

“Jordan stepped in at a particularly busy period,” said Times publisher Wilson. “We had a couple of special sections going, plus a conversion to a narrower page width that necessitated numerous graphic changes.

“He didn’t skip a beat though,” Wilson continued. “From what I’ve observed in his time here, Jordan is extremely competent and was well-prepared for a job in the graphic design field.”

“I didn't always want to be a graphic artist, but I think I always was one,” he said. “Ever since I was little I was always designing cards on the computer, and tickets and programs for events when I reached high school. For my senior project at Smoky Mountain High it was suggested I pursue my interest in design as a topic for my research paper and presentation. Until that project, I didn't know that graphic design was the name for what I had been doing all those years. But after that project I knew that was what I was going to school for. I had seen posters around school for the Advertising and Graphic Design program at SCC, as a New Century Scholar I knew that was where I would be going to school, so everything eventually fell into place.”

Smoky Mountain Times publisher Clay Wilson, left, and graphic designer Jordan Stevens discuss an ad that the newly-hired Southwestern Community College graduate created.

Son of Ray and Teresa Stevens of Whittier, he is the first in his family to receive a college education. Stevens graduated magna cum laude, is a member of Phi Theta Kappa and the National Technical Honor Society and was on the President's Honor List.

His favorite thing about graphic design is the end result. “The profession allows you a tangible representation of your ideas,” he said. “Your ‘product’ essentially is you, the evidence of my work is a physical/visual item of how I interpreted the assignment.”

Like Heim, he enjoys the creativity involved in publishing a newspaper. “I would say my ‘specialty’ in the field is layout,” he said. “I like creating the individual elements, taking the photographs myself, for example, but I think I show more strength in taking the pieces given to me and arranging them in a creative and effective way.

My primary responsibility at work is the design of ads. As the sole graphic designer here at the paper it is my responsibility to create and/or update all of our ads. I also do the layout for four of our pages, as well as design ads for our website. Since I've been here I've also helped with special projects like our recent Graduation section, and the new Bryson City Information Please publication, for which I did the cover layout.”

This is not his first job in a professional setting. Stevens was the weekend transcription coordinator at Harris Regional Hospital for two years and the electronic record quality analyst from January until April.

Stevens said SCC and the two Bobs “more than prepared me for my job here at the paper. I had training in all the programs I now use; I had the instruction to understand the field; I was assigned the right projects to place in my portfolio that got me the job and the experience in my two years there is irreplaceable. You leave the program prepared for the field in the real world, not with just a bunch of textbook principles.”

Also, Stevens stressed, “My classes had a real sense of community that I think has helped so much. Through our group critiques and general friendship I think I learned more than I would have on my own.”

And it was his friendship with fellow student Heim that helped make this job possible.

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