Aoi Was Told Print Design Abroad Was Nearly Impossible—Then She Worked Three Full-Time Roles Anyway

Aoi’s grandfather was foreign; family talk made that mix feel familiar long before she chose a career. Japanese high school rules drove her toward refusal and days of movies at home until she chased English at an international school—starting with little more than “hello,” writing essays until 3 a.m. while classmates finished in half an hour. She kept touching English every day for more than twenty years after graduating: vocabulary notes, foreign books, five minutes even when exhausted.

Art won over translation. She prepped a year for art-school entrance exams, entered Tama Art University’s graphic design program after briefly securing a Japanese high-school credential at another international school, then spent about nine years at a Tokyo advertising production company, moving from graphic designer into art direction on print—station posters, talent visuals—almost entirely for Japanese clients, without English on the job.

COVID years made her rethink an old wish to work abroad. Few Japanese graphic designers had local overseas precedents; when she emailed Frog’s Senna, the frank reply was that graphic design abroad was probably too hard. She still went. An article by former Pixar animator Tsutsumi (“just come, then figure it out”) pushed her over the edge. She planned carefully—agents, money, post-grad versus Co-op options—then resigned, cleared her Tokyo apartment, and left for Canada three months after quitting, in 2022. A Canadian-curriculum international school had already made Canada feel like home; Toronto could wait.

At Cornerstone in Vancouver she deliberately skipped a designer course. Nine years of Illustrator and Photoshop drills felt like wasted visa time; a major client’s pitch that print transit ads were dying for digital sealed the choice of digital marketing as design-plus-alpha. Day to day she stayed graphic and art-direction heavy: InDesign booklets, Illustrator posters, Figma emails for subscription culture with a neighboring programmer wiring Klaviyo—web-adjacent, not product-design native.

The market was thin. Co-op-friendly design shops were scarce; big firms filled local seats. She blasted LinkedIn, Indeed, and Google Maps cold outreach—roughly a hundred applications for one or two replies—while locking herself away over New Year to build a 30–40-page English portfolio. Japanese years of experience helped once interviews happened; both Vancouver full-time roles came after a single chat with a founder. Culture fit mattered as much as craft.

In her second Canadian year a second working holiday landed; she began sending U.S. resumes and accepted an L.A. agency invitation—probation, then remote, then a training/internship visa into Los Angeles. After a year-plus serving Japanese and American clients, her pre-departure checklist (local hire, U.S. work styles, client exposure) was filled. She returned to Japan aiming to build a design practice spanning both countries, keeping the same long-running heat for English and design that started in her teens.