As part of the mentoring program "Making markets work for the new generation in B&H", which we launched together with the Market Makers initiative, young people were given the opportunity for additional education in areas such as, artificial intelligence, databases, programming and others. Several participants decided to learn graphic design as well.

One of these young people is Nejra Džananović, a master of pedagogy, who, with the help of her mentor, Nikolina Bulović, a former scholarship holder of our Foundation and one of our graphic designers, began to improve her skills in this field.

Since the participant and the mentor do not live in the same city, the communication between them was conducted online.

And these are their experiences with our program:

"Our first online meeting was at the end of January where my mentor Nikolina and I met and determined the goals we want to achieve by the end of the program. I had no prior knowledge of graphic design, so we started from scratch. The mentor was continuously sending me lessons from the manual and video tutorials, while I continuously worked and practiced in the Adobe Illustrator program. In the beginning, I did simple illustrations, and after four months I created a logo for the blog "Tollere Hominem". This blog was started by a colleague and me and contains texts about upbringing and education of children. The symbolism of the logo describes Pestalozzi's understanding of upbringing through action on the head, hand, and heart, that is, on the moral, intellectual, work, and physical aspects of the personality. In addition to design lessons, my mentor also teaches me marketing and advises me on how to promote this blog. The plan for the next period is to work on the design for social media pages of the blog and research on pedagogical topics, as well as the creation of infographics and text about it. Our communication takes place every day and is no longer at the level of the mentee - mentor, which makes me happy that such an inspiring person becomes my friend. ” – said Nejra.

The logo that Nejra designed for Tollere Hominem

"In my life, I have had several mentors who in some way, more or less, influenced me to be what I am today. Not every mentoring relationship changes your life, but every mentor has the potential to drive change in us. Thanks to this mentoring program, I found myself in the role of a mentor for the first time. I saw the program as my opportunity to do something good for someone, as my mentors did for me. After 5 months, I can only say that being a mentor is one of the most precious things you can do in your life and career. I hope that in the future I will have more opportunities to be in the mentioned role. First of all, I would thank the team that did the matching, because I think they did a really good job. Nejra and I are quite similar, we both strive for constant growth and development, and we nurture "lifelong learning". From the very beginning of the program, we are enthusiastic and have a positive approach to everything, creating a working but also friendly atmosphere. Of course, we also had some doubts and fears about how the program would run. It’s not easy to teach someone technical skills, like working in software, when you’re not physically there. Yet we have managed that for this period, she has mastered the basics of Adobe Illustrator. Now our goal is that Nejra do exclusively practical things and I to teach her more about the principles of design and aesthetics. I am especially proud of her, that together with a colleague from the faculty, she started a blog based on pedagogical topics. Despite the fact that some occupations such as programmers, graphic designers and web designers are increasingly in demand in the labor market, people should not give up their primary occupations. Especially if they love them. We live in the digital age and I think it is more important that people use digital tools and combine their knowledge with them. Pedagogy is very important and I think that a blog is a good way to give it a new look in this digital world. " – added her mentor Nikolina.

Learning about the fonts in logos together

Learning Graphic Design through Mentorship - Nejra and Nikolina