Otis Extension Surface Design Instructor Debra Valencia Brings Industry Knowledge to the Classroom

“I focus on the conceptual side of designing services and collections in themes, because this is what the marketplace is looking for.”

One look at the colorful surface designs by Otis Extension instructor Debra Valencia and it’s hard to imagine that her training was based in the Basel School of Design and the Bauhaus. “I had a very European-style education as far as design sensibilities, very minimalist and clean, precise and stylized,” she says. And today? “I would say my work is contemporary, highly stylized, very bright and bold.”

After graduating from art school, Valencia moved to California and got a job with famed graphic designer Deborah Sussman, whose vibrant work was transformative for the visual identity of the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics, Disney World, and the city of Santa Monica. “She had a sensibility where design was decorative and guided by ethnic and cultural influences and pop art,” Valencia says. “It’s completely the opposite of my education.” 

After 12 years with Sussman, Valencia started her own graphic design firm, DeVa Communications, where she worked on graphic design, branding, packaging, and website design. 

But the industry started changing, Valencia says. “A lot of things were getting automated—website templates, business card templates—and a lot of print work was going away. So in 2006 I made a conscious decision to start working on a surface design portfolio while I was still running my graphic design firm. And in a worlds-collide-type scenario, I discovered the business model of licensing designs to companies across multiple product categories and earning royalties.” 

The next year she landed her first licensing deal; three years later she had over 30. “I was able to retire from graphic design and just do surface design,” she says. “In graphic design, it was about conveying the feeling of the organization. In licensing, it was more desirable to show myself as an individual artist and that it was actually my hands doing all of the artwork, not a team.”

Over Two Decades at Otis

The first class Valencia taught at Otis Extension was on licensing artwork for royalties. “Every creative person I knew locally and nationally was asking me for advice on how they could get into licensing,” she says. She has continued to teach Licensing Your Art for Royalties for the two decades she’s been with Otis Extension, as well as Surface Design: Basics, Surface Design: Collections, and Surface Design: Digital Creation. 

“I focus on the conceptual side of designing services and collections in themes, because this is what the marketplace is looking for,” she says. Otis Extension offers the only Surface Design certificate program in Southern California.

Valencia has seen former students go on to license their work, get full-time jobs designing at fabric companies, and exhibit their work at Licensing Expo: “Under my direction they launched their surface design portfolios at an international level.”

In fact, getting Surface Design students ready for jobs in the industry formed the basis of the Surface Design: Production class that Valencia helped launch at Otis Extension. “The class teaches the technical skills and knowledge that students need to take their design concepts and get them ready for production at factories in different industries,” she says.

Valencia’s experience seeing her work used in a number of ways across the globe—on bedding, dinnerware, stationery, school supplies, even eyewear—allows her to bring this real-world experience and insight into the classroom. “It’s really exciting,” she says. “Sometimes I’ll go into a store and see my products and think,‘Oh, wow, there’s my greeting card.’ This is the closest I’ve ever gotten in my career to fine art because I’m actually getting to choose what I want to do. I’m putting things out there and seeing who likes them.”

Explore Surface Design Certificate

Related News