Creative Fusion
By: Laura Grande
Arts and Lifestyle Editor
Jonathan Wolf can recall the moment when luck took a turn and started to work in his favour.
Familiar with his talent as a web designer, Wolf’s father had a friend with connections to fashion designer Monique Lhuillier. Wolf moved to California and had his big start working on Lhuillier’s official website.
“For a first gig, it wasn’t bad. I didn’t know who this lady was but she seemed pretty important,” Wolf laughs. “I just seized the opportunity.”
Wolf, 26, spoke with students at the Centre for Creative Communications campus on Feb. 24th, as part of the Creative Fusion series hosted by fine arts program coordinator David McClyment.
Wolf is in a somewhat unique position. He’s been a student at Centennial College for six years, having delayed the completion of his creative advertising degree after numerous job offers and a brief career change.
“I couldn’t find placement and I was willing to work for free,” he explains. “I got discouraged.
While his friends went out into the workforce, Wolf did a brief stint as a mechanic before realizing he’d made a mistake.
“I have this urge to create,” he said. “Web development and design is my passion.”
After Wolf completed his stint working on Lhuillier’s website he found himself in the similar position of working for another celebrity. This time it was Tyra Banks.
“I never met the lady but her chicken coop was interesting,” Wolf laughs. “It was a very, very demanding job (and) it was not fun.”
Wolf credits word-of-mouth as being his biggest career booster.
“It’s amazing how it snowballs after you do one great thing,” he says. After a couple of years of living in California, Wolf returned to Toronto and started up his own company, DigitalZU, with business partner, Norbert Horvath.
Two months ago, Wolf called up his former teacher, David McClyment, and suggested a speaking gig where he could talk to the students in the fine arts and web design programs.
“It was a (combination of it) being a busy day, small brain and then a penny dropped,” McClyment recalls while laughing. “‘Of course I remember him!’”
McClyment soon added Wolf, his former student, as one of his guest speakers for the February Creative Fusion series.
Wolf started his presentation by stating facts about the burgeoning Internet and web design business.
“The top ten jobs in 2010 didn’t even exist in 2004,” he said. “There are so many different areas of the web you can get into.”
He detailed what a day in the life of Jonathan Wolf was like, starting with showing up at the office at 11:00 a.m. After two hours spent on responding to emails and research, he follows up his lunch period with coding and designing until 9:00 p.m.
“Creativity does not start at nine in the morning and end at five o’clock (at night),” Wolf said.
You can visit his website at DigitalZu.com.
