Graphic and Web Design

Liliane Bohbot began her design career as a portrait artist, travelling through many countries earning her living from street portraiture. Returning home to Montreal, she pursued a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts at Concordia University (Interdisciplinary Arts), graduating with distinction. While still painting and exploring new media during her Masters' in Art Education, she discovered digital media and went on to exhibit her work and win several art competitions worldwide with video art, portraiture and drawings.  In addition to teaching full time at John Abbott College, Liliane freelances in both traditional and new media in oil paintings and portraiture.

Eric Girouard joined the faculty of John Abbott College’s Publication Design and Hypermedia Technology department in 2001, after starting his teaching career at the International Academy of Design in Montreal in 1997.

Although Eric holds a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts (specializing in painting & drawing) from Concordia University in Montreal, he traded in his paintbrushes for a mouse and keyboard when he first used Photoshop in 1991.

Since then, he has worked in professional photography, print and web design as well as user interface design and usability analysis. In addition to his responsibilities as departmental chair at John Abbott College, Eric is a Master mentor of photographic art at The Arcanum, runs his own blog and stock photography portal site.

Eric lives in Rigaud with his girlfriend and his two kids. When not hiding behind a computer screen for work, Eric loves hiding behind a camera for fun.

I wanted to be a college professor like my Dad ever since I went to work with him and he let me stand on a chair and scribble on the blackboards with chalk. I used to give math quizzes to the kids I babysat for. In spite of this, I was still much in demand as a babysitter.     I got my Bachelor’s of Science in Math and Computer Science and minored in Theatre and Creative Writing at the University of Pittsburgh. Then I went on to get my Master’s of Science in Statistics and Psychology at Carnegie-Mellon University. After working for a year programming in Computer Assisted Instruction, I went back to school for my doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh.   For seven years I travelled around as a nomadic university professor. I replaced faculty on one and two year contracts teaching psychology and statistics at the University of Wisconsin at Madison and the University of Saskatchewan at Saskatoon. I wrote a couple of statistics songs to make statistics easier and performed them at coffee houses along with other songs I wrote. I also did layout and writing for a woman’s magazine. I got a lot of compliments on the comic strip I created.   I fell in love with San Francisco when I was visiting my sister and trained computer science tutors at Berkeley for a year. Then I came back to Canada to teach in the math department at Dalhousie University in Halifax.   Finally I came to Montreal to teach Educational Technology at Concordia University.  I taught Instructional Design (I love making handouts!) and programming on Apple II microcomputers.   I took lots of courses in radio, TV, and video production. When my two-year contract with Concordia ended, I decided to stay in Montreal instead of moving to Rochester or Ottawa for another university job.   I freelanced for CBC radio and TV for several years, documentaries and teleplays, and it was exciting, but it never developed into a fulltime job. So I started working at John Abbott as head of audio-visual services. They put me in charge of the PCC lab, which was in the library at that time. My favourite computer was the first Macintosh computer, the first one to come with a mouse.   I liked making promotional videos for John Abbott and running the computer labs, but I missed the independence and creativity of teaching. Susan talked me into interviewing for the Math department. Coincidentally, Dock Anson, her husband-to-be, was on the committee that hired me. When a new program started up, Susan Regan talked me into teaching Office Systems Management. So Susan and her husband are responsible for my teaching career at Abbott! It was way more fun to teach computer software than it was to teach statistics and trig. Students love it.   In 1999 we changed over to a new program, PDHT, and the software is even cooler. All of a sudden I got lots of clients wanting me to make them brochures, business cards, web sites, and animations.   But my first love is still teaching. I wake up in the morning excited about going to work. I can’t wait to show you guys what I know and see the cool things you’re doing. Not only are you an amazingly creative and talented bunch, but you’re also very generous about showing me new tricks in Flash, Photoshop, Illustrator and Quark. My philosophy of life is “Follow your interests. You’ll never know what they’ll come in handy.”

With over 20 years of professional experience in graphic design, illustration, branding, web design/ development, illustration, and photography, I have insider-level knowledge of both technical and creative roles. I understand how each supports the other, and how they overlap.
My experience includes agency, in-house, and freelance. I have worked with clients from multinational corporate interests to small independent shops, in industries including retail, publishing, travel, fashion, manufacturing and the arts. In addition to my experience as a web/app designer, my illustrations and photos have been used in many publications, and I have designed for production in advertising, packaging & garment for a wide variety of uses & applications.
Technically, I specialize in web design and app design, specifically UI/UX.
As a creative, my main skillsets are graphic design, illustration, and photography.

As a teacher, what like best about CEGEP is that I can mentor people starting out on their path as designers, as I can help them discover what direction they would like to go in, and guide them towards fields that suit their interests. We live in very exciting times in terms of technology and opportunity as designers, and I feel that the Graphic and Web Design program at John Abbott College provides excellent creative and technical training & opportunities for future designers.