Highlighting Mentor Stories for National Disability Employment Awareness Month: Designing Blind

Eric is shown using his body to measure stairs. His arms are outstretched from one side of the staircase to the other.

In honor of National Disability Employment Awareness Month, we wanted to highlight some of our favorite mentor stories. Looking for success in the most unlikely places, Eric Brun-Sanglard used specific tools and descriptive methods to provide a unique story of turning one of the biggest challenges that can come our way, into possibly one of the biggest triumphs. Prior to losing his sight this uncommon CareerConnect mentor had a successful career in advertising for fashion, perfume and cosmetics, where he designed and coordinated ad campaigns for some of the biggest names in the business.

After losing his sight he did what all people in his shoes do who want to keep their dream alive—he found an organization for the blind (in his case The Braille Institute in Los Angeles) and began a journey back to independence. These basic braille and mobility classes were even helpful in preparing him for getting a guide dog.

Knowing he wanted to stay creative and artistic, he later developed his sense of touch and hearing by taking sculpture, piano, and art history classes in order to better understand how to visualize architecture and artwork. It also helped improve his sense of touch so he could learn how to objectively feel sculptures and other objects, and also taught him how to explain to friends, and later his assistants, how to describe spaces and artwork.

We thought all of this sounded fascinating so we did a story on Eric and his work as a designer. If you’ve ever wondered how people who are blind or visually impaired become or remain artistic, hop on over and read about The Blind Designer.