PERRYSBURG – Carlos Aguero-Valerio may make a career of his doodling.

He has done graphic design work that is far more intricate that what you’d expect from a high school senior.

Aguero-Valerio attends Penta Career Center.

“Since I was young, I was an art kid,” he said. “At first it was hobby and then I started to see the potential I have with it.”

Aguero-Valerio said he was in junior at Perrysburg High School when he decided to see where design could take him, and he started to develop his own style.

“Where can I go with this?” he asked himself. “I don’t really know what to do.”

That took him to Penta.

Aguero-Valerio’s style involves using vibrant colors and a lot of doodling swirls.

He started posting his art on his Instagram account and enrolled at Penta to pursue graphic design.

His style of doodling is self-taught.

“I never studied it, if it just comes into my head, I draw it,” he said.

Aguero-Valerio said he has recently started drawing cartoons to add to his portfolio. He particularly enjoys designing logos and dabbles in photography.

His artwork is being used on the cover of this year’s Penta yearbook.

The handprint he added to his winning design is like a wave and depicts leaving a mark behind. He said he went with a messy theme with his design as a way to say not everything is perfect.

“It looks very messy, but we still made it look beautiful,” he said.

Aguero-Valerio competed against 19 classmates with his design and knew he had competition when looking at the other entries.

“Mine won by 10 more votes than (second place),” he said.

Staff and students in his lab voted.

“It looks great,” said Steven Lark, interactive media instructor about Aguero’s yearbook design. “It was a nice design.”

Aguero-Valerio also designed Penta’s 2022 Christmas card.

He showed the logo design that he did for a fictional company called Games for Us. He used gaming consoles and colors that included blue, purple and neon. He designed a phone cover and a water bottle sticker.

He has a book of colors and what each one signifies: how red is danger, orange is energy, and yellow is happiness.

He said he’s thinking about pursuing as associate degree at Owens Community College then getting a bachelor’s degree, possibly at the Modern College of Design in Kettering.

“I’ve already taken a tour of the place and it’s nice,” he said. “There are students there who are now top innovators and who work for big companies like Apple.”

He is self-taught in Illustrator and Photoshop.

“There’s no cheap way to get good in a few weeks. It’s going to take time; it’s going to take patience.”

He does commission work, mostly for friends of his parents. His work can be seen on Instagram at justcarlos_art.

Aguero-Valerio said he is the first one in his family to go into art; the rest are engineers.

His parents are Carlos Aguero and Harumi Valerio.

He competes in Business Professionals of America at Penta and has entered and had success with the Governor’s Art Exhibition through PHS.