09/23/2026
Cesar Salas remembers walking down a street in South Phoenix, passing out a flyer he had designed himself, when he spotted an Adobe logo in the window of a small print shop called DNL Press. “This is the place where they do these things,” he thought. He walked in and asked for a job.
That instinct has guided the Phoenix College alumnus from the family restaurant to college, the printing industry, and eventually a business of his own. Today, Cesar Graphics is a full-service print shop rooted in the South Mountain and Laveen communities. What began in a small converted office has grown into a 6,400-square-foot creative production hub with 11 employees.
Salas first discovered the pull of design at his parents’ restaurant. Sitting at a Power PC Macintosh computer, he began making flyers and menus for the family business. The technology captivated him: the ability to open a program, manipulate an image, and bring an idea to life on the screen. At the time, he did not necessarily have a name for what interested him or a picture of where it might lead. He simply wanted to understand it. “I wanted to learn more,” he said. That desire brought him to Phoenix College.
Salas remembers walking into Hannelly Center and scanning the printed course schedules, mapping out his prerequisites and building toward something he could already sense but not yet name. He immersed himself in graphic design, studying Illustrator, QuarkXPress, and digital photography. For Salas, Phoenix College was where an early interest in design began to look like a possible career. The creative work he had begun exploring on his own gained structure. He developed practical design skills while also studying small business management. Those courses helped him understand customers, resources, and the work required to build something that could last.
“Phoenix College is where I learned the craft and gained the skills to keep moving forward,” he said.
Full story: https://www.phoenixcollege.edu/news/2026/passion-profession-how-cesar-salas-built-business-through-design
