This is what people are saying about Mrs. Johnson.
To understand Jillian Johnson’s mark on Lafayette, La., just look around, her friends say. They guess that just about everyone in town has a T-shirt featuring one of her designs, sold from the popular gift shops she had a hand in operating.
Johnson designed the logos for a generation of businesses, progressive organizations, and performers in the Louisiana city, which is reeling from the 33-year-old’s death after a lone gunman opened fire in a movie theater Thursday night, killing two and wounding nine others before turning his gun on himself.
[‘This is going to affect the community for a long time': Town mourns shooting victim Mayci Breaux]
“Jillian was a force, you know? She did things she wanted to do,” her friend Lucius Fontenot told The Washington Post on Friday.
Fontenot and Johnson met in the art department at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, from which Johnson graduated in 2004. Then, as she did in the years after, Johnson always had her hand in something imaginative, Fontenot said.
“She had all this energy,” he recalled. “She was just always creative.”
Fontenot added: “She was friendly, smiling, and fought for what she believed in. She made the community better.”
Said Whitney Broussard, another friend: “This is a small town. Thinking about the number people involved — there’s a lot of folks in this community who are going to be connected. Everybody is just shocked and sad.”
Johnson’s work — from the businesses she owned to the regional bluegrass band she helped start — were often projects she took on with those she loved most.
“She was the love of my life and I will miss her always,” read a Facebook post from Red Arrow Workshop, the gift store Johnson ran with her husband, Jason Brown. “This was a senseless act and, as is the case with all such acts, there is no playbook, no rules on how to cope. We’re trying our best to pull ourselves together. We’re putting one foot in front of the other. Thank you all.”
Johnson, the statement said, was attending the Thursday night screening of “Trainwreck” with her best friend, who was not identified.
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