ABOUT ME
Strap on your helmet... this isn't your typical bio. Consider yourself warned.
Freelance creative strategy, art direction, and graphic design.
You've read a million of those "what-I'm-so-great-at" ABOUT ME pages, but honestly, you can get all that by reading my CV, visiting my LinkedIn profile, or skipping to the blurb at end of this page. The more interesting story is the "how-in-the-world-did-I-get-here" tale.
Here we go.
THE ORIGIN STORY
Ever since 1987, I've known that I wanted to be a designer. How could I possible know this as a 12 year old? Gather around, children, it's time for a tale as old as time... or a tale that's 35ish years old.
The inciting incident of our story happened a few months into my new hobby of collecting football cards. The local Toys-R-Us suddenly stopped selling the glorious Topps football cards. This happened before I could complete my collection of the full set (no, I didn't get the coveted Jerry Rice rookie card). I just couldn't understand it. How could they longer offer something so damn amazing? I was devastated.
Cut to a few months later and after many trips to the store hoping to get at least one more pack, I saw them! Yes, football cards were available again... but the packaging looked a little different. I had not yet understood that each year, a whole new set would come out, so when I got home and opened my packs, I was appalled. These cards looked nothing like the cards I'd grown to love. Where was the green background with the diagonal white pinstripes? Where was the inset yellow frame around my heroes' pictures with the amazing 45° angle top corners (but not the bottom corners, of course)?
What sat in my little hands was an abomination. White backgrounds?! Team and player names shoved awkwardly into pennants at the top of each card?! The drastic downgrade from what I came to understand as the 1986 Topps cards to the 1987 cards was unacceptable. It dawned on me that somewhere out there someone was in charge of making the cards look like what they looked like — a designer. And this one had failed miserably at his job.
Anyone could do better... and hey, I was an anyone!
Exhibit A
Exhibit D-
THE NEXT STEP
So one fine day sometime in 1987, I grabbed pencil, a ruler and a stack of paper and got to work (ya see, kids, normal people didn't have computers back then). I drew HUNDREDS of 2.5 inch x 3.5 inch rectangles and designed my little ass off. It was harder than it looked, but I was enthralled and spent countless hours there, just cranking out design after design. I loved every second of it.
Through the rest of the 80s, I drew and designed all kinds of stuff — from Swatch watches (faces and bands) to Formula 1 cars with all those sponsors all over the car bodies... and of course more sports cards. I was in heaven.
Seeing that this design thing wasn't just a fad, in the 90s I took Advertising/Design as a high school elective. I had some fun projects: making a cool album cover for Guns 'n Roses (using an airbrush of all things) and concepting and designing a billboard for Dallas' new minor league hockey team, The Dallas Freeze. Once I got to college, there was never a doubt what I would major in. I pursued a Fine Arts degree with a focus on design. I even learned to use computers (and cameras, and copy stands, and ZIP disks, and Letraset sheets, and X-Acto knives).
The best part about "The Program" at UT Austin was the Bauhaus Method they employed (one of the printers in the design lab was given the name Moholy-Nagy). We learned to approach EVERYTHING we did with design-thinking. Everything was a problem to be tackled fearlessly with planning, creativity, partnership with peers, and fun (and a dose of sleepless nights of hard work here and there). The crucible of the program and especially the senior projects, prepared our group of graduates for the professional world that lay ahead.
We headed bravely into the dot-com boom (and then bust), knowing very little of the specifics of all the crazy programming languages and the growing Internet. But knowing little about something is not the same as not being prepared for it, the listening/learning/planning/working approach we learned at UT was just the foundation I needed.
I wish these boys could just get along.
Hockey in Texas? That won't last.
After a very quick and less-than-successful attempt to start my career in Brazil right out of college, I came back to Austin and met the dot com boom head on. It was a whirlwind of a few years. I got better and faster at getting things done in Illustrator and Photoshop. I answered my first boss's question of "Do you know Flash?" with a "No." But I answered his follow-up question of "Are you willing to learn?" with a "Yes!"
And off I went. Logo design and print brochures were all well and good, but saddling the Macromedia Flash steed was my ticket to real progress. Everyone wanted a Flash site, and I was ready and willing to provide 'em.
Now that was a fun few years. Flash got me into a variety of agencies in Austin and New York City, where I got to keep honing my design skills both inside and outside of Flash. But just like in any career, you can't rest on your laurels, and Flash was a horse that eventually was put out to pasture. I had to make sure I'd have a few more options in the stable to keep me moving forward. With the multitude of work agencies threw at "Flash Boy," I was able to develop variety of other skills including, ideation sessions, pitches, presos, problem-solving, team-building, light coding, and so many others that the demise of Flash hardly registered for me personally.
Though, I'll never not be proud of the Macromedia Site of the Day we won in 2001... or was it 2002?
Gone, but not forgotten.
As an art director and interactive leader in several agencies, I had the good fortune of building out some great campaigns for national and international brands like 3M, Dell, Subway, Logitech, The US Army, and Disney as well as regional and local entities like Baylor University, Southside Market & Barbecue, and Austin Convention and Visitors Bureau. After a dozen or so years, it started to become clear that striking out on my own (or at least with a partner or two), might be the right thing to do. So I did. In came lots of bumps and bruises and gaggles of new learning experiences.... but thanks in no small part to an awesome and supporting wife, things turned out pretty dang good.
At my own company, I enjoyed ten more years of creating stuff, partnering with great folks, growing a team, launching brands, and doing that all-important job of "always improving things." It was amazing to help lead the launch one of Bazaarvoice's most successful products, re-platform and manage St. Edward's University's website and marketing efforts, design and build a portal for Walt Disney World's resorts and attractions, redesign and launch a website and marketing funnel for one of America's largest providers of medical equipment testing companies... but one of my favorite things to tell people is that the best thing my company created was my kids. Children have a way of making the tough days better, and the good ones incredible. I'm blessed as can be with my two girls. *insert heart emojis here*
As they got a bit bigger, I moved on to join a start up and I've gotten to go through a whole new slew challenges and experiences that have been quite enlightening. There really is nothing like the experience of working at a startup and building something from the ground up with a group of people all rowing together, helping each other up when needed, pushing your skills to the very edge of what you thought possible — and beyond, all in service of a single goal. It really is something.
Now that the startup's product and platform have launched, I've now moved on again and am open for new work opportunities — ready to offer creative strategy and leadership to whomever the fates send my way.
Got a need for an experienced creative but not ready to commit to full-time help? I'm your man.
Got a small site or logo job you need knocked out? Yup, that's me too.
Ready to level-up your business with a creative leader that'll take you up the mountain? Let's talk.
I'll always have lots to give and to learn, and am excited about whatever comes next. And who knows... maybe, just maybe, I'll get that last little bit of skill, knowledge, and know-how to finally create something as amazing as those 1986 Topps football cards.
