A Decade in the Top Tier… Part One

As the decade rolls into 2010; I'm feeling the need to write about the last 10 years of my career. I've been a creative professional all of my adult life; starting when I was 17 as the only high-school student intern at The State Newspaper in my hometown Columbia, SC. To this day I have no formal Graphic Design education; everything I know how to do comes from experience, patience, and trying very hard to learn something new all the time. I have tried to possess little fear of the unknown. I was never trained how to use any of the programs that I intimately know how to use now. The answer is that you learn a little bit at a time, and translate what you know into what you are trying to learn.

The year was 1989, and the digital design field was still very young. I spent the next 5 summers (1 in high school, 4 in college) learning as much as possible about the Macintosh, and what a creative mind could do with it! Design was my backup plan; as I aspired to draw comic books professionally. In 1996 moved to Indiana to marry my long-time girlfriend Estelle. She was a grad-student at Notre Dame. I self-published my comics while I worked at Kinko's. By '97 the comics market completely imploded (again) and I went to my "backup" career full time. By 1998, I started working at Cadre Athletic (or whatever they call themselves now) as a designer. I stayed there for 6 months and quit after a fall-out with the art director. This job was notable as it was my first experience creating designs for a national market (albeit a very small one). Between jobs I went to Chicago to meet Seitu Hayden. For those who don't know of him; Seitu is a seasoned kick-ass illustrator who's drawn storyboards and created illustrations for all of Chicago's major ad and design companies for 30 or so years now. I met him through one of my wife's professors at Notre Dame. I took the South Shore train into the city and met him at his studio. Seitu gave me some of the best pointers a pro could give an aspiring pro. I went back to South Bend determined to make it one day as a pro artist in Chicago.
I still felt that I was not yet ready to step up to the big leagues, so I found a position at The Tire Rack doing ads for every major "car guy" magazine in the country as well as on every major website for car enthusiasts. This was my first experience creating work that people cared about; as the car guys out there are very vocal and energetic towards the work we did.


In the year I spent there, the Marketing Director gave me more and more leeway in what I could do creatively; my best work there was "self directed". I did a series of ads and print materials that were "storyboards"; the joke in the office was that I just re-did the "A-ha Take on Me" video in print form.

I used my year at The Tire Rack wisely; working on branding initiatives for Michelin, Goodyear, Pirelli, Firestone & Bridgestone (yes I was there during the SUV roll-over debacle). I met Al Unser Jr. I designed trade and specialty ads for every major tire and wheel brand that exists, and I learned a lot about dealing with clients; speaking to them in their language, and paying very close attention to the "mechanics" of the business – no pun intended. This business lives and dies by having your finger on the pulse of what your target wants; not just what your client is trying to sell. I remained there from Spring 1999 until the summer of 2000; when after some long deliberation, I set out to Chicago seeking a gig as a designer/illustrator.
Continued Soon.