Me with my wife and kids
Design is first and foremost visual communication.
I am a visual designer based out of Orange County, California. My 13+ years of professional experience as both an in-house and freelance creative include establishing with my employers a reputation for having the best marketing materials in their field, problem solving that requires professional growth and development, collaboration with marketing professionals and other creatives, being an integral part of building a marketing department from the ground up, and efforts to find more efficient ways to manage workflows.
My success as a Designer stems from two things: First, I constantly strive for professional growth with a desire to never stop learning. This growth started with my being self-taught to use graphic design apps during college. Later, I learned HTML and CSS when an employer needed me to create digital marketing in the form of campaign emails and landing pages. It continues still with my enrollment in UX/UI classes so I can better understand digital design and further improve my work by employing the principles and processes of human-centered design. Second, is a simple reminder that design is first and foremost visual communication. Creativity is key, and it must be balanced with a sense of function and attention to detail, or the mission of the design fails. This is something I keep at the top of my mind with every project I take on.
Fun facts about me:
I hold a BFA in Illustration, and because it wasn't part of my curriculum I'm pretty much entirely self-taught on all Adobe apps.
For the most part I'm self-taught in HTML and CSS, and I'm currently working on increasing my proficiency in Javascript.
I have an excellent attention to detial, and an even greater sense of irony.
My sense of humor consists mostly of dry wit and sarcasm. My greatest weakness is not knowing when to suppress it, which is probably most of the time...I wouldn't know since people are too polite (slash rude) and won't tell me.
My youngest child is an attention hog. The first time I noticed this was when he stole my thunder by being born on Father's Day.
My first memory of being obsessed with drawing came in first grade thanks to the movie Top Gun, causing me to incessantly draw "jets" in what can charitably be described as my abstract expressionist phase.
Because I have two small children and hard flooring the most indispensable item in my house is a broom.
Click here to inquire about a project, or just say "hi", or to unironically inform me about how I misspelled "detail".