JAMES CLARK

Thank you for clicking on the link to check out my book. For more than 20 years, I’ve been practicing the many disciplines of graphic design. Early in my career, it was almost all print and illustration. The craft of letter press and screen printing will always hold a special place in my heart while living in this very digital world. I’ve always been inspired by things that were made by humans—even on a flat screen. It’s fascinating to me what beauty we’re capable of making. I don’t include a lot of my older works because I’m a very different designer in our modern times.

Fast forward to late 2010s, I studied user experience design. At first, this was to make a career change from “creative” to someone who designed and prototyped digital products; however, I found that I was better off blending this discipline with traditional design and creating human-centered experiences. Ultimately this made me a better partner to UX, developers, marketing and executive leadership. Still somehow I wound up with production teams concepting campaign shoots.

The majority of my career was managed as a freelancer, making me scrappy. If I couldn’t find a photographer or illustrator, I would do the work. Not that I was great at either, but I had skills that were ‘good enough.’ This experience carried through to my time at Backcountry. There, I built creative toolkits that designed full-funnel campaigns, developed studio and location photoshoot concepts, directed productions, commissioned illustrators (or illustrated), mentored and managed a team of designers (who also returned the favor by teaching me a heck-of-a-lot), designed for multiple event activations, vehicle wraps, and so much more.

My philosophy: we need to keep things fresh, yet timeless. Make it last, but keep people surprised and delighted. Learn what they want to see and interact with. How could we make the human experience better, not just the way WE as creatives/marketers think it should be? Listen to the people. If reacting to the market isn’t working, stop reacting and start reflecting. What can we do to make us better? Much like being a good person, many years of customer service, design service, and working with both large and small businesses build empathy and compassion. This has shaped me as a creative, partner and leader

In these two decades, I’ve made mistakes. Mistakes build better experience in our craft as creatives. It’s a part of learning. If you’re not making mistakes and correcting them, you’re bound to fail. Worse yet, you might make others fail with you. I’ve never been big into awards or the glamor of the creative industry. We should certainly celebrate what we do, but we shouldn’t get too into ourselves. That fosters impostor syndrome for others and takes the labor of love out of what we do. I made the mistake early in my career thinking this was a “white collar” job, but to do this right, you need to have the grit of any blue collar working-class hero. Graphic design, video production, illustration, copywriting, animation, and all that goes with the creative department is true labor. Just being a part of it on a daily basis is enough to celebrate for me.

If you’re reading this, you might be interested in hiring me for work. My time at Dickies is a wrap with the news of the acquisition. If my work and philosophy align with yours, please send me a note. I’d love to discuss how I can be an integral part of your brand’s identity or visual storytelling.