Not Special.

That title isn’t meant to be self-deprecating. We’re all creatives, right? I’m a drop in the ocean of people who have been titled as “creative” in their respective workplaces. What sets each of us apart is our experience and what’s learned along the way. I’ve been called a (pardon the cliché) Swiss Army knife of graphic design. A ‘wizard.’ I’ve even heard ‘unicorn’ from a former boss. That one made me laugh. I’m nothing special. I just happened to have had different experiences and learned a lot along the way. I’ve worked in a multitude of businesses, non-profits, schools, bands, etc. It’s made me what’s called, or been identified as, multidisciplinary. Perhaps it’s because I’m never not curious about how to make things more awesome. If you’re reading this, you cared enough to get to know me. Thank you for even being here.

Tactical work on stencils for City Of Lakes Waldorf School

Way back when I paid attention to sports, Kirby Puckett was the Twins' center fielder, Tommy Kramer was my quarterback hero on the Vikings. I paid more attention to the system of design that surrounded the players. I wanted to get to touch the fields the players were on to see the stripes, numbers, and shapes they created—the barriers of play. This didn’t occur to me until recent years.

What’s more, my childhood in the ’80s, like a lot of Gen-X kids, was spent watching HBO and MTV. The motion graphics of station breaks, actual music videos, and movies were blowing my mind. That HBO intro kept me curious about this craft called graphic design.

My misguided TV, skate, punk, hip-hop, and whatever identity culture brought me to a high school called Carmichael & Carmichael Studio Arts, Saint Paul, MN. Judging by the name, you may have guessed that it was a prestigious arts high school for gifted kids—far from the truth. It was actually an ALC (lovingly dubbed “Ass-Hole’s-Last-Chance”), otherwise known as an Alternative Learning Center. Basically, kids like myself couldn’t hang in traditional school but gravitated toward the arts as an interest.

There, I got to screen print, develop film, and experience being immersed in the arts culture of Lowertown. We were in the street-level portion of the Northern Exchange building, a warehouse of true makers, artists, and people who were masters of a craft. I was a dumb punk kid with a backpack full of sketchbooks and spray paint.

My dad told me to get my act together and become a commercial artist. “What the hell is a commercial artist?” I asked myself.

So it goes. It turns out the guy running the school was just stealing money from St. Paul Public Schools, and they had to move and rename. He did have some sick art in his gallery, but why’d he have to take from an already distressed school system? Story for another time, I suppose.

Illustration for AIGA Design Issues, 2003, Color of Money

Following those sweet years, I would go on to be ripped off by one of those technical design schools (it’s on my resume), but I had the spirit to push on and gained the respect of my teachers. They even gave me a 3.9 GPA. It tanked from 4.0 because I sucked at the Law class. I thought I was going to walk into an agency and start cranking out that big commercial work. I interviewed with three of the top dogs in Minneapolis, a few smaller agencies, but found myself in the office of the art store I was working for at the time, making catalogs, direct mail, and helping maintain images for the website—one of the only online art supply merchants at the time. That was graphic design, I guess.

That was until some folks took interest in me down the road. I gave them my resume on the back of a mock Tech-Deck toy skateboard package with my business card on the deck. That got me hired. They loved the “trinkets & trash”—kind of a dream come true. Twelve bucks an hour to make tees for local and national bands, pick up work for the agencies, Target, Best Buy—even signed my first NDA when they merged with Geek Squad. Not to mention screen printing. LOVE. That crew was rad.

I became jaded by the end when I was let go; work came to a halt after the Iraq war. They didn’t need the expense. I didn’t want to suffer, so I went back to the art store. Did I mention I was also a body piercer?

Tech-Deck with one of my personal logos

I won’t bore you with the whole of my curriculum vitae. Let’s just say I was fortunate to have traveled our beautiful country and worked for some really cool people who let me sneak in my craft, even if it wasn’t my full-time work. Full-time work in graphic design was spotty at best for a number of years. I nearly gave up, but I always found a way to practice. Whether it was just making show posters, pamphlets, educational presentations, helping to build sites and edit photos, shooting photos (badly) for local bands—anything. I just had to solve problems and create.

I even found joy in merchandising, which I did while in design school. It was creative. I found myself designing logos for up-and-coming brands in the bike industry. Working at a bike shop, I became connected to the tightly knit community of cyclists in Minneapolis.

I had a lot of freelance work prior to working on the identity for Esker & Terrene, but this is when I found my love for design systems, branding beyond the identity—really thinking about how a logo, color palette, icon systems, photography, and visual and written language work together. It was the culmination of so much scrappy DIY work that brought me to this place.

Suddenly, I was doing work for various marketing groups, redesigning brand identities for unexpected companies, taking calls from Creative Circle. I was back at the agencies, grabbing coffee with Creative Directors, and gaining mentors and friends in the industry.

Piercing book passion project started in early 2000-2008

When 2018–2019 came around, I had two children in elementary school and needed to push into full-time design work. I had a lot of interviews nearing the time that changed everything. I was on the hook for a few places, but COVID killed those chances. The place I was piercing at full-time closed their doors, but I was still freelancing and collecting some unemployment along the way.

So, I did what any good parent would do: loaded the kids up and headed to the mountains of Colorado, as I was just offered a job with a shop that did experiential design, monuments, signs, and branding. I would be breaking into real 3D and environmental work. The pay was low, but I was hyped. Until the children and I were driving back and really missed the mountains. Those mountains must have had something in the air.

I had two interviews with companies in Colorado, but an offer from Backcountry was extended before we even got out of the Denver suburbs. In between, I thought I was going to change careers and move into User Experience. I spent just under two years studying UX at Minneapolis College of Art & Design (MCAD), finding out later that I wanted to marry the craft of design to accessibility, hence my excitement for working as a designer in a digital space. Curious about how people moved through the marketing funnel and the online shopping journey.

Album insert for the band mike. Photos + mixed media design

Let’s just say that my love for bikes and passion for the outdoors and work in the creative space took me to an unexpected place… Utah. We never wanted to live in Utah, but we were headed there. We had our third child there. Another side story, my wife went into labor as I was deep in a Holiday Campaign creative review. One of my first studio shoots with them. I wasn’t just making digital campaigns, I did it all under the “graphic designer” title. This is when I decided titles are just titles. You truly NEED to be multidisciplinary or you’ll fail. Hone your craft in the many facets of design. Over 3 years of designing, managing, art directing, illustrating and living the dream there felt more like 15 years anywhere. Turn and burn. While I may have felt burnt out at the time, I was beyond grateful for the experience. I never thought that I would find love for art direction and e-commerce customer experience.

While the digital campaigns were 90% of my job at Backcountry, I still got the chance to design merchandise, cycling kits, helmet graphics for our athletes, branding for sub-brands, activations & events, vehicle wraps, you name it, we did it. We had a powerhouse of 7 designers at one point. It was an honor to work with that team, despite many of the issues the company was having otherwise.

Studio art direction, pattern illustration & campaign design for Competitive Cyclist Holiday Gift Guide

Now, I’m sitting in my Seattle basement, working through campaigns and whatnot for the legendary brand Dickies. It’s not nearly as crazy, but I’ve had the opportunity to do some cool things, learn new tricks with this whole artificial intelligence thing, but NEVER replace the human element of the brand. (Write-up for another time.)

Big Tex at the Texas State Fair

For fun, I like to do hard things: fly fish, bike pack, take the kids camping, and manually make coffee for my wife every morning. The slow pace of the craft makes it that much better, even if we have to hustle.

Now that you’ve read the very condensed portion of my story, let’s talk about what I can do for your brand.

In gratitude, I’m doing this while working two jobs as a digital designer and art director. Lots of work is organized on the backend of this site and getting uploaded as I can get to it.