This is Calling Tomorrow Graphic Design – my creative design output. I am a seasoned (salty) graphic design professional and visual artist, working in creative for over 20 years.
Born and raised in the wild woods of coastal British Columbia, I grew up exploring, experiencing and daydreaming. As a kid, I enjoyed colouring books, but found drawing my own pictures to fill in more fun. Creative technology was a rapidly arriving and expanding part of my world. Music became increasingly more electronic and computers began to find there ways into our little schools. Moving into Vancouver broadened my horizons substantially, meeting new people, making art and talking about the brave New Media landscape with workmates at the tuxedo warehouse where we worked. Grey days began to wear me down, so in late 1999 I split.
Moving to Toronto was a terrifying leap and much needed reset to my youthful adulthood. I met and engaged with artists and makers as I pursued a career as an oil painter (you will collect my art here). Recognizing that I would need something more to keep me afloat the stormy waters I decided to attend design school. My interest in design comes from an attraction to practical, utilitarian functionality. It also comes from record covers and posters, movies and cartoons. I decided to study 3D animation. Unfortunately, the program was full, and was offered a placement in Digital Media. There I learned to teach myself HTML, CSS, Macromedia Flash, Video Editing, Basic Animation and graphic design. The future was bright. And then it wasn’t. The Dot Com bubble burst, the ‘soda pop and pizza’ design companies decreased their workforce, flooding the freelance landscape with experienced talent. We pushed on.
My career history lead me from restaurants to tuxedo factories before learning Multi-Media Design, which lead to software startups in the back room of a dental practice. Things got weirder. I’m loyal, but not without awareness. I’m willing to change my station to work alongside good people. Motivated by problem solving; I research, learn, apply, test and repeat. I am willing to take calculated risks. I’ve been freelance, in house B2B / B2C, team support, pro-bono. I’ve animated, illustrated, drawn, conceptualized, programmed, photo manipulated, layed out, processed, imported, exported, developed, designed.
I’m comfortable with pencil, paint, paper, glue, tablets and computers. I’m still making original hand made art in my studio, alongside whatever design related opportunity comes my way. I am a human being. I collect records for listening to, and have a comic book collection that I sometimes read on rainy afternoons.