I think my design path started at Nike in the the late 90s. I got a job there in the illustration group while living in Portland to play music. I ran approval meetings and sent files to vendors and whatnot, often archiving stuff in binders and digital storage media. The Creative Director made a comment that I should maybe have a little more fun with how i was making the labels...something like "These labels are horrible, we are a creative group!" Funny how a trivial thing like that can become a frame of reference for all that follows. Not really that profound or anything, but it pops into my thinking all the time.

After a few years there I moved to Seattle and started working at Brooks Sports. It was down and out, which often is the perfect setting to learn the most important stuff. Our in-house team was making a brand. We went on weird paths and made mistakes, but overall it was a good momentum that seems to be still going that way. Our group did catalogs, retail displays, all kinds of sales collateral, web, apparel graphics, packaging, logo/icon work, event collateral, PR...incredible team. It could have been the peak of my experiences with group team work, where everyone was in the trenches and going against the odds. Just incredible...hindsight, of course. The group broke up.

I started work for HL2 in Seattle doing the agency thing in more of a production role, although my freelance endeavors and music and everything really went off. Huge experience with process related work flow, client dynamics and the infamous timelines. HL2 was acquired by Ascentium, who then rebranded as SMITH, and that is where I have been. Back into more design work, but as I hoped, those production skills have come in handy. Both from the Brooks days of having to do it out of necessity and the scale of HL2's clients.