Sitting in my dad’s Union 76 gas station, I would draw his race car (number 76) parked in the farthest stall. Being an artist at age 6 is cute, but at age 16 it’s the antithesis of small town high school football running back destined to be cop or pastor. The last straw for my dad came when he grounded me the entire year after I quit the Vikings football team to devote all my time to the Art Club and punk rock band. At that time I knew there was no turning back.

It was during my first year at Memphis College of Art that I realized I hadn’t been drawing my dad’s race cars, but I had been designing them—exploring form and compositions with the numerals 7 and 6 and sponsor logos galore wrapping around the the dented metallic frame organically stretching and compressing with each Friday night event.

I earned my BFA in 1991 and abandoned the glamour of advertising after falling in love with editorial design by way of Emigre Magazine and David Carson’s work with Raygun and taking a job at a national publishing company. Looking to take the next logical step following the leap from artist in town of 10,000 to designer in city of three million, I sought work in Chicago where the buzzword was “new media”. Decades years later I’ve been agency and in-house for American Airlines, Sam’s Club, Hilton, Walgreens, Groupon, Walmart, and everything in between with stops in Chicago, Nice, Tokyo, and landing Seattle.

Taking my career to the level of a calling, I find challenges of modernity a novel pursuit. Design is created and given away, communication is disseminated, our work is absorbed and if successful enmeshed in culture and humanity. It is sacrificial. I am a designer, but first and foremost I am a public servant.