“Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.”
~ Edgar Degas

All About

What I Do

Welcome to my studio. I’ve become a production/ graphic artist/ designer, website developer and photographer in about that order, spanning quite a few years and a huge variety of creative projects.

My goal is to help you:

Create a memorable professional image,
Find your best points, highlight those,
Identify and Reach your target audience,
Deliver your message creatively and effectively,
Entice your customers to react (call to action),
At a fair and reasonable cost for the amount of creativity you receive.

That last one is where experience really comes in handy. It’s efficiency.

I work in WordPress for websites, however, when sites are already developed in something else, (Joomla, Shopify, Google Sites, whatever… ) that can usually be handled also.

Since 2002 another developer, Kirk Peters (https://www.kirkpeters.com), has worked with me on many projects. He jumps in with me to do advanced coding, troubleshooting and all things technical to make sure nothing breaks, or help fix things that do.

The websites and projects are conceptualized, written, coordinated, illustrated, photographed, by me mostly, but also with other professionals when needed, including illustrators.

Site Maintenance  Sites require updates constantly, particularly WordPress. Hosts (GoDaddy etc.) will offer “managed hosting” with automatic updates, however if something goes wrong you have to deal with that large company to fix whatever went wrong. They themselves are always updating their processes, servers and, it’s like updating your computer constantly, all of the parts have to keep working together. On a website, there are a lot of parts- WordPress version itself, the theme, all of the various plug-ins (bells and whistles) are put together to create that fabulous website, but each part is created by a separate developer, and the world and computers are constantly updating. Sometimes it gets way over people’s heads… better to have someone you can trust help with all of this.

The maintaining of sites can be whatever level of hands-on work you can or want to do on your own. It can consist of me coaching you or your staff, on how to take better photos for usage on the website here, how to create posts or any other parts of the ongoing maintenance, in full or in part, I can fill in the gaps, show you the simple steps to keeping your articles or any other rapidly changing content current. You don’t need to know how the website is built (unless you want to), but you do need to have the ability to call someone to tell you exactly what you need to do in WordPress (or other software) right when you need it.

Other Apps used mostly: Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Acrobat, Excel are most used now. Some minor in-house video projects in Keynote.

A-Typical Studio

My creativity requires nature.

As an active, nature driven, adventure seeking dog lover, it turned out that working inside a building without a window was torture. A capped salaried position that required an uncapped amount of my time didn’t work for me either… too many hours a week, away from my dog(s) for long stretches. One year while employed at a large advertising agency in downtown Pittsburgh, I went on vacation to Alaska, saw people living more remotely and simply, with nature, in cabins and realized something. The president of that agency made a big speech one day, “I heard some of you are sneaking out of here at six o’clock. If you want to leave at six, there are other agencies on the other side of the river!” Trying to get on a bus to go skiing on Fridays after work was a tossup whether I’d get there on time … I decided to seek my own path.

I took that advise eventually and went over the river.

Being born and raised in Houston, Texas, cities just weren’t for me anyway. We went camping a lot, nature was where I connected, not back home in the concrete. Going forward, decisions would be based on this. I planned to take all of that big agency experience now and go on my own as a freelancer.

Now I live in a more natural area with trees outside the windows, dogs in the office, free to work where I feel creative, not rushing into traffic for a stressful start of a new day. Nope. Not for me. When inspiration is needed I go outside, to the trails or just my own wooded backyard. I believe in working with nature, not against it and that includes not being on a regimented time clock. Artists and creatives get this.

BackgroundOn the Job Training was the KEY

I got my first job as a graphic artist / production artist in the early 90s professionally, but learned to code in C+ in high school, when desktop computers were being introduced in the 80s, then later in college; and in both cases learned it fast and then tutored the others. It just stuck. Maybe because my grandfather bought one of the first Apple computers in the 80s, where my brother and I played on games that came on floppy disks using stick figures and a keyboard with no mouse. Or because we played Asteroids right when it came out; among other things, technology was highly encouraged in my family.

Learning graphic design software was all hands-on at jobs where it was asked “can you do this project in Freehand?” Me: “I’ll figure it out.” That was enough to get every job because that software was new, and no one else knew how to use it yet either. I was paid to learn Photoshop, Freehand, FrameMaker, Pagemaker, WordPerfect (wrong! worse software ever) on the job, on projects, figuring out software as I went. Numerous projects on PCs and MACs before those two worked together, converting files back and forth, ran a linotronic image output machine which required constant technical troubleshooting. Rock solid foundation.

Worked in another agency in Shadyside for awhile, many places around town when there was a Mac temp agency to hook me up with jobs. I stayed consistently employed, downtown, in various offices, on site at Robert Morris University in their marketing department, at ad agencies and did catalogs, design projects, many of them. Working at Electronic Images on the strip was how the agency work began, they sent me down to Station Square to MARC Advertising where there was a lot of experience to be gained.

After freelancing in a variety of companies for many years, some full or part time as an employee, I began to freelance full time from home in 2002, which is now Hot Designs.

Education at a school geared for advertising and fine art

East Texas State University (now East Texas A&M University) Bachelors in Business Administration with Fine art major/ advertising minor. We learned from adjunct professors in Dallas ad agencies:  illustrators, designers, art directors who were employed in Dallas drove an hour to us, and at some point we went to their agencies for a class and a real world look see. We were taught by, and got to see some legends. We drew logos by hand with a pencil and used press type lettering and pantone paper sheets to create a brochure, the basics of design without help from a computer. A very fortunate thing to learn design principles with no desktop help.

I actually majored in Fine Art, with Advertising as a minor for a few years. Then switched majors to Business Administration in order to get out with a little more well rounded education. From air brushing and ceramics to calculus and economics. More time was spent in the art and advertising part, but the last two years was all of this computer coding (which I liked), accounting, entrepreneurship, marketing, communications etc. were fantastic, but it also upper level math and and it hurt my head! Computers stuck, the rest of that math was awful.

The switch was just to get a broader picture because, I mean fine art? How to make a living? We kinda learned that money doesn’t frequently come to great artists, until after death, yikes. You still need a business head to sell it. And after all of those classes in advertising, they said about 1% of us would go on to make it there, (and here I am, so, those business classes did pay off).

New Business

In 2020 I had some time finally, to go through thousands of photos that I’ve been taking around the Laurel Highlands area since moving here in 2008. Everywhere I go there is beauty, and my camera is always with me. Using my photography for stock photos for sites I work on was only one plan.

The other plan… time will tell. Over the last few years I finally scoured through my photos and began printing them out onto greeting cards. That led to a craft show, then another and another. And another website. And then a camper, and inside of it is a shop that houses my second business, as it came with “stuff.” Frankly, working on computers, there’s only the computer. Get back into art, now there are all of these supplies, not to mention all of the creative work itself. It has to live somewhere. Mine now lives in the camper, open by appointment and special occasions.

Nature Rocks Designs is my second website. There you can find wall art, stickers, yard signs, natural sprays and other nature driven things.

If you would like to discuss your project, or shop in the camper, Contact me.

 

Inspiration

I believe that there is a subtle magnetism in Nature, which, if we unconsciously yield to it, will direct us aright.

— Henry David Thoreau

How my Background and Experience can help you

I’ve been at this for awhile in many types of environments, in front of committees, one on one with new business owners, together with staffs to help with ongoing website changes and a lot more. Picking up the project right where you need it. Branding projects require knowledge of marketing, economics, communication, computer coding and more. In this business you get to be a quick study, on many subjects, because each new business brings a new set of information to absorb.

I Wanna Hold Your Hand

Call me when you sign your papers for your new business and have a need for everything from logo to website, or call me when you inherit an old outdated website, either way I’ll help you figure out what you need, and then provide it. My job is to lead you through the process and make it as understandable as possible. 

CO-WORKERS

& FRIENDS OF THE STUDIO