Throughout my childhood, I received all manner of arts and craft kits for pretty much every birthday and Christmas. On hot summer days I’d spend countless hours doing crochet and knitting, latch hook, making those pot holders out of scraps of elastic, and yes, painting by numbers. “But, is it really art,” you ask? While paint-by-number kits…

Most of us instantly recognize famous brands like McDonald’s®, Nike® or Coca-Cola® — maybe we’re even familiar with branding as a concept and discipline. From the beginning, branding has always been about making your mark, both literally and figuratively, but when and where did it all begin? How did branding…

When most of us think of polyester fabric, we think double knit leisure suits or loud butterfly color shirts popular in the 1960s and 70s. Polyester actually has a much longer history. In the mid-1930s, W.H. Carothers, a DuPont employee, figured out that he could create fibers by mixing carboxyl…

We’ve all browsed through glossy fashion magazines sitting in some waiting room or salon, educating ourselves about this season’s ‘it‘ color trends. But who decides which colors will be in vogue, or in the pages Vogue for that matter? You guessed it…Pantone! Most graphic designers and print professionals are familiar…

As I began my career, the computer was becoming more and more an integral part of a designer’s toolkit; but at that time, solid hand skills were still encouraged and expected. It was still customary to present tight pencils or marker comps to clients to communicate initial concepts. Of course…

Most of us work in an office — nowadays, likely a home office. Most of us also use desk accessories: pens, stapler, paper clips, sticky notes, a desk lamp — but are they fun? …

As we shelter-in-place: maybe work at home, meet and socialize on Zoom, don our ‘business casual’ PJs, and place grocery orders online, we’ll all adjusting to a new paradigm. (Is it just me, or is securing a coveted delivery slot like attempting to be “caller number 10” to win those…

Ah, those long nights in the campus computer lab working endless hours on design projects. It was the early 90s, and graphic design majors worked in INT rub down letters, Rapidograph pens and Pantone® markers, but also on Apple® beige boxes loaded with Aldus® Freehand, Adobe® Illustrator 88 and Adobe®…