My Personal Tenets

1. I want to do meaningful work. I don’t want to spend creative energy on work that I don’t find inspiring, invigorating or innovative.

2. I’ve been moving pixels around for 10 years but I’ve been a designer my whole life, and I bet you have too.

3. I am obsessed with details. Details are what take the longest time and getting them just right is a very, very difficult task that not many people or organizations pull off. However, I do not believe this is due to a lack of talent but a willingness to give a project the time it needs to make it perfect.

4. I don’t know that I believe in “talent” necessarily, at least in the way that I used to. People who are talented are simply the ones that have spent the most time devoted to their craft.

5. I’m still working to form a good, working definition for design. One aspect of design is simply being intentional about something, whether you are creating a logo or deciding what socks to wear. The best designers are the most intentional about nearly every aspect of their lives.

6. I love making things beautiful. But I’ve also learned that design is about much more than making something look beautiful.

7. Branding is about so much more than a logo. To design a brand you must look at every single aspect of what that brand represents. A visual representation, or logo, is very important but this is only about 20% of the overall design of a brand.

8. I consider myself a tinkerer more than anything. It’s important for me to stay curious and keep exploring. Creativity, to me, is about having the freedom to tinker around with things until you come upon something exciting.

9. I’ve always loved technology. My mother had a Macintosh computer at her work when I was in elementary school and I was obsessed with it. I never put together my love for technology with my love for design until I got an iPhone. I went from print design to mobile design and pretty much skipped web design.

10. I’ve learned so much in my 31 years on this planet and I have so much to learn.. My life’s work is about creating products that people can use and find meaning in, not for my own sake but for theirs.