MY STORY
Graphic design is, to me, the marriage of art, technology, and communication. I have been steeped in the arts and technology for most of my life, and later in life I was able to develop the skills of communication through my career in music and the nonprofit sector. In many ways, life, with all its twists and turns, almost forced me into the field. Plus, having a creative mother with a untiring work ethic and a father who was an electronic engineer with a propensity for dreaming big, a career in graphic design was almost inevitable!
Starting from the age of five, I began violin and piano lessons with my mom. My dad was an electrical engineer and got me into computers and math. Lego was probably my number one toy as a kid all the way through high school where it morphed into Lego Technic and robotics. I also loved sketching and drawing, particularly mechanical objects like cars, spaceships, and robots. Music eventually began to take over, and in high school, I started acquiring recording equipment and audio software. Soon, I had decided to pursue violin performance as a career and spent hours each practicing each day honing my craft.
I completed my Bachelors (2009) and Masters (2010) in violin performance at the Cleveland Institute of Music. This was also the time when my love of technology and computers began to work its way into my art. My first experience doing graphic design was when I designed my own recital posters in Photoshop and began designing posters for my fellow musicians. I also took electronic audio courses and began working on my own music, a fusion of acoustic and electronic mediums.
Upon graduating, my involvements multiplied exponentially. In 2011, I founded an electro-acoustic ensemble, "The ViOS Project," (becoming its own nonprofit in 2014) as an outlet for the new music I was writing. Being a very small, self-started organization, I have found myself acting as executive director, graphic and web designer, personnel manager, accountant, and marketing specialist! From 2015 to 2018, my wife and I became directors of a two-week, overnight music festival in West Virginia for music students ages 12 to 25, including at-risk youth. We raised all the funds, recruited students, hired the staff and faculty, created the schedule and curriculum, and taught musical classes. I also started working for my church part-time and naturally took over most of their media production, from digital assets, to web design, to print products.
2017 was when I started taking on private freelance design clients separate from the organizations I worked for. Since then, I have created content for nonprofits, individuals, universities, and businesses in a wide range of genres: logo and branding, sports posters, illustration, animation, web design, product design and mockup, film promotional content, photo manipulation, and more.
My three design specialties are logos and branding, sports design, and content for arts nonprofits. Logo design is like solving a puzzle; I enjoy the challenge of encapsulating an entire mission with just a few simple shapes. My taste for sports design came from my first long-term design client of 6 years, designing sports posters for high school teams. And of course, most of what I have designed throughout my career has been for arts nonprofits.
Today, I live in Cleveland Heights, OH with my wife Marilyn, our Bernedoodle, Reggie, and our new daughter, Joella.
