New web additions to my portfolio.

Complete Development of D and D Cabinets, Inc.
www.danddcabinets.com - D and D Cabinets is a custom cabinetry and kitchen showroom in New Hampshire. This site features several Flash pieces.

Graphic Revision for the Datalever Corporate Web Site
www.datalever.com - Datalever is a leading provider of data quality software to mid and large sized companies in many industries.

Promotional site for the book: The Macho Paradox
www.themachoparadox.com - A web site for a book of the same name by a progressive anti-violence advocate / activist and speaker, Jackson Katz.

Jackson Katz's Web Site:
www.jacksonkatz.com - Jackson Katz's professional web site. Jackson is a nationally recognized speaker and activist in anti-violence work. I am proud to be associated with the groundbreaking work he has been doing for the last 15 years. His site is rich with resources.

Hop River Concrete Company:
www.hopriver.com - Hop River Concrete Company. The rapidly growing business of a friend of mine, Peter Jacques. Peter is a man with a lot of depth and a lot of fluidity in his nature, even though he runs a concrete company. This is the look I went for.

Other Web Sites:

Valley Lists
www.valleylists.com - is the brainchild of my good friend Will Flanders. I designed the LOGO and created the visual style of the site. The programing was done by Art Zemon and the Hen's Teeth Network. The site is a community portal and collection of very useful information including business listings, non-profit listings, Free Classified Advertising and many other lists. Valleylists is a locally grown and locally focused portal with robust search technology built in. You can advertise your business with multiple photos and as much text as you would like to include for $60/year.

October, 2007

I have hit a new stride in being able to execute on a Graphic Design idea and quickly carry it to completion. How? That's the fun part. Creativity drives all aspects of my life. The process of making something from nothing is fascinating and fullfilling. In graphic design, much of the work occurs without so much as a pencil. The ideas that I work with usually form as images in my mind long before they are translated into paper or pixels.

I create as I drive. I create as I go to sleep at night. I create in the middle of the night. I start with the client. My process for any new project starts with an interview. Many of the questions will be the same from client to client, but then there is a level at which I simply allow conversation to steer the questions. It is in this interview that I will begin the process of designing the finished product, by listening to the client and drawing associations between what they say and the visual world that I inhabit. Often it is an intuitive process. Often I will be able to articulate in this first meeting what it is that the client is looking for - simply by following the threads of their thoughts and drawing on the visual parallels that occur to me.

I will usually do sketches during that first meeting which become the framework of the final product. In the words of Steven Covey "Begin with the end in Mind." Within the next days I will allow the images to flesh out in my mind before sitting down to the computer.

Once I begin work on the computer, much of the thinking has already been done. It it then my task to pull together all the ideas that I have been working with and give them a visually compelling look and congruence. What I find lacking in many designs is a coherent sense of structure underlying the artistic components of the piece. My background is in architecture and building. I bring this form to all my design. I create a consistent grid upon which all the elements are placed. Then it is a matter of playing with the individual elements to create harmony on the surface of the structure.

Feedback is my friend. I have learned in the process of designing that the most important asset I have is the criticism of my clients. My client has the answer I am looking for, even if they have no idea how to get there. This is another way in which I believe I am uniquely able to provide innovative design solutions. I am not stuck in my own box of tricks. I allow the freedom to explore what the client has brought to the table. By doing this I know that I will get a solution that they will be pleased with and that I will be proud of.