• Design
Comicbook Lettering - While hand-lettering was, and is, an art form, computer lettering is very much a graphic design job, and I enjoy the process for the most part. The challenge is helping to tell the story while making the word balloons and typefaces work with the art not against it.
Logos – I designed my first professional logo at the age of 14 for a roofing company in San Antonio, Texas. My Dad was an Art Director and Designer in advertising agencies, and I was inspired by his work and his passion; I learned a lot from him about art and design from a young age, either at home or while going to the office with him in the evenings or weekends as he scrambled under deadline pressure. He and my Mom always encouraged my creativity, and I’ll forever be grateful.
He doesn’t really talk about it, and I only found out when I was like 25, but my Dad designed the CNN logo while working at the an Ad agency in Louisville, Kentucky in 1980. I’ve always been fascinated by logos and corporate identity design, and it’d be cool to design something so iconic and long-lasting. But even when I design stuff no one ever sees, I get a kick out of the process.
Web Design - I worked as a web designer for years after teaching myself HTML in the summer of 1995, but I got burnt out and rarely do web design anymore. I was the Web Designer / Online Assistant Editor for Wizard Entertainment from 1998 to 2000. Then WizardWorld.com was spun off into its own, venture capital funded company where I continued as a Web Designer until I quit to go freelance in 2001. Buddy Scalera, who hired me at Wizard, had already gone on to work for Merck-Medco’s online division in 2000. I started lettering for Marvel with Chris Eliopoulos’ Virtual Calligraphy lettering studio in 2003, and now I letter independently for Image and Dark Horse as well as other publishers.