Thank you Cisneros and Santa Fe

I am extremely excited to travel to England and learn at Reading! But before that I had to make some difficult decisions. Unfortunately today, I turned in my two weeks notice. It was not an easy task. I have loved working at Cisneros Design and I have learned an incredible amount since starting here. So without any further ado, shout out time!

Fred Cisneros, the owner of the firm, gave me a wonderful opportunity at a job directly out of college. I cannot thank him enough for this experience. He also allowed us all to play darts, foosball, and "peach schnapps" (don't ask), at work. He also gave us a fridge full of brews to which I believe no amount of thanks can repay. All of these things gave Cisneros Design a really chill workplace environment. I cannot ever expect to have such wonderful coworkers or such an amazing office space. Truly an experience I will never forget. 

My creative director Eddie is one of the nicest and funniest designers I have ever met. She encouraged and inspired me on all of my projects and made every scenario fun and unique. My projects only became better with her guidance and direction. She also forced me to learn InDesign to which I am ultimately grateful.

My last shout-out is to a fellow Wacoan – Randy Stewart. Randy was the one that brought me to Cisneros. His mother ironically works in the space underneath my buddies Deuxtone at an art gallery in Waco. She told my friend Tanner about a job opening here at Cisneros. Fortunately, Tanner let me in on the job and told me to apply. The rest is history. Randy is a wonderful designer and friend. I've shared many a laugh with the Wacoan and wish they could continue. He is an excellent artist, creator, thinker, gamer, competitor, and dart-thrower. I will truly miss our nerdy discussions and his epic beard.

The employees of Cisneros are absolutely wonderful and I will miss them. To all of Cisneros Design I say, thank you. You have truly inspired me. Rock on. 

 

Graduate School

As my recent tweets suggest, I will be attending Reading University's Masters in Typeface Design program this fall. I have only recently secured this position and obviously I am very excited. I have known about Reading (30 minutes west of London) for a while now, but my interest grew whenever I attended the Pencil to Pixel exhibit in NYC this summer. Dan Rhatigan, James Montalbano, and many other designers convinced me that this was a fantastic career opportunity and that I should take it. I also reached out to many professors, alumni, family members, and of course, my girlfriend for advice. We all decided this was the perfect time in my life to pursue such a crazy endeavor. 

The program will last for one year and will cover the history, practice and creation of fine typography both Latin, and Non-Latin. Some activities will include handwriting, calligraphy, etching, stone carving, letterpress printing, drawing, and of course, typeface design. The course will also award me with a Masters of Arts which I will use to teach many typography hungry students someday in the distant future. More information on the course is here

I will be using this blog as a weekly update on what I have been doing at the Reading MATD. I will be posting articles and pictures of my travels, sketches, assignments and probably a few selfies. Hope you enjoy!

Pencil > Pixel

Recently I have been reading more blogs/texts relating to typography and type design. The subject has always fascinated me, but the spark was reignited earlier this summer when I went to Monotype's "Pencil to Pixel" exhibit in NYC.

It was the week before I left for New York and I stumbled across the event – probably via one of the great designers I follow on twitter. The exhibit was free so I decided to check it out. Monotype (the global leaders on typography) and Dan Rhatigan put on a great presentation over the history of modern typography. They had it all. There were original printed books by Firmin Didot and John Baskerville, drawings by Eric Gill, and even a spectacular hands-on presentation over responsive design with web typography. It was truly a type nerds paradise.

I was very impressed by not only the typographic materials and near artifacts in the Monotype archive, but also the amount of knowledge and history that Dan was able to share with us. It was a great learning experience for someone invested in type. Maybe next year they will show the exhibit again! You will not want to miss it.  

 

* First picture from Monotype .

 

dan-at-tour.jpg

Shout out!

Throughout college and high school I have had many people inspire me and encourage me to pursue graphic design as a profession. One epic dude comes to mind first - my former boss and professor, Mike Wiggins. Mike is the department chair of the Art & Design Department at Abilene Christian University. He was the first person that told me I could draw letters for a living. I owe my career to this man. He showed me the basics and fundamentals in type and also prepared me for a career devoted to the graphic arts! He is also a nice guy and a rad skateboarder. Mike and the gang at ACU (future posts on my other mentors are being written ASAP!) have definitely inspired me and without them I would not be where I am today. A thousand times, thank you!

 

Welcome

Hello and welcome to my blog! I will be using this as an outlet to showcase work or inspiration that I would not publish onto my portfolio website. I want to post process work and sketches mostly, but there will be the ocasional photo, commentary, or video. I plan on updating this blog often. Probably not everyday though since I'm not a crazy person. All typos are on obvusily on purpose.